I'm so excited to currently be in the process of moving into our new music building! All the new practice rooms, band room, and choir room were just what this music program needed to keep it afloat!
However, to keep this program up and running in today's modern times, there's a plethora of technologies i would like to implement into the classrooms. Here's my Santa List of a sort to our administration:
To start things off, a TV. Simple, I know, but still a quintessential staple in any classroom, whether to watch movies on the Alamo or to watch a video of Canada Brass's latest concert.
A stereo with a surround sound system installed. An obvious item for any music classroom to play recordings of our latest concert, rock out to a Joplin Rag in music appreciation, or raise goosebumps with a gregorian chant from the Dark Ages in music history.
Simple recording equipment. In any ensemble, practice makes perfect. And perfection is much easier to obtain when we can record and play back our mistakes.
And my big ticket item: a computer with Smart Music and the latest version of Sibelius installed. Those two programs are invaluable to any band or choir program, no matter what stage the students are at.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Closer Inspection
Though there is a vast amount of information available through the Internet, it is our duty as teachers to make sure our students use this resource responsibly.
Its easy to just type something up with some fancy coding and pass is off as fact; for that reason, students must always search around for the source of the information. They can do this by simply taking a few minutes to look around on the website, find the author's name and do a quick Google search on him or her. Everyday, multiple citizens are offended by an outlandish new article posted by the satirical new site, The Onion, but had they taken a quick look around the site they would have found the disclaimer : "The Onion uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."- saving the webmaster from sifting though a lot of angry emails.
There are, however, sources that are almost always reliable and trustworthy. Any journal found through ebscohost.net, or the news site cnn.com and other such sources would be O.K. for a student to rely on. Students should, however, steer clear of user- edited sites such as Wikipedia, as there have been a number of cases where an article is found to have stated the exact opposite of what is fact.
Its easy to just type something up with some fancy coding and pass is off as fact; for that reason, students must always search around for the source of the information. They can do this by simply taking a few minutes to look around on the website, find the author's name and do a quick Google search on him or her. Everyday, multiple citizens are offended by an outlandish new article posted by the satirical new site, The Onion, but had they taken a quick look around the site they would have found the disclaimer : "The Onion uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."- saving the webmaster from sifting though a lot of angry emails.
There are, however, sources that are almost always reliable and trustworthy. Any journal found through ebscohost.net, or the news site cnn.com and other such sources would be O.K. for a student to rely on. Students should, however, steer clear of user- edited sites such as Wikipedia, as there have been a number of cases where an article is found to have stated the exact opposite of what is fact.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Virtual Field Trips
My students and I have been studying famous artists the past few weeks, and I wanted to end this fun unit with a bang: a field trip to the closest art museum. However, the museum is more than three hours away, and there was just no way I could come up with the funds to transport all of them. So I decided to do a virtual tour, provided by the museum's website. We made a huge show of the thing; I took down all the posters around the room, and projects a different painting on each wall. We walked around the classroom like we were taking a tour of a real building. It was a fun, free day that really got the kids involved and interested.
However, we were limited by the number of projectors we could procure, and therefore, we only got to see a fraction of the paintings I'd have liked the kids to see. And we didn't get started on the sculptures. Although this was a great, cost-free method of doing something we otherwise wouldn't have gotten to do, there's nothing like seeing the real thing.
However, we were limited by the number of projectors we could procure, and therefore, we only got to see a fraction of the paintings I'd have liked the kids to see. And we didn't get started on the sculptures. Although this was a great, cost-free method of doing something we otherwise wouldn't have gotten to do, there's nothing like seeing the real thing.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Information Overload
While there may be a wide array of information out there for students to access, I believe modern search engines efficiently display that information in ways that won't make it overwhelming, especially when you compare it to the use of encyclopedias and other print sources that was necessary just a few short years ago. Besides the ever-present big "G," there are a variety more scholarly of search engines out there for students to make use of; i.e. EBSCOEhost, Google Scholar and our very own OHIOLink.
However, we as teachers need to make sure we are assigning search topics that are clear and concise, so as to avoid vague or unrelated search results for our students. We must teach our students how to sift through hoards of search results to find something credible and worth their (and ultimately our) time. Verifying credible sources on internet articles is one of the most quintessential lessons we must teach our students, because while there is scores and scores of information at our fingertips available on the world wide web, not all of it can possibly be true. Students need to look at author's names, author's credentials, publications and so on to determine if a piece of information is O.K. to be used.
The Internet offers thousands of opportunities for learning, and so long as we as students and teachers use it responsibly and intelligently it won't be too overwhelming.
However, we as teachers need to make sure we are assigning search topics that are clear and concise, so as to avoid vague or unrelated search results for our students. We must teach our students how to sift through hoards of search results to find something credible and worth their (and ultimately our) time. Verifying credible sources on internet articles is one of the most quintessential lessons we must teach our students, because while there is scores and scores of information at our fingertips available on the world wide web, not all of it can possibly be true. Students need to look at author's names, author's credentials, publications and so on to determine if a piece of information is O.K. to be used.
The Internet offers thousands of opportunities for learning, and so long as we as students and teachers use it responsibly and intelligently it won't be too overwhelming.
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