Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

For the past few weeks, my students have been singing numerous fall and Halloween songs. Today I will be leading the PreK and K Halloween parade, followed by the grades 1-5 Halloween parade. As I was uploading some of these songs to my website and podcasting site, I realized that I needed to add some of their works from the beginning of the year. Please visit my site to hear:

• Kindergarten singing their Halloween song recorded with a microphone attached to an iPod.
• 1st graders accompanying themselves on Orff instruments recorded with Apple’s Garageband.
  
• 2nd graders improvising Kye Kye Kule on a pentatonic scale.
• 3rd graders accompanying themselves on the Orff instruments and singing a partner song with 4th grade.

I hope that you enjoy their music!

Today I went to Maplewood NJ to hold a workshop for the elementary (K-8) music teachers. We began the workshop with each teacher receiving a copy of Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom that includes over 50 lesson plans on how to integrate technology into the elementary music classroom. They also worked with the SMART Board, explored websites that could be utilized in the music classroom, experimented with a variety of software programs like Sibelius’s Groovy Shapes and Jungle and Subotnick’s World of Music, and explored how Audacity and TrakAx could be used in the classroom. I thank Nick Santoro, the teachers, and the great tech crew for a nice day!

If you would like to see our materials from the class, please check out my website.

This Monday, I will be doing one of the things that I love to do most: I will be conducting a teacher workshop to elementary music teachers on ways to integrate technology into their general music classrooms. I will be posting the materials that we are using on my website, amymburns.com, by Monday. If you get the chance, please check it out.

Many of us who teach music must attend in-service days that do not always pertain to us directly. Though these in-service days are useful in some ways, there are times as music teachers, we would like an in-service workshop to specifically meet our needs. Therefore, if that is the case, and your district will allow you to set one up, please contact TI:ME because we have numerous members who are qualified to lead these workshops and can make them extremely useful to you (or you can contact me directly if you are not sure who to contact in TI:ME).

One of the great benefits of being an MENC member is that you can post a question to the MENC forums and receive a variety of responses. These forums are excellent for any teacher, novice to advanced. They are broken into categories such as band, orchestra, chorus, general music, future teachers, jazz, and higher ed. As I was reading through the general music forum this evening, I came across a post asking for assistance with music technology. There were a few responses, but the music technology, smartboard, sound system, etc., responses are few and far between in comparison to the posts about behavior, concert programs, and curriculum. This reminds me that those who are trying to integrate technology into their music curriculum would highly benefit from becoming a member of TI:ME (the Technology Institute for Music Educators). The fine members of TI:ME provide numerous resources to assist music teachers in ways to integrate technology into their curriculum. For example, by becoming a member, you will have access to a lesson plan database with over hundreds of lessons, access to a yahoo chat group that you can ask the tech gurus questions about music technology and receive a variety of answers, access to the authors who wrote books, articles, and access to conducted research on music technology, and information to music technology courses that are offered to teachers year-round.

Isn’t it time to check out TI:ME today?

When I attended Ithaca College way back in the 90’s, I wish that the technology was as advanced as it is today. For example, when I was an undergrad, notation software was extremely difficult to use and editing a recording meant that you spliced a recording reel with a razor. There were no networks, skype, facebook, etc, to communicate with other music education majors. If you needed to speak about your experiences as a music education major, you spoke to your peers in your dorm or the music school.

In this technological day and age, music ed majors can communicate with other music ed majors through a variety of sources. One resource was just created by Andy Zweibel of musicedmajor.net. Andy just created a Facebook community for music education majors where one can meet other music education majors and discuss topics pertinent to the field. He also invites those who have a degree in Music Education to become a fan. I am thrilled that Andy has started this network and I look forward to seeing how it can turn into a wonderful network for music ed majors!

One of my friends on facebook posted this video, which originally came from Romancing Your Soul. The simplicity of this video and the powerful message that is delivered in it, say it all. This video is absolutely brilliant and I encourage you to pass this on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hds3jvjZY-Y

At the TI:ME NJ conference yesterday, I was able to catch David William’s keynote address. In his address, he spoke of the 80% of students in the schools that do not participate in the traditional ensembles or music classes. Williams has termed these 80%, non-traditional music students (NTMs). Williams along with Dr. Rick Dammers of Rowan University, have created a great website, musiccreativity.org, to support the development of technology-based music classes at the middle and high school level. On this site you will find articles, research, presentations, and profiles of schools that have music technology courses to offer to the 80% of NTMs. If you are a middle or high school music teacher, I would encourage you to check it out.

Tomorrow, I will be heading to the TI:ME NJ In-service Day which is being held at East Brunswick High School. I will be presenting a workshop titled “Smart Board in the Music Classroom.” The handout, presentation, and some of the notebook files can be found on my website. I will hopefully, podcast the session, which will be located on my podomatic site. If you are planning on attending the in-service day tomorrow, please stop by and check out my session!

To all of my friends who would like to have Sibelius create rhythmic flashcards, here is an excellent tutorial from Katie Wardrobe on her blog titled “musictechtips“. She also shows how to make the rhythmic patterns using stick notation. There are some other excellent tutorials for using Sibelius. The most recent one is about how to make drum parts in one minute, which is so great for teachers who are arranging or composing music and are not percussionists. If you get a chance, please check out her blog!

In the beginning of the year, my divisional director sent me an article about Gregg Breinberg and his chorus at PS 22. I read the article, checked out his youtube videos, and blogged about his accomplishments with his chorus.

Recently, my good friend Jim Frankel, got the opportunity to visit Gregg’s school and to watch him and his students in action. He just blogged about his experience and it sounds like it was a moving one. Please check out his blog. It is one to definitely read and to experience the videos.