Thing 23

Wow! I feel as if I have covered years worth of material at hyperspeed! The real issue is the fact that many of these applications have been available to me and my students for years and I did not even know it! I have felt for well over a decade that the traditional classroom and role of a teacher was in need of a major transformation. I could see that the world was quick to change but education was managing to stay dormant. Ten years ago when I suggested that grading should be done by computer and that parents should have access, people in my District looked at me like I had two heads! Today we are actually using it! When I suggested that students are engaged when on the computer and it is a great way to learn (if we can figure out how to teach) teachers thought I was trying to cause trouble. Computers are for spreadsheets and wordprocessing and that is all we are responsible for teaching - actually the computer teacher is the only one responsible... When I suggested to the University Department head that a series of Music and Technology in the classroom courses needed to be developed they gave me a puzzled look. Three years later I received a brochure in the mail with exactly what I had imagined! If we look at what the internet is doing you see creativity all over the place! It is the creative mind on steroids! The Arts as we know it has changed and has become arguably the most important element on the internet!

I have always had the vision of changing the way I deliver curriculum content and have also known that I was just not versed in the things that could help me do it. Through this course it has brought me back to the realization of breaking open the things that I knew I did not know. Nothing BUT 23 things (probably more like 10,023 Things) could be taught to teachers for PD sessions. I plan on fueling the blog that I have already been maintaining with more for my students. Now that I know a better way to organize it all I just pray that the computer be able to keep up with me! Nothing is worse than sitting in front of a computer that does not move... Hey, maybe we can creat 1 minute to-do-lists for those moments. I actually started the practice during this very course!

Unless electricity or another yet to be invented way of powering up our resources is completely cut off (I shudder to think) the internet as our primary means of communication and learning is not going away. The question becomes how to keep up with the changes. We need a pilot school, we need a pilot school district! The role of the educator will be turned into an online lesson planner and moderator, much like the creators of 23Things! School buildings will become obsolete and all of the money saved from that could go into creating smaller teacher pods. Teachers would go to work to create their online classes and have "office" hours online and onsite for students who needed it. There would still be some activities like Band, Orchestra, Choir Rehearsals, Sporting events and practices that one can get the full experience only by participating in them, but even that can change! Imagine being able to practice with your bandmates, each from the comfort of your their home! I am getting ahead of myself again. It probably already exists. But if it doesn't...this time it is in print with a date and time stamp! The door has been opened to me and I will keep on walking. It will start with my blog and explode from there.

I can see a great demand in the field of baby-sitters and memberships to Computer Access "schools"... They might be called "Creative Arts" Institutions.

Thing 22

I started on the Wiki page and realized tht it seems a bit more like working with the coding on MySpace than it does working with blogs. Blogging has much of the work already down and is simply a matter of learning a few simply steps that you can keep using over and over with ease. Much of the formatting is already done for you. The Wiki on the other hand takes more practice, time and knowledge. I tried to add and delete some things on the Wiki but it did not turn out the way I wanted so I deleted the things that did not work for me. It is something that I will need to go back to and spend more time learning.

I beleive there is a simple answer to the question of using one over the other. It depends on whether you want complete control (blog) or you want shared control (Wiki).

http://themusicteacher.wikispaces.com/

Thing 21

The idea of sharing input online with colleagues to create documents and such makes perfect sense. I did not need to be convinced of that. The question that I posed to myself was "how might I use this with my students?".

I really enjoyed exploring the Arbor Heights Wiki. It has so much information about the happenings in the school all located on one site. So many times we send home information solely on a piece of paper or even worse, by telling the students and hoping that they will relay the important information home. This makes things clear and concise for students, parents and school staff. I was wondering how it might be used by a group of people then I thought...it has to be. The P.T.S.A. would be using it to promote their events, Arts, P.E., Classroom Teachers and Coaches etc. would need to use it to promote happenings. By having only one person in charge of an informational site can mean that info never gets put up when they have a busy schedule or forget something. It might be important that the overall feel of the WIKI be agreed to and that trustworthy people are trained and have a common understanding of its purpose. This is where the overseer must come into play. It will take a minute to get use to giving group input but it will be worth the effort! When the info is there the community frustration of "not knowing" gets reduced.

I also really liked the idea of Wikihow. I can see myself starting a "How to" manual for my Instrument classes. How to put a reed on a clarinet, How to form the correct embouchure for the flute...the students would be responsible for creating it using information that they already know or just learned. Even the smallest bit of info could make a world of difference for many students!

Thing 20

This is yet another useful tool to know about and use! In the past I was simiply trying to figure all of this out on my own...eventually I just stopped trying due to lack of time and direction. Thanks yet again for 23 Things!

The podcasts that i subscribed to are:
Classics for Kids
Music History Podcast

I was really pleased to learn that there is so much available through NPR and that it is free! One more reason to support WDET! I was looking for classical music podcasts that did not take long to complete as it is important to keep the children's attention. Classics for Kids looked like a good place to start. The Music History Podcast included more than just information about Western composers, it also had the history of the violin. I thought that was an interesting angle as instrument histories is not usually what one studies in depth in higher education Music History courses.

Education Podcast Network seemed to be a good option for locating appropriate podcasts. The one that I did not like very much was Podcast Alley as the pages were just filled with all kinds of Music and Artist pictures that I would never be interested in. Unless I have a podcast already in mind I simply do not have the time to try and sift through a website which contains a vast amount of content which is inappropriate. To me it was like trying to read the Metro Times with all of those bands... Too much chaos for this old teacher! I appreciate those sites that do much of that work for us. One still must be cautious however as age appropriate content can still be an issue, even on educational sites. It just means that there is less malcontent to encounter which is time saved. I do like I tunes as it cross-references other podcasts (like Amazon.com does with books) to further reduce search time. And, as mentioned above I like NPR programming!

Thing 19

I have been wondering about podcast for quite some time now...I finally have my answer! I had also been thinking about students using and making audio books. After seeing and listening to some I have determined that many will need to be enhanced with pictures. But not all... If something is skillfully written (i.e. Harry Potter) one can fill in the blanks with your own imagination. If you are talking about specific events and people it is helpful to have pictures.

There were several on the list that did not work for me:
Jamestown Elementary
Radio WillowWeb
Long Elementary
Think Like a Leader (I really wanted to know how a teacher taught visually
impaired students to create their own videos!)

Two podcasts that I really enjoyed were:
Storynory http://storynory.com/
G.W.Carver. http://salem.k12.va.us/gwc/podcasts/carvercast.htm

Storynory obviously for the fact afore mentioned that it rpvides story audiobooks for children. I would like to see the same stories told with different voices and even accents. As a Music Teacher I realize that people are attracted to and soothed by different voice types. There is also a difference in how we respond to a male or female voice. It would be nice to have options. There could even be an unexplored emotional element involved. Let's say, Dad is on a trip out of the country (military or otherwise) and he decides to create bedtime story podcasts for his young children. Hmmm...

I really enjoyed the way that Carver Cast was set up. Walk through the toy section of your local department store and just observe what the toys for Fisher price look like. The Carver Cast site reminds me of the same! There is a definite appeal to the set up of the site and the work done by the students is terrific! The children used humor to help capture the attention of the learners. What child doesn't like humor!

I can see vodcast episodes of the Character Education videos that my Performing Arts class wrote and acted out. Wouldn't it be fun to have it first played without the visual aid, give a writing prompt and then watch it with the video feed? So many possibilities!

I do enjoy having some of our Professional Development online as well.

Thing 18

While I explored Google Docs I was wondering how I could post PowerPoint presentations to my blog and Voila! Here it is! PP is another tool that I use not only to teach the students but I also encourage them to create their own. Using that creativity engages them more in their work. They are usually amazed at what they can actually do! I have even had them create and run interactive PP presentations to go along with plays that we have performed.

I really appreciate the fact that I can find presentations already made. The task then becomes trying to find one that is perfect for what you are trying to teach. I find myself using a few from other resources but mostly I make my own.

Music Symbols

View more presentations from elizkeren.

Thing 17

I chose the aplication KNOWTES which is a flashcard site. I found it to be fairly easy to figure out although I could see how I might have set up the program a little bit differently. I could not figure out how to load pictures from the internet, musical symbols in my case, so I chose to create another deck of cards that used text only. My deck is Music Vocabulary: Dynamics. If students are to use the application correctly you will need to take a session to walk them through how to find your group subscription and how to play the game. That is the part that I did not find to be arranged like I might do it in my own classroom. I would have liked to see more options for font as well. Centering the text is also something that i will need to go back and work on. It did not work like my word processor. I also tried to embed it from the site but it gave me an error message even after logging out "Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not closed:

If I were using this in my personal life I might use it for Bible study. It would also be a great way for parents to help their children do their homework or study for tests. In my classroom I may not need this site as I have a Promethean Board with some very similar tools. Even scratch off cards which the students really enjoy. The positive is that it may be used by students for home study.