This was a very enlightening week for me. First, I must say how much I
enjoyed the lecture. Between it
and the Bauer text I was able to clear up some confusion I was having in
regards to audio terminology.
Second, I really enjoyed watching the Edutopia video about the John
Lennon Educational Tour Bus.
During the video I was particularly struck by something the Executive
Director, Brian Rothschild said, “The more opportunities we can expose young
people to the more chances they have to imagine themselves as successful,
happy, and creative people.” I
believe that wholeheartedly.
Almost daily I see students from my high school band come through my
room either after school or during lunch and they will stop to pick out a
melody on the piano or tap out a beat as they are passing through the band
room. All students need a creative
outlet. The John Lennon Education
Tour Bus is a perfect example of that outlet. Soundation, Noteflight, MuseScore, and Garage Band are also
great examples of how students can use their own ideas to be creative.
The
Inquiry Report also gave me some very useful insight this week. I particularly found it helpful to
interview the teachers. I use
technology in my own classroom mostly for communication. I have found social media a great way
to communicate with students and parents.
It is fast and very convenient.
However, because of my class sizes and lack of materials in my classroom
I am not able to incorporate much technology into my daily teaching. It was very interesting to see how
other teachers are able to overcome these hurdles. By interviewing my students I found that while most spend a
significant amount of time on social media each day they are also using their
technology for educational purposes.
Many of them discussed specific apps they use for their classes that
helps with daily homework. I am
looking forward to researching applications that could be beneficial to my
students and incorporating them in the coming weeks.
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI remember early in our time together you mentioned using social media to communicate with parents and students. Is this a common occurrence in your district? As an elementary teacher, I am so paranoid about sharing too much or opening too many lines of communication with students (not so much parents). I would love to create a youtube channel for my students to display their work, or for me to showcase class activities online, but I am so worried about privacy and whether parents have given permission for their children to appear on the internet - no matter how private the setting/application.
As for creating, I have also relied on older technologies that I have used for many moons. I use Finale NotePad to notate Orff arrangements for pieces. I have used GarageBand to create a simple backing track for students to improvise over. I have used my iPhone to record audio of the classes singing for group assessment and critique. I would love to incorporate more student opportunities for creating with technology, and I think now is the perfect time to start planning projects to implement either this year or next.
A colleague of mine in a different district told me about Sibelius groovy music. It is a non-notation creating software. Does anyone know of an application similar for much less money or even free? I would love to discover new online applications or programs for creating that would be easily accessible in my classroom.
Thanks for your post!!
Katie
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post this week! You made such an excellent connection from the video about the importance of allowing opportunities for our students to create with through various mediums Like you, I really enjoyed the video, and since it appeared to be using technology that might be over 10 years old, I imagine that the John Lennon tour bus could simply travel through these web-based applications now!
I also found the technology inquiry report to be enlightening. It was particularly interesting for me to learn about the many different technologies that I know absolutely nothing about, but are staples in my colleagues classrooms. It blows my mind to think of the many many different technological applications that our students are fluent in now. Thanks so much for your insightful post!
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI was also very interested in the John Lennon bus portion of the lecture. Although I teach elementary school, the high school children on that bus reminded me of many of my students. My students, like your students that you mentioned, also stop by my room in between classes and ask if they can come for extra practice time, and almost always try to play the piano before or after a lesson. I sometimes have to put a “no piano” sign on the board, otherwise the students will play it loudly all the time! But after all is said and done, the students are just expressing themselves and looking for a creative outlet, especially during these last three weeks when they have been testing non-stop.
I also like that you talked about how you use technology outside the classroom to communicate with parents, but not inside the classroom as often. This is how I feel as well. I routinely use email, phone calls, and text messages to reach out to the parents, but when it comes to actual lessons, the technology use is much less. I hope to be able to learn more about DAW software and possibly incorporate it into lessons.
It would definitely be interesting to interview high school students and their technology use. Your students were able to help you use technology. My students use technology in their lives every day, but since they are in elementary school, use mostly games, Apps, texting, and social media. They have limited use on advanced software programs. I’m glad your high schoolers were able to help you understand the music making software! In a way it’s really cool that we can teach them as much as they can teach us! :) Thanks for your post!