This past week I have been insanely busy trying to prepare my drama troupe for their upcoming performance of the Broadway musical "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" (Feb. 27 & 28.....shameless plug!!) and it really has me thinking about ways that I can improve communication within the group outside of rehearsals.
We don't really have a website or anything to post information to, have discussions on, or even just have fun with. It's always been something that I've wanted for my group, but my lack of website design knowledge has prevented me from trying.
In the rare few seconds of free-time that I had this weekend I decided to try to make a wiki page which could be used to post rehearsal notes, pictures and have a place for the students and parents to be able to check out what is going on. So, I signed up for a free wiki page using wikispaces.com and have set out to create KingsBackstagePass (Thanks for the name idea Jim!). So far the site is still only being designed and has not been made available to users, but I hope to have the site working in time for our next major production. I am coming across some limitations due to the settings the company has placed on free sites. So far I can either make the space public (open to anyone), or private (open to only approved people) but I can not mix them. In other words, if I wanted my homepage to be public, but for the page dedicated to "Charlie Brown" to be private for cast members only I can not because of the limitations.
There are defiantly some kinks to work out, but at least I am trying something new and opening up myself to the ideas of web 2.0 and the 21st century classroom.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
According to the NETS-T1, as a teacher I should be using my knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance my student
learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. I find this to be a very interesting challenge, because I have quite a bit of experience in all of those categories, but have not really combined them all together before.
As I have stated before, I really have not been utilizing the world of technology in my classroom very much in the last few years of teaching, but I am just now realizing the many ways in which I could use that technology to model ideas for my students and help them advance in their learning.
In order to "promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness" in my classroom through technology I could be using programs such as Finale, Sibelius, Audacity, or even Garage Band to have my students creating their own music. As we discover the "rules of music" or musical theory I could have the students write their own music by following the rules we have learned and inputting their creativity onto one of these software platforms.
Just this week I took an opportunity to have the students "engage in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." I decided to have them do some real world research on the music of the Beach Boys, the decades that they were popular, and what was going on in the world at the time. I enabled the students to do this research in class by scheduling time for one of our school's laptop carts, then I had the students use the website nettrekker.com as their search engine. This is a new educational website that our school district has been granted access to, which allows students to search for topics using websites that have been filtered for their educational value.
learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. I find this to be a very interesting challenge, because I have quite a bit of experience in all of those categories, but have not really combined them all together before.
As I have stated before, I really have not been utilizing the world of technology in my classroom very much in the last few years of teaching, but I am just now realizing the many ways in which I could use that technology to model ideas for my students and help them advance in their learning.
In order to "promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness" in my classroom through technology I could be using programs such as Finale, Sibelius, Audacity, or even Garage Band to have my students creating their own music. As we discover the "rules of music" or musical theory I could have the students write their own music by following the rules we have learned and inputting their creativity onto one of these software platforms.
Just this week I took an opportunity to have the students "engage in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." I decided to have them do some real world research on the music of the Beach Boys, the decades that they were popular, and what was going on in the world at the time. I enabled the students to do this research in class by scheduling time for one of our school's laptop carts, then I had the students use the website nettrekker.com as their search engine. This is a new educational website that our school district has been granted access to, which allows students to search for topics using websites that have been filtered for their educational value.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
Professional Development is something that I feel is fairly important to me, especially since I am still a fairly new teacher and I am still striving to become the best teacher I can be. When it comes to utilizing technology in the classroom and with my students I have to admit that I have a lot of to learn about.
In doing some research about how to apply the NETS-T5 a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning to my own career I came across a few different resources for Music Teachers to share ideas and thoughts in a community setting. Many of these I feel would be a great resource to use in my professional growth. Some of the learning communities that I came across are:
Teachernet for Music Teachers
National Association for Music Education
Choral Public Domain
Of course those are just a few of the many on-line resources available. There are also many resources that are not on-line. A few examples of the resources that I already use off-line are:
Triad - a Monthly professional publication for Music Educator supplied by the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA).
OMEA - The professional organization for Music Teacher which sponsors an annual 3-day professional development conference.
NETS-T5c Is to evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning
One of the better aspects of the Triad magazine mentioned above is the fact that it if filled with research done by actual music teachers who are actively involved in the field. The research usually deals with new teaching techniques, repertoire tips, and sometimes even involves a write-up about the newest tech tool for our industry.
After doing a lot of research I would have to say that one of the leaders in the research is using technology in the music classroom has to be the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME). This website has a plethora of information including articles written by music professionals on topics ranging from Starting with Technology in School Music all the way to Starting an Online Fundraiser.
I'm really glad that I have been asked to do more research into this area of teaching, because I honestly would not have known that there are so many ways to use technology in music. I always just assumed that the extent of technology I would use would be sound systems with microphones and maybe some recording equipment. I am very excited to continue my research on ways that I can support my student's classroom learning with the technology tools that are out there.
In doing some research about how to apply the NETS-T5 a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning to my own career I came across a few different resources for Music Teachers to share ideas and thoughts in a community setting. Many of these I feel would be a great resource to use in my professional growth. Some of the learning communities that I came across are:
Teachernet for Music Teachers
National Association for Music Education
Choral Public Domain
Of course those are just a few of the many on-line resources available. There are also many resources that are not on-line. A few examples of the resources that I already use off-line are:
Triad - a Monthly professional publication for Music Educator supplied by the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA).
OMEA - The professional organization for Music Teacher which sponsors an annual 3-day professional development conference.
NETS-T5c Is to evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning
One of the better aspects of the Triad magazine mentioned above is the fact that it if filled with research done by actual music teachers who are actively involved in the field. The research usually deals with new teaching techniques, repertoire tips, and sometimes even involves a write-up about the newest tech tool for our industry.
After doing a lot of research I would have to say that one of the leaders in the research is using technology in the music classroom has to be the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME). This website has a plethora of information including articles written by music professionals on topics ranging from Starting with Technology in School Music all the way to Starting an Online Fundraiser.
I'm really glad that I have been asked to do more research into this area of teaching, because I honestly would not have known that there are so many ways to use technology in music. I always just assumed that the extent of technology I would use would be sound systems with microphones and maybe some recording equipment. I am very excited to continue my research on ways that I can support my student's classroom learning with the technology tools that are out there.
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