The invitation was pure gold; the elementary music department asked for an hour of my time on the inservice day, to teach them about new technologies that they could use in their instruction. What tech coordinator would turn down an opportunity to work with the willing?
I really struggled with the agenda. It wasn’t a how-to session, but I knew that getting them actively involved would be more engaging and more powerful. However I only had an hour before they had to rush off campus for an inservice in Little India.
I was tempted to show them Animoto, but it is so slow that I had to give up that idea. I also decided to steer away from good music websites since they are skilled at finding those on their own.
I started the inservice telling the music teachers, that I knew lots of tech tools that could enhance their curriculum, but I didn’t know how to teach music. It was up to them to find ways to make use of these tools as they saw fit. To my delight, they did that all hour. In the end, here was my agenda. In green I’ll give a quick explanation of what was discussed.
When to use tech
-
Tech As Problem Solver: work more effectively, efficiently
- Tech As Enhancer, do things not possible without it, take lessons to next level, collaborate
Blackboard
Our school has Blackboard. You may have used it or something like it if you have taken an online course that required you to take part in asynchronous discussions. All our classes are automatically set up in Blackboard, thanks to a script that runs to pull data from Powerschool.
- Discussion Boards: Allow for discussions to continue outside of class. Allow you to hear from every student. Often children who don’t talk much in class are very willing participants in written
- Voiceboards: Like discussion board forums but with sound! Teacher can upload music. Students can record themselves talking, singing, playing an instrument. Student posts can be listened to by entire class or made private so only the teacher can hear them. Already in regular use by high school language classes, the elementary music teachers saw many ways they could make use the voice boards, especially with their grade five instrumental students.
VoiceThread
- I showed them an thread of a Norman Rockwell print. Each student had left a comment to interpret the painting. http://voicethread.com/?#q+norman+rockwell.b5990
- I also showed them a very simple one of pictures of musicians playing stringed instruments. The children had each made a comment such as “Violins are made of wood.” http://voicethread.com/?#q+music.b66062
Wikis
- Wikis in Plain English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY
- Parent wiki: A parent has set up a wiki to make it easy for parents to sign up to bring the snacks to the boys varsity basketball games. She used Wikispaces and did not protect it with a password, so it is possible, but not likely that someone could maliciously edit it. Other than one parent accidentally adding extra cells.
- Class wiki: http://mrcarroll.wetpaint.compage/Any+Words+of+Wisdom+for+the+New+Class%3F
- Conference wiki: This password protected wiki is something we might use to facilitate parents signing up for optional spring conferences with specialist teachers. The music teachers cheered and immediately and saw ways to extend its usefulness. http://sasconferences.wetpaint.com/
You Tube
We didn’t have time to discuss YouTube. I wanted to show them how it can be used for finding clips of ethnic music to support the diversity aspects of their curriculum. Can also find examples of instruments and their sounds, and other useful clips. If they view in Internet Explorer, the RealPlayer plugin will download the clip to their RealPlayer library so that their lesson is not sabotaged if our internet is slow or not working.
Voice Recorders
Like a thumb drive, these stick MP3 recorders are highly portable. They could be used to record a guest lecturer, to record ensembles, to let the class hear how their performance pieces are sounding.
Flip Video Camera
- One of my music teachers has been using the Flip video camera to record voice students. For example, possibly she signs along with the student and then they burn that clip to a CD so the student can practice with it at home.
- Another use was to have each stings player go to another room to record their performance piece. That allowed her to observe it outside of class, share the video with parents at conference time and offer suggestions for how to help the child improve their playing.
What did I miss? If they invite me back, what other hardware and software tools should I show them? They already use
Music Ace, Groovy Music, Finale Notepad. They already have iPods on which they create playlists for their lessons. They already have data projectors and wireless mouse and keyboard sets. What other tools would positively impact student learning?
This is a great post. I’m sure I could even find uses for these tools in my general education classroom (I teach 4th grade).
My school just purchased a flip camera for each grade level. I’m thinking of using the camera to record my students working on projects and assignments in class and then post them to the class blog/wiki for parents to see at home.
How about podcasting? You could find some music related podcasts to share with teachers and students, and have teachers (and students) create their own. Since they have Finale Notepad, can they “play” their musical compositions through a MIDI device and record these to share online? They could also use the Flip video to record a music lesson, such as how to assemble a clarinet, or how to tune a violin and upload and share these on their wiki.
How about adding school-safe video sharing sites to the list? Kind of like YouTube, but with all the content moderated by educators before becoming public. That way you can set the students free to roam the website without fears of them finding inappropriate content. SchoolWAXtv.com is one such site. There’s a section on there for student projects, where students can post their work to share with others.
Jim and Jennifer, Thanks for your suggestions. One of the music teachers has done podcasting with her students and it was powerful. I’d wanted to high light that but ran out of time.
I had not heard of SchoolWAXtv.com. I’ll check it out.
Thank you so much for this post. I am an elementary music teacher and an avid blogger. I have wanted to somehow mesh those worlds but have not found much inspiration. It’s good to read your post. Also, my husband bought me a flip video to use at school and I am interested in ways others are using them. Thanks for this info. I look forward to using some of these tools. Kelly