A New Beginning

Welcome to "Scott's Think Tank"

The purpose of this blog is to document my findings as I explore the world of 21st Century Classrooms in the world of Eduction, and specifically how I can incorporate the National Education Standards for Technology (NETS) in the Musical classroom.

As a professional music teacher I am always looking for ways to keep my students interested in the content we are studying, which most of the time is centuries old. I am very excited to see how I can add technology in the classroom.

My goals for this exploration are to find ways incorporate the NETS into my current classroom teaching. For example I want to be able to have students expressing their creativity and innovation by finding ways to use their everyday technologies to learn about music, or critically thinking about the music they are singing in class and doing authentic research at home.

Currently I use technology to communicate with parents and students about events and grades, however this is about the extent of it. Now when I look at the NETS I am seeing many ideas on how I can have the students working in many different ways to further enhance their learning opportunities.

Not only do I have to think about the students when it comes to these standards, but there is also another list of standards specifically for teachers. For the beginning of this exploration I will be starting with NETS T5...Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership. My first step in this process is this blog, which goes along with Standard 5a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning. It is my hope that through this blog community I can share my findings as well as discover how my fellow teachers are working towards their goals.

As I work in my graduate course I will be updating this blog with my new findings and thoughts.