I thoroughly enjoy the week because it opens my eyes greatly to the following items:

• I see fathers come into the classroom and dance with their young children. Many of these fathers I have not met before.
• I see students who are normally very shy open up, smile, and actively participate because their parents are smiling at them.
• The parents see and experience the curriculum as opposed to only concerts.
• Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Babysitters, Close Family Friend, etc. If a parent cannot attend, it is so nice that the family will send another adult.
• Cooperation and Working Together: The dances, singing games, play parties, etc that we perform all require the students to cooperate and work together. When the parents join us, the parents will remark about how much they like that these activities help their children learn to work together.
• “Thank you.” It is really nice to hear the parents say “thank you for doing this.” Every year I debate if I should have this event because it is not required by the school and no other teacher does something like this. However, I feel that the parents do appreciate it and I appreciate that they take the time out of their days to come.
• Smiles, smiles, smiles. The students in this age group adore having their parents in the classroom with them. It was so wonderful for students to walk into the classroom with a smile and smile continuously throughout the class.

When I describe this event to other music teachers, I am asked about the students whose parents cannot attend. When we perform activities that require partners or groups, those students will pair up together or some parents will be 2 students’s grownup.

It is a great week and one that I will schedule again for next year.

Last year the group Death Cab for Cutie wore suits and blue pins in protest to auto-tune. They were quoted, “Auto-tuning is a digital manipulation, a correction of a singer’s voice that is affecting literally thousands of singers today and thousands of records that are coming out. We just want to raise awareness while we’re here and try to bring back the blue note… The note that’s not so perfectly in pitch and just gives the recording some soul and some kind of real character. It’s how people really sing.”

Last night, it was obvious that the duet with Stevie Nicks and Taylor Swift did not have the enhancement of auto-tune and you heard some real vocal sounds. Jamie Fox’s auto-tune performance was described as “Most Unnecessary: Jamie Foxx’s crazy Auto-Tune extravaganza had us thinking one thing: The Oscar winner wants an EGOT necklace.”

As many of my students, even the young ones, tune into American Idol, they are surprised and often giggle at the first few episodes which show a variety of “singers.” My students will come in the next day to tell me about “the singer who sounded like he was shouting” or “the singer who was really really bad.” The next question to me from my students is “Why do they think that they sing well?”

Those Idol auditions, and the recordings or live performances enhanced by Auto-Tune, are great teaching opportunities for your students in grades 3 and up (maybe even younger depending on your students). Having them listen intently to different types of singers is an amazing educational tool. For younger students, play a variety of recordings, ones enhanced and ones that are not, and ask the students what they think. Or play a couple of Idol auditions. The young students will be honest and they will listen intently. It will be a wonderful discussion. For the older students, create a blog or wikispace and put samples of audio and video (teachertube.com or youtube.com) of singers who are singing without the enhancement of auto-tune and singers who obviously must sing with auto-tune, and have the students comment on this. Even better, show two different recordings of the same singer: one recording with auto-tune and one without. Try this one from Enrique Iglesias-though there have been debates about whether this is fake or real-however, it is a great example of how auto-tune can greatly correct the pitch.

Years ago, I took a TI:ME Level 2 Digital Audio Course at Valley Forge Christian College and I absolutely loved the course. I learned how to utilize digital audio in my classroom and I learned what auto-tune does to my voice. My final project was a recording of me singing a 3-part SSA version of Appalachian Suite II. I was incredibly humbled when I first heard myself singing on the recording. My professor then applied the auto-tune plug-in and my voice magically sang in tune. Incredible, I thought…however, I felt like I “cheated.” I know that many performers utilize it, especially in live performances as a “safety net,” but as a teacher, I like to educate my students about this and just make them aware so that they can listen better to the music that they hear everyday.

Have you ever had a discussion about auto-tune in your classrooms? If so, how did you address it?

Picture found at toothpastefordinner.com

First, what is the iPad?  An iPad is in a category all by itself. It is not an iPhone nor a laptop. It falls in between these two products. The specs are as follows (found at http://mashable.com/2010/01/27/ipad/):

“- SCREEN: 9.7-inch IPS LCD screen. The LCD provides the backlighting, but most of the technology is IPS, or In-plane switching. This gives it a stronger viewing angle than most screens.

- RESOLUTION: 1024×768 pixels (132 pixels per inch)

- SIZE: 0.5 inches thin.

- DIMENSIONS: 9.5 inches x 7.5 inches x 0.5 inches

- WEIGHT: 1.5 pounds (1.6 pounds for 3G)

- CHIP: 1 GHz Apple A4 chip. They went in-house instead of going to Intel.

- MEMORY: Three models with 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB solid state hard drives.

- INCLUSIONS: Accelerometer, Microphone, 30-pin connector, Compass, full capacitive multi-touch, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G access on higher-end models

- BATTERY LIFE: 10 hours at full blast. On standby, it will last over a month.”

Second, what’s new about this? Two features are a multi-touch screen on a product larger than an iPhone and the iBooks application. The multi-touch interface is very similar to the iPhone interface. The iBooks application will now rival Amazon’s Kindle. iBooks allows you to browse, download, and read ebooks from such publishers as Macmillan, Penguin, and more.

How could this benefit education? If your school has a “laptop cart,” this could possibly replace it. Why? One word: Price. The iPad starts at $499 for a wifi 16GB model. The students can use it for word processing, even without a physical keyboard. The students could use it to read books. Can you imagine that our students’ children could go to school where they all pull out their iPads to read their books? Where the library just holds iPads (or its equivalent) instead of hard copy books? This might be far off, however, it is technology like this that gets the ball rolling. Finally, the battery life of 10 hours makes it easy for students to use it throughout the entire school day.

However, with all that said, this is the first generation of the iPad and because it lacks some items, the future generations of the iPad might be more beneficial in education. For example, the iPad lacks adapters. You need an adapter to plug in a digital camera and you need an adapter for USB. The keyboard looks to be awkward, as when you look at the video on apple.com, you need to be lying back and have the iPad resting on your lap in order to type. The iPad does not have a built-in camera, which will probably be included in a future generation of the product. Plus, if you utilize apps in your classroom, only one app can be used at a time.

With all that said, I cannot wait until March to play with this in the Apple store. I look forward to seeing how the iPad could positively affect education.

What are your ideas for the iPad in education?

Rick will be honored with this award at the end of the keynote presentation at the upcoming TI:ME National Conference on Thursday, February 18.

The conference rooms are being sponsored by some great companies: Alfred, MakeMusic, Noteflight, Shure, SoundTree, and Yamaha! Some of the rooms will have music labs set up in them. This is a great way to see how a music lab is utilized in music education, and to see all of the items that are needed for a music lab. 

Speaking as a NJ music educator, I have always had to fly to get to a National TI:ME Conference. I am so happy that this year, I can drive to it. If you are in the tri-state area and have been wanting to attend locally a conference to learn more about music technology in music education, then why not go to the leaders in it? Why not come to the TI:ME/NJMEA pre-conference day on Thursday, February 18?

• Click here to register.
• Click here to see the session schedule “at a glance.”
• Click here to read about the sessions.

Are you attending the TI:ME/NJMEA Conference?

• After 14 years of teaching, I have saved every sub plan that I have written. Therefore, when I need a plan, I can just update a previous plan.
• Since I am a new mom this year, I assumed that I would be taking more sick days than I have in the past. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, I wrote an outline for each school day (we are on a rotating A-G day schedule) so that when I needed to fill it in this morning, I just opened the C day outline. All of the details about duties, class lists, seating charts, students with allergies, etc, were in this file.
• If you have Sibelius or Finale, they have pre-made worksheets that you can edit to work with your classroom situation. These are such a time saver for when you are suddenly out sick.
• Expect your substitute to know nothing about music or technology. Therefore, leave a CD instead of the iPod. If you plan on showing a DVD, ask another teacher to come and set up the system for the substitute.
• When I would like to utilize a song or musical acitvity and I am not sure if my sub feels comfortable singing or explaining it, I will record myself singing the song or explaining the musical activity and put it on the CD. The sub has been very appreciative about this.
• Finally, read this article that just appeared in the New York Times titled The Replacements. It is very insightful about the experience of a substitute teacher.

What do you do to prepare for a substitute teacher when you are suddenly out?

I will be presenting two sessions at FMEA: Podcasting in the Elementary Music Classroom from 10:30 AM-11:30 AM at the Marriott Waterside Room: Meeting Room 4 and Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom from 4:00 PM-5:00 PM at Marriott Waterside Room: Meeting Room 4. Both are on Friday, January 8. The podcasting session will involve examples of podcasts from a variety of elementary music classrooms, including my own. I will also show how to utilize a software application besides GarageBand to easily podcast. In this session, I will be using TrakAx for PC to podcast. The integration session will involve examples of lessons from my book and examples of my students’ works.

I hope to see you there. I will also be podcasting my sessions and posting them on my podomatic podcasting site.

1. Spend more time with my husband and baby girl.
2. Attend a conference and visit another elementary school to shadow the music teacher so that I can rejuvenate my teaching and lesson plans.
3. Listen to my students more when they sing and speak. Many times, the things that come from their mouths are so innocent and sweet, that they can turn any bad day into a good day.
4. Promote TI:ME and its benefits more, especially since I will take the position of President in October.
5. Utilizing Skype more so that my students can benefit from visiting other music classes from around the nation and learning from them.
6. Utilizing Google Earth more often as a teaching tool so that my students can understand the global aspect of music better.
7. Try to find a positive aspect in all situations.
8. Try to think before I react.
9. Try to empathize with the parents at my school more. Try to walk a mile in their shoes more often.
10. Play music more, whether it be in my classroom, at church, or just for fun. Just play!

What are your New Year’s resolutions?