Week 8

Sometimes, I can identify with Atlas.  The weight of the world has been on my shoulders lately...

Easter is a busy time for musicians, especially us trumpet players.  As you can see, my trumpet got the royal treatment Sunday morning at church:

Our music department's soon-to-be juggernaut of popular music doom, the Eastside Story Variety Show, was Monday and Tuesday night of this week.  Give us a few years and we'll be on tour.  Or in jail for our pyrotechnics burning the school to the ground.  I think the next time we play Larry Barton's classic educational jazz band rock chart Area 51, I want to be flown in on a flying saucer.  In any case, it's been a wild ride this semester.

However, I've had my understanding of Google Forms reaffirmed.  I spent much of yesterday and today learning the ropes of and fighting with Google Sites.  I might even be able to create a website for my band tomorrow.  Or I might avoid technology until next week.  The trials and tribulations of what we've done and accomplished is why organization and time management are paramount.  

Today I finished up my WebQuest.  I think it's a neat project.  I also think it will be very daunting for our students.  EPortfolios were another project I wrestled with the Google Monster to accomplish today.  Also an excellent way to keep track of growth and what you've been up to.  I do hope, however, that when we engage the new Educator Effectiveness model in Wisconsin next year that Teachscape is more user friendly than Google.  There are a few things in Google that just aren't like I expect coming from a lifetime of fighting with Windows.  

All-in-all, there was a lot to learn this semester, but also a lot was affirmed.  That was a difficult balance.  Much of my time was wasted with step-by-step instructions on things I knew how to do... Twitter, MuseScore, digital calendars, etc.  But then, I needed more information on how to run Google Sites.  My poor colleague Janell, a certified Google educator, tried to be so helpful after school with giving me a quick rundown on what I was frustrated with.... it's too bad that I didn't have any chocolate to repay her kindness with, nor did either one of us really have the time to commit to me actually getting things right.  Alas, it will be what it is, formatting errors and all.  

Week 7

Week 7

Much of this week’s work seems like remediation to me.  I feel mis-labeled in the RtI program as “needing remediation.”  The readings discuss assessment, and are essentially a review of the information in Dr. Brophy’s Assessment Course last summer, with a technology angle added.  The assignments for this week I felt were quite demeaning.  I publish a newsletter for the East Bands around this time each year.  Rather than complete the assignment, I chose to use the “alternative” that we were given in the directions and submit a newsletter relevant to my program.  I uploaded last May’s copy of The Lyre.  I use Publisher for our newsletter because it’s a significantly more advanced program than what Google has to offer, and I am quite adept at using it.  Our newsletter, concert programs, and concert posters are all done using Publisher, and I can easily turn them into .pdf files to share via Google Drive, email using our Infinite Campus program, or post via Twitter.  Google Drive may be Web 2.0, but there are things that can be done better with some of the other tools available. 

I likewise found the calendar project to be inappropriate for a Masters level course.  I’m already utilizing the Apple Calendar on my iPhone and iPad via iCloud.  Although the Wausau School District is heavily invested in use of Google technology, because of how iOS works, any District calendar items that are sent to me using the calendar feature of Gmail, upon accepting, my District email puts the information right into my iPhone (and iPad) calendar program.  When our Principal’s Secretary sends out a meeting invite with the boss, my Gmail account tells my iPhone to schedule it.  Again, this is a case where the Google-y tech is nice, but I’m several steps ahead.  As I couldn’t submit my iCloud calendar for this course, I had to redo something I already knew how to do and was doing quite effectively elsewhere. 

This week was, sadly, a disappointment for me.  

Week 6

Much of our learning this week solidified things that I was already aware of.  Backwards design for instructional designs was a major component to our Instructional Design course from earlier in the UF sequence.  Inclusion of AppleTV and Google technology in the music classroom is something I’m familiar with how to deploy but haven’t yet done. 

Copyright law, however, is something that I know a lot about but wasn’t fully educated on until I did this week’s readings. 

The Project Based Learning is something that I hope to include more of in my band class as it ties in very well with our school’s Common Intellectual Mission (and I commented on this in my discussion post).  WebQuests, which are a form of PBL, have a valuable place in the BCO classroom, and I’m hoping that I can develop a useful one with my Holst Suite WebQuest that I’m doing for our class.  I think the possibilities for deeper understanding of our repertoire will be exceptionally valuable.  

Week 5

A lot of information this week, and I’m starting to feel a bit overwhelmed about all the PLN information out there.  We’re now following a lot of digital information, but we’re following it in a lot of different locations, Twitter, Google+, Feedly, and now Diigo.  I need to get these items organized so that I have everything in one feed.  My feeds are all compartmentalized now, and I need to get them organized. 

With respect to the readings, I feel similarly about the example in this week’s reading.  Organization is my biggest fear.  When you start having information coming in via blogs and wikis and so forth, I am really concerned about how to keep everything organized and accessible.  This would be a great goal for this week, especially moving forward with my own use of digital materials. 

How could I include blogs in my band?  Are they appropriate in the BCO world?  Could we do concert reflections via blogs?  Rehearsal reflections?  Sectional reflections?  Could I Tweet or blog to students as they go into sectionals?  What use might there be for this in private lessons? 

So much to think about this week.  

Week 4

Week Four brings us to an interesting discussion about the use of technology in the classroom, as well as to a project using Audacity.  In reading the text for this week as well as going through the discussions on the readings, I am quite pleased with the level of technology I employ in my classroom, but it’s also apparent that there is more that I could be doing.  I think this is a very positive situation, as it affirms that I am working to incorporate 21^st Century technologies, but I am also not stagnant in implementing them.  I have work ahead of me, but it’s not overwhelming work.  Were I to read this week’s readings and discussion and discover that I was doing none of these things, I would be quite worried.  Conversely, were I to be doing more, I would be worried about having nowhere to grow.  Middle of the road does my students a service and me as well. 

What am I using?  I often incorporate recordings into rehearsal, both representative ones of the literature being prepared as well as connected repertoire as the kids enter the room.  I think having music playing at the start of rehearsal helps set a positive tone, and I hope that as our school implements the Danielson Framework that the respective Domain on Classroom Procedures will affirm that belief.  I am very familiar with ways to incorporate my own iPad into the rehearsals, and I need to do some work on how to maximize its relevance to students.  An Air Play system to my SmartBoard will be crucial to this inclusion, and that is a way, either by slaving the SmartBoard’s computer to my iPad (help?) or hooking in an AppleTV, that I can improve. 

The age of recording rehearsals still exists, although I am not currently using programs for instant feedback.  Generally, I record and simply playback.  Another improvement is finding ways to give instant visual feedback in this area.  Likewise, I know how to use and deploy SmartMusic, but have not done so.  This needs to be another technological goal, especially when it folds nicely into the age of assessment. 

Audacity is a program that I have been familiar with for eight years.  This week’s assignment was rather easy to complete.  I was using Audacity back when we still used a CD recorder to record concerts so that I could master our holiday concerts to give to the local radio station for their “local school spotlight” right before Christmas.  Most recently (well last fall,), I spent an evening mastering the East Wind Ensemble’s 2013 March Concert for submission to the National Band Association-Wisconsin Chapter for application to perform at their January 2014 convention.  Needless to say, we must have done something right, either with the performance, the mastering, or both, because the recording of our convention performance just arrived.