Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Many teachers have already had their first day of school or are currently in a year-round school. However, if you are approaching this weekend as your last weekend of summer or like me, your crazy prep weekend before the first day of school, I thought that I would prepare this list to remind myself the positive aspects of the first day of school.

Here are my top 10 reasons why I adore the first day of school (from an elementary music teacher’s view point):

1. The students walk into your classroom with big smiles on their faces and ready to sing.
2. The students must tell you every aspect of their summer vacations.
3. The teachers are in good moods and not burnt out, as when you last saw them in June.
4. The elementary students want to come back to school. Their excitement rejuvenates your excitement to teach.
5. The students want to perform on every instrument in your room and ask you several times “When will we create some music?” In which I respond, “Immediately!”
6. I get to try out new lesson plans. Sometimes they need tweaking and sometimes they succeed beyond my wildest dreams.
7. Many schools begin their year with patriotic assemblies. That coupled with the anniversary of Francis Scott Key writing the Star-Spangled Banner on September 14, 1814, gives me a great integration tool for beginning the year singing patriotic songs and correlating music with American history.
8. The new keyboard and drum machine applications for my iPod Touch turns it into an instrument for students to create music.
9. New school year=clean new slate. The sky’s the limit.
10. When the littlest students see you, they look at your face,  remember who you are,  get excited and exclaim, “Mrs. Burns!” Then, they give you a big hug. Does it get any better than that?

I sincerely hope that you have a wonderful school year!

Please check back on Monday, September 1st, when I will be hosting the 3rd edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival!

As I utilize notation software in my classroom for my music class arrangements, orffestrations, recorder music, composition projects, etc., I was thrilled to see that Marc E. Schonbrun just wrote Mastering Sibelius 5 published by Course Technology. I had the pleasure of working with Marc at the recent NECC Conference where he presented Sibelius 5 and ProTools and I presented the Groovy Music Series. Marc is well-versed on the topic of music technology and he can explain it clearly.

I know many functions of Sibelius 5, however, as with any software, if you do not work with it often, it is difficult to recall every item. What was nice about Marc’s book is when I forgot how to perform a function, I could easily look it up in the index. When I went to the page number to find the item, Marc’s writing explains it clearly and logically. As I was teaching Technology for Music Teachers at Montclair last week, the participants were creating original compositions or arrangements of music using Sibelius 5. When there was an item that needed clarification, Marc’s book was a perfect resource. I could easily refer to it and quickly assist a participant in need.

If you use Sibelius, or especially if you just started using Sibelius, Mastering Sibelius 5 is the resource to have. It covers everything from A to Z (which in this case would be Accents to Zooming) and includes a companion CD so that you can learn by doing!

LAST CALL FOR BLOGS FOR SEPTEMBER’S MUSIC EDUCATION BLOG CARNIVAL!

Just a reminder that the next Music Education Blog Carnival will be hosted here on September 1st. I will be accepting blogs up until the end of the day of August 31st. Blogging is a great way to begin the school year!

Here are the FAQ:

What is the Music Education Blog Carnival?
The Music Blog Carnival was created and is maintained by Dr. J. Pisano of MusTech.net and Joel of SoYouWantToTeach.com in order to promote the great works being done by Music Education Bloggers across the Internet. As written by Dr. J Pisano.

When it is published?
The Music Education Blog Carnival is published on the 1st of every month and is a recognized member of the communities of blogs indexed by BlogCarnival.com. As written by Dr. J Pisano.

Do I have to submit a new blog entry, or can I submit an entry that I have already written and posted?
You can submit a new blog entry or submit one that you have already written. For example, for the past two publications, I submitted entries that I had already posted on this site. They were entries that people or other blog sites told me were very informative and helpful.

How do I submit an entry to September’s edition of Music Education Blog Carnival?

Here’s the link for your blog post submittal for the carnival:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_4443.html

I sincerely hope that you will submit a post to the next edition. It is a great way for others to read your posts and bring traffic to your current blog. Most importantly, it is a wonderful and therapeutic way for music educators to share knowledge, insights, perspectives, and reflections on music education!

Note: All writings submitted to the Music Education Blog Carnival are examined to ensure that they are valid, interesting, and related to our discussion topic(s).

I had to share this post from Richard McCready, the Director of Music Technology at River Hill High School, in Howard County, Maryland.

Richard writes a great commentary on Michael Phelps, ADHD, and music. I highly recommend reading this post.

I thank Martha Grondin for sharing the following resources and Carol Broos for creating the ning page.

If you are looking for some SMART Board lessons so that you do not have to reinvent the wheel, then you will want to check out these websites:

1. http://mustech.pbwiki.com/ - As stated on the website, “This wiki was begun because of a conversation on the Teachers.net music teachers discussion board.  Some of us decided we’d like a place to share our Smartboard lessons, and perhaps some other resources we use in our classrooms. The idea behind this wiki is simply to collaborate and share the things that make our classrooms better.  It is not about us, it is about the kids and how to teach them music as effectively as possible!” Currently, you will find many SMART Board music lessons that were created using the SMART Board Notebook software. One of my favorite lessons is one that Martha created for Peter and the Wolf. It is excellent. It has a matching game and a concentration game with orchestral excerpts.
2. http://technology.usd259.org/resources/whiteboards/smart-lessons/music_lessons.html - This resource has numerous SMART Board lessons that are categorized by grade level and target area such as Music Notation, Theory, Instrumental, etc.

Great websites for music teachers who want to explore tech:

1. http://musictechieteachers.ning.com/ - Carol created this site for “Music Teacher that are Techies.” It is an excellent site that has a wonderful forum for music teachers to explore technology in their classrooms.
2. http://www.ti-me.org - If you have questions about technology and are at a loss for answers, then you will be pleased to join TI:ME because the Yahoo chat group that the membership includes allows you to ask all of the 800+ TI:ME members tech questions. You will receive answers from teachers and music tech gurus.

If you are one who can access a SMART Board or would like a forum to explore your ideas of technology, then you should definitely check these resources out!

Every year I go through my recorder resources to find songs that my 3rd graders would like to learn to play. My criteria is music that has at most 3 notes and simplistic rhythms, since my 3rd graders are novice recorder players. I have numerous recorder resources to choose from and I have tried many of them. My students enjoy them all, however, I have to state that they tend to enjoy Don Muro’s music the most. My students will beg to play the songs “Rocket,” Queen B,” and “Land’s End” from Introducing BAG. We have also peformed songs from his “Easy 8″ which adds a note per song and again, they beg to play “All Alone” and “Get Ready.” If you know of his music, then you know that the students like to play his music because of his amazing accompaniments. I have never seen students adore playing a song with the note B over and over again, unless it is one of his songs.

When I began planning for this upcoming year, I was thrilled to read in West Catalog that he just wrote an additional book of songs for beginner recorder players. It is titled “In The Beginning” and it involves six songs: one song for the note B, three songs for the notes B and A, and two songs for the notes B A and G. If you go to this website, you can hear excerpts from three of the six songs.

The songs contain Don’s talent for composing accompaniments that are unique, assist the students in feeling the steady beat, and represent various styles, meters, and eras of music. I look forward to using this new resource in my classroom. If you have never heard of his recorder music, I highly recommend checking out this new resource, or one of his many recorder songs. My students just love his music!

Just a reminder that the next Music Education Blog Carnival will be hosted here. Blogging is a great way to begin the school year!

Here are the FAQ:

What is the Music Education Blog Carnival?
The Music Blog Carnival was created and is maintained by Dr. J. Pisano of MusTech.net and Joel of SoYouWantToTeach.com in order to promote the great works being done by Music Education Bloggers across the Internet. As written by Dr. J Pisano.

When it is published?
The Music Education Blog Carnival is published on the 1st of every month and is a recognized member of the communities of blogs indexed by BlogCarnival.com. As written by Dr. J Pisano.

Do I have to submit a new blog entry, or can I submit an entry that I have already written and posted?
You can submit a new blog entry or submit one that you have already written. For example, for the past two publications, I submitted entries that I had already posted on this site. They were entries that people or other blog sites told me were very informative and helpful.

How do I submit an entry to September’s edition of Music Education Blog Carnival?

Here’s the link for your blog post submittal for the carnival:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_4443.html

I sincerely hope that you will submit a post to the next edition. It is a great way for others to read your posts and bring traffic to your current blog. Most importantly, it is a wonderful and therapeutic way for music educators to share knowledge, insights, perspectives, and reflections on music education!

Note: All writings submitted to the Music Education Blog Carnival are examined to ensure that they are valid, interesting, and related to our discussion topic(s).

For the next three weeks, I have the pleasure of teaching Technology for Music Teachers at Montclair State University. This course will entail creating lesson plans enhanced with technology, creating with powerpoint, creating wikispaces, exploring software, utilizing notation software, utilizing digital audio, exploring keyboards and software synths, and most importantly how to use technology as a tool in the music classroom to enhance your current lessons and to assist in assessment.

I have created a blog and a wikispace for the course. On the blog, you will see a question posted daily to the participants that they will reflect on and answer. The wikispace will have the daily powerpoints, documents, and projects used in class. Please feel free to check out our resources and to leave a comment on our blog!

Today, I have the pleasure of presenting “Using Technology as a Tool to Assess in the Elementary Music Classroom” as a part of the NYSSMA Technology sessions presented at the NYSSMA Summer Conference in Albany, New York. I thank Pat White, the chair of The NYSSMA Technology in Music Education Committee, who took care of all of my tech needs so that I could present my session easily. Now, we were not so sure if the weather was going to cooperate as it was thundering and lightning during my session…however, it was all good.
As I try to follow my school’s new philosophy of going “green,” I did not hand out a hard copy of my handout. Instead, I followed my good friend Jim Frankel’s lead, and put the handout on my website. If you go to http://www.amymburns.com, you will find the powerpoint and my handout from today’s session. I will keep them up for 60 days. I also recorded the session to be podcasted on my podomatic site (http://www.amymburns.podomatic.com), however, I will not be able to post it to that site until the end of the week or so.

If you got a chance to attend, I thank you for being a part of the day and please leave me a comment, suggestion, or question. I would love to hear from you!

On Monday, August 11, I will be presenting at the New York State Summer Music Conference at the Crowne Plaza Albany in Albany, New York. As a graduate of Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, I had attended and performed at the winter New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) conference, but had never attended the summer conference until last summer. One of my college friends asked me to present an elementary music technology session last summer when the summer conference was in Buffalo. I really liked how this conference was organized. Each committee from classroom music, technology, band, jazz, strings, and chorus, had lined up some excellent clinicians. An attendee has a wonderful array of music educational sessions to choose from. At the reception last year I met Pat White, the head of the NYSSMA Technology Committee, who invited me to present a session at this summer’s conference. I am so honored to present this year and to attend some of the other sessions. From looking at the brochure, I can see that this will be an amazing conference. Clinicians such as Dr. John Feierabend (one of my personal favorites), Deborah Stehlik (caught her session last year and she presents some excellent music and movement activities), performer such as Mark O’Connor (terrific violinist), and many more will be presenting and performing at this conference. It is not a conference to miss!

If you are planning on attending, please stop by my session titled “Using Technology as a Tool to Assess in the Elementary Music Classroom” on Monday, August 11 from 2:15-3:30 in the Webster Room. If you are assessing your elementary music students, this session shows you ways that technology can assist with the process. You do not need to be an advanced technology-user in order to appreciate some of the tools that I show you. I hope to see you there!