Legal and Ethical Use

When looking through the National Educational Technology Standards for teachers I came across indicator number 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

As a music Teacher I thought this was a very important indicator to focus on because it deals with the fact that teachers must understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.

This has always been a hot-button topic for music teachers because most of the materials that we deal with on an everyday basis is copyrighted intellectual property. Any sheet-music that we choose to use in our class, any recordings we want our students to listen to, or anything that we want to record would fall into this category.

NETS*T4a says that teachers need to advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources. This is especially true as I begin to use technology more in my classroom. I must be aware that the materials that I place on my computer, or on an Internet site must be properly cited for their source to avoid any infringements on copyright laws. Photocopying music is against the copyright law, so I believe that scanning music and publishing it on the Internet would also be an obvious violation. Placing someone Else's recorded music on the Internet would also fall into this category.

As a teacher it is my responsibility to insure that everything I do for my students is safe and legal.

Technology enriched environments

Last time I started talking about the Nation Educational Technology Standard #2 for teachers (NETS*T2), and focused a lot on the aspect of designing learning experiences which use digital tools in the classroom. This week I would like to focus on indicator B - develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress.


In my music classroom it has always been difficult to create an atmosphere that included technology right there in the classroom. However, after starting my graduate course I have already been trying to find new and exciting ways to create this technology enriched environment. The first way I have tried, and mentioned a couple weeks ago, was by checking out one of our schools portable laptop carts to allow the students to use the computers in our classroom for research.

My next step, which I am very excited about, is being able to use the new smart board technology that is being installed in all of the classrooms - including mine! At first I have to admit that I was not looking forward to this, because I had no idea how I could use it. But, now I have done so much thinking about different projects I could have the students actively engaged in right there in my classroom by using this technology. With programs such as Finale or Sibelius I can have my students writing their own music and then listening to is as the computer plays it back for them. There are so many opportunities out there and I cant wait to start exploring them in my new technology enriched environment.

I'm here....really I am

Hey there everyone! I must apologize for my lack of a blog update last week, it was very hard to find any time on the computer as I was spending literally 19 hours a day at school everyday last week (not an exaggeration, unfortunately). Our production of "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" went Amazingly and I could not have been happier!!! Now it is back to real life...

The topic of my blog last week had to do with the NETS*T2 standard. According to this standard a teacher in the 21st century classroom should
a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and
resources to promote student learning and creativity
b. develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to
pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their
own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own
progress.

As I have stated previously, I often find myself wondering how exactly to incorporate digital tools into my music classroom as a way to help the students learn and create in a different way. But I would like to focus on one tool that I have actually personally designed which has helped me in the past. I was sitting at home watching television one night and I flipped past the game shows "Don't Forget The Lyrics" and "The Singing Bee" both of which were helping to bring the art of live performing/singing into a new type of entertainment. As I watched these show I thought to myself, what an interesting way to challenge my new singers, into developing the drive to make music independently (Which is one of our National Music Standards).

So I started to think of a way to incorporate a game similar to these shows in my classroom, and after hours of playing around with PowerPoint I was able to design a touch game based on "The Singing Bee" using a mixture of popular songs from the radio, and songs that we were learning in class. I introduced this game to my classes with a very positive outcome and response.

That was my first real experience with designing a relative learning experience which Incorporated this sort if Digital Tool, but now I am still looking for even more experiences similar to this, which can help break up the every-day routine of the music class.