Module #7 Reflection Blog

This is the seventh and final post of what was several weekly blogs during the course of the class “Technology Assisted Music Learning”. The following paragraphs will reflect on what I learned during Module 7 of the class. I am looking forward to reflecting on technology in music and music education as we progress through the last week of this class. It's almost the end!  

Personal Learning Network or PLN, is where a student uses several internet resources and social media to become better educated. For our class, it is designed to help us become more educated not only in technology but music education in general. For the seventh week of our class, we continued to contribute and grow our PLN. We also continued using several internet resources such as Feedly, Twitter and we continued to contribute to the Digital Musicking Group on Google. During this seventh week of our class, I am gaining a greater understanding of the PLN and how it works.  This was my contribution to the Digital Musicking Group for week 7:  http://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/category/ipad-apps/ 

During this week, we continued to use www.lynda.com which is a free resource that is open to students in our Masters in Music Education program here at the University of Florida. We are going to be using Lynda and other video resources to help us create our Web Quest projects which will be due in the final week of this class. We also used several tutorial videos from Lynda.com to help us with our administrative project. We had to create on Google a calendar, newsletter and short slide show. These are resources we could use when administering activities in our department. The tutorial videos were a great help and I could not have completed the project without them!

During the week of Module 7, we had to read pages from  Chapters 6 and 8 from Dr. Bauer’s book “Music Learning Today.” During these readings, Dr. Bauer talked about ways in which technology can facilitate musical assessment and professional productivity in our classrooms. We had to discuss this topic in our weekly discussion assignment. I use technology both in a personal and professional manner. I frequently use email to communicate to parents and colleagues as well as a school fusion page on our school website to post announcements and assignments. I have even started to use Twitter to communicate to students and parents as well. This fall, I will begin to use EdModo which is a school approved program where students can receive notifications about rehearsals. Once a student signs up, they will get a text message alert on their phone if I post about a rehearsal change or cancellation.

As for using technology for assessment in my classroom, we use it for our critiques of concerts. After a concert, we watch the video and the students fill out a rubric based upon what they felt was good or not so good both for their own performance as well as the group.

Module #6 Reflection Blog

This is the sixth of what will be several weekly blogs during the course of the class “Technology Assisted Music Learning”. The following paragraphs will reflect on what I learned during Module 6 of the class. I am looking forward being further educated more on technology in music and music education as we progress through the last two weeks of this class. Time is flying by!

Personal Learning Network or PLN, is where a student uses several internet resources and social media to become better educated. For our class, it is designed to help us become more educated not only in technology but music education in general. For the sixth week of our class, we continued to contribute and grow our PLN. We also continued using several internet resources such as Feedly, Twitter and we continued to contribute to the Digital Musicking Group on Google. During this sixth week of our class, I am gaining a greater understanding of the PLN and how it works.  This was my contribution to the Digital Musicking Group for week 6: http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2011/10/learning-to-play-musical-instrument-is.html

During this week, we continued to use www.lynda.com which is a free resource that is open to students in our Masters in Music Education program here at the University of Florida. We are going to be using Lynda and other video resources to help us create our Web Quest projects which will be due in the final week of this class.

During the week of Module 8, we had to read Chapter 7 from Dr. Bauer’s book “Music Learning Today.” During this Chapter, Dr. Bauer talked about several music technology, teaching and composition topics such as Copyright, Creative Commons, Public Domain, and Backward Design to name a few. During our discussion topic, we were assigned to create a top 5 list of what we felt was important from our weekly readings. Here is my top 5:

5. Instructional Logistics- With the increasing amount of technology that is available for schools, do the schools have the facilities or money to purchase this technology and make it accessible?

4. Fair Use- Educators may use copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright holder under certain conditions, designated in the copyright laws.

3. Public Domain- Instead of being owned by an individual who has exclusive ownership, these works can be used by anyone.

2. Creative Commons- This is a not-for-profit organization that provides free licenses that specify what can and cannot be done with an original work. The licenses are designed to be applicable throughout the world.

1. Copyright- This is a form of protection provided by laws of the United States to the authors of original works or creations. Music Educators must always observe copyright laws.
 

My top 5 list is teacher-centered. It is important that every music teacher be aware of the items that I listed in my top 5 with Copyright Laws being #1. It is very easy in our line of work of photocopying and arranging music to forget that these examples do exist.

 

Module #5 Reflection

This is the fifth of our several weekly blogs during the course of the class “Technology Assisted Music Learning”. The following paragraphs will reflect on what I learned during Module 5 of the class. I am looking forward being further educated more on technology in music and music education as we progress through the last few weeks of this class!

Auralia is an online ear training program that is geared for students from Elementary School through High School. For this week's project, I put together a review of this program. I downloaded the trial software for my review. I found it easy to learn and user friendly during my navigation through the program. The audio examples in many of the exercises are excellent as well. It is only $99 for a student subscription which isn't too bad for a family to purchase. You may use the program both on a home and school computer. I would use this program with my students if we were working on ear training and dictation in a Music Theory class. I gave this program an excellent rating in my review! Please check out the Auralia website: https://www.musicfirst.com/auralia-first 

Personal Learning Network or PLN, is where a student uses several internet resources and social media to become better educated. For our class, it is designed to help us become more educated not only in technology but music education in general. For the fifth week of our class, we continued to contribute and grow our PLN. We also continued using several internet resources such as Feedly, Twitter and we continued to contribute to the Digital Musicking Group on Google. During this fifth week of our class, I am gaining a greater understanding of the PLN and how it works. This week, we also added Diigo (www.Diigo.com) to our PLN. It is a resource in which we can share different articles on music, education and technology. I posted 10 different resources to my Diigo page and shared them on the Diigo Digital Musicking Group for my classmates to review. Here is the link to my Diigo page: www.Diigo.com/user/MLioneEHSBand

During the week of Module 5, we had to read parts of  Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 from Dr. Bauer’s book “Music Learning Today.” During Chapter2, Dr. Bauer talked about several technology aspects such as graphics, video, instructional software, tutorials and practice. These are all aspects that I have seen in the programs we have worked with in this class during the first five weeks. I found it insightful when Dr. Bauer said in Chapter 2 about video, " Many videos are available online that can be useful for music learning. From tutorials to explain anything from the beginning techniques of playing an instrument to famous performances of famous musicians, to examples of music practices all over the world, video sharing can be a tremendous benefit to students and teachers". I relate to what Dr. Bauer is saying here because we recently in my High School band class, we watched the CNN documentary on the British invasion of the 1960's. I think my students got a better understanding of the music and musicians of that time period in music history rather than simply reading about it out of a book.