Google...wow

This week was one of complete fascination and tinkering.  I have to admit that I had a lot of fun playing around with all the cool things that are available to us especially through Google.  This online program has definitely shown me how powerful Google has become.

The most exciting that I found on Google Drive was the use of the Google Form.  In our district we are looking for ways to continually assess our students, and this piece of technology is truly a great way to assess quickly and accurately.  This was a lot of fun creating a form that I could give my students.  In many of my classes thus far at U of F I have learned a lot of different ways to teach children and new ideas to incorporate into the classroom, but this idea I was able to utilize almost immediately in my class.

The great thing about this program is that the students loved it!  They were really excited to be using an iPad for legitimate school work.  This was great!  I believe that my students even forgot they were taking a quiz because of the way it was presented.  I did not receive a single complaint.

The best part about the quiz is that the data is collected and ready for analysis immediately.  Using a program like Flubaroo, I was able to grade quickly and efficiently.  This is an amazing program.

The other apps in Google Drive were just as powerful and useful.  The entirety of Microsoft Office in one place that I could access from anywhere on any device.  This makes the idea of collaboration very easy and the idea of taking work home not as daunting.  The apps themselves were easy to manage and create.  Uploading and inserting pictures, videos and/or links was very simple.  Google has truly gone out of there way to make it user friendly.  I am excited to see where things will go next in education with the use of technology.

Instructional Design

This week we get back to our roots as educators and begin discussing the instructional design concepts.  I have to admit that many of these concepts are not new to most of us in the modern educational world, but it is important to think about and reassess how we are managing these concepts in our own classroom.

This week was one of reflection for me as I read through Bauer's text on instructional design and practices with technology.  It is important to remember things like the Teacher's Toolkit that we worked on in a previous class and the idea of backwards design.  I took the opportunity this week to review my plans with all of my classes and make sure that I have the learning outcomes, the final product and the means by which to attain these goals well in hand.  Backwards Design has been my mantra this week, especially as we approach the end of this year.

It will be important at the end of this year to consider how my classes went, and if I was truly putting into practice some of the ideas that were discussed this week.  Context, logistics, Copyright, Projects...etc.  Did I make the time to incorporate these strategies into my curriculum.  If I did, what can I do to improve them for next year, and if I didn't, what do I need to change in my instruction so that these types of things are included?

We also started the process of designing a Webquest that we will be able to use in the classroom.  I love these types of projects because I am literally killing two birds with one stone.  I decided to give mine the twist of jazz so that I can use it with my jazz ensemble this spring.  I love the idea of using the technology we have to educate and inspire our students.  I also look forward to seeing what my students will come up with and how they will integrate technology into their final presentations.

Responding to Music

This week I focused I some differing types of software that exist in the music education world.  The program that caught my attention almost immediately was Music Ace.  This program I got familiar with when my mother used it for her piano studio when I was growing up.  This programs greatest feature in my opinion was the composition function.  You could write your own songs in a very user friendly way.  This program had the ability to write single melody lines as well as chords.  This is a great way for students to begin the composition process within the daunting technology hurdles of programs like Finale and Sibelius.  I appreciated the trip down memory lane and had a great time playing with this program again.

I also spent some wandering around Diigo. Being apart of this community has already yielded some fantastic resources.  Through this and the RSS function and the inter connectivity between Google+ and Twitter, I was able to find some terrific new resources as well as some terrific ways to utilize apps that I already have.  The most significant was 14 uses for IPad apps in the music classroom.  The ideas presented for using GarageBand were the best part if this experience.  I have to say that after this week I have been reinvigorated with my use of technology in the classroom.  At some point I felt that I was getting technology overload.  I was feeling that there were so many ideas I didn't even know where to start.  But there were/are some great ideas that I found that helped me get started.

We learned about different ways that students can respond to music in the classroom.  Technology has been a saving grace with this kind of standard.  I have found that using technology has greatly enriched my students responses to music.  Being able to play some of the greats for my students has been a huge advantage, and now that we have access to YouTube and Spotify and iTunes, the possibilities have become endless.  Students are now responding to music everyday and are being exposed to many different styles and genres of music.