As I was watching this week's lecture for the first time I started thinking a great deal about how students find answers online. When I need to know anything from a number for a local restaurant to a fingering chart for flute and everything in between my first instinct is to "Google it." As Dr. Bazan points out with nearly everyone having a smart phone now finding information is now easier than ever. I can recall being in the middle of an after school jazz band rehearsal and a student had a question about a notation in his music. I was unfamiliar with this particular notation so I told the student I would have to look into it and get back to him. Before I was able to even finish my sentence another student had already visited Google and found the answer. Modern mobile technology has made it very fast and easy to find answers to questions.
YouTube was also a very important topic discussed this week. YouTube has become as much as of a search engine as Google. As Dr. Bazan pointed out students can find their favorite song with lyrics to sing along with, learn a new skill with the thousands of video tutorials, or watch numerous performances. This is an excellent resource!
My high school concert band is getting ready to compete at a concert band festival in two weeks. We are playing Holst's First Suite in Eflat. I have encouraged my students to listen to several recordings of colleges and professional wind ensembles performing this pieces in order to help them understand the stylistic elements of it. YouTube has served as a means for these listening activities. Fortunately I am able to meet with my band students once a day for about 40 minutes, but often times throughout our rehearsal process I have found myself wishing we were able to offer small group lessons to our high school students like our beginning band students receive. Because of scheduling and time restraints this is not a possibility. After working with YouTube I realize I can use this sight to our advantage. My goal will be to isolate the sections of the music my students are struggling with and make a tutorial for how to practice these specific sections. Although it might be a tad bit time consuming in the beginning, it will help guide my students through the learning process. It will also allow me to give more individualized attention that time doesn't allow at this point. I am very excited for this new tool I hope to use in my classroom very soon!
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was teaching middle school choir, I would constantly show YouTube video performances of the repertoire that my choir was going to perform. It is amazing how much feed back the students give after seeing and hearing their music being performed. One year my choir was performing John Henry arranged by Emily Crocker. At the time I was unable to find a good recording of a any choir performing that piece well. I wen ahead and showed the video of the performance. My choir students were quite after watching the video. One student raised his hand and said. "Mrs. Rourke I do not want us to sound like that choir. They were horrible. They were not singing in tune, their posture was not good." I asked the rest of the students "Do you agree with (student)?" They all said yes. I said to the choir "We will need everyone to be responsible in practicing and trying the vocal techniques that I am try to teach." The day of the contest, my students were amazing when they sang John Henry. I learned that using YouTube to show good performances and not so good performances is beneficial.
I believe using tutorial videos will help my students improve their practice time, and my students parents are able to see what their child need to accomplish. I am looking forward to doing more tutorial videos.
Thanks for your post,
Melanie Rourke