Using the Yamaha Harmony Director Keyboard

One of the biggest struggles for music teachers is finding tools to help with assessment. In the blog I am responding to this week regarding assessments I found one tool that seems to be pretty promising. Socrative is an online tool that will work great because it is free, students do not need email addresses to access it, and it can be accessed from multiple devices. Socrative Create a free account and name your classroom Create a test that can include images, multiple choice questions, and short answer questions. You can use this for pre- and post-testing (for SGOs and SLOs) as well as exit tickets. Launch your test from your teacher account Students go to  socrative . com  (or access the iOS app depending on the device) and click on student login Students enter your classroom name Data from a pre-test in Socrative They then enter their names Then they begin the test On your device, you can see the answers as they come in live Once finished, click finish...

This week I was inspired by a music ed tech blog to try using Google Slides to create my own app.  The author discussed how Google Slides is a web-based tool that generates its own link, and allows you to link one slide to another slide, then you could create a simple app that serves numerous purposes.  He decided to create an app that would serve as a note naming game. This would be a Jeopardy-type of game where students would practice naming notes. Here are the steps he used to create the app using Google Slides: "I started with a blank Google Slide Template and looked for a font that would imitate the Jeopardy font and turned the background blue. I added the instructions and made the game a cross-curricular math connection by having the students add up their own scores  (see figure 1). Figure 3 I added a graphic of a quarter note inside a door frame. I clicked on the graphic and then clicked on the “link” icon. This brought up a menu of where to go w...

This week I found an online music ed tech blog that discussed the use of podcasts in the elementary classroom. From the title of the article I assumed it meant they were using podcasts in the classroom and students were simply listening to them. However, much to my surprise they were actually having the students CREATE the podcasts as a project-based learning activity. With younger elementary, they used podcasts to give the students a chance to “show what they know.” These are very short, simple podcasts that has them talking about, reflecting on, concepts they have learned in class. The article explained how to record these podcasts with simple tools that re readily available to any educator.  The following is an excerpt from the article that explains the process the author uses: "For these younger elementary podcasts, I still follow what Meredith suggests for older students when podcasting: think, script, record, edit, and publish. I thought about our musical objective ...

This week I found an article on the EdTech website titled  Tech in the Music Classroom Creates Efficiencies, Improves Accessibility by Meghan Bogardus Cortez.  The article is based on t he Special Music School at Kaufman Music Center in New York City was established with this research in mind. The school, which teaches music as its core subject, frequently ranks among the highest in standardized test scores, reports Education Dive.  This caught my attention immediately, a school that teach music as its core subject? It was amazing to discover how technology is being used in various ways in the performing arts schools.  Some performing arts schools are using 3D printers to create custom musical instruments that better fit students’ bodies and teach them about design, physics and resonance of instruments.   For seasoned music teachers, technology is also quite useful. Just as any other teacher might use data to track student progress, music teachers can work wit...

This week I realized that march that our Concert Band was rehearsing was slowing down and I tried to fix this issue with the metronome. Once I turned the metronome on the students responded and sped the music up to the correct tempo, using the metronome. Once I turned the metronome off the problem came back, slowing down again, especially when they played softly.  This is a common problem in most ensembles, when the music gets softer they use slower air speed and the tempo suffers. As I was analyzing this issue I remembered an app that a colleague told me about last year called Tempi.  Tempi measures the tempo live through recording, while we play, and lets us analyze the performance after we play. This app works as a reverse metronome. This allows me to not only record the ensemble, but I can play the recording for the students and they can see exactly where the tempo is slowing down.  The metronome feature in this app shows them what the actual tempo is in real time wit...

I have been searching for new tools to use and update my teaching as well as my classroom as a whole.  In my search this week I found a site that has a music teachers toolbox from Carnegie Hall! Of course, Carnegie Hall is THE cathedral of the performing arts, so anything they suggest is always welcome. Even better, it's free! The toolbox contains lesson plans, resources, assessments, video resources and documented best practices. These resources are all sort by category and grade level, making it easy to use and access the information. While the grades are only listed up to 5th grade, these exercises are relevant to ALL ages. In my opinion the high school students LOVE activities that are geared toward younger students, no to mention that the concepts are simplified and very easy to understand. I focused on one tool from the toolbox, the composing a melody (under the 4th grade level).  https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Educators/Music-Educators-Toolbox/Resources/...

A new tool I have just stumbled upon is the rhythm randomizer - http://www.rhythmrandomizer.com. This free tool helps me create rhythmic patterns at random to use for student exercises in class. The traditional method of teaching rhythms is to photocopy a worksheet with lots of rhythms on it and go line by line having students count or write in the counts of the rhythms. This method works fine, however students can look ahead and write in the counts before you go over them as a class, or they can copy off their neighbor to get the write counts.  With this new tool everything is spontaneous and the students literally have to think on their feet and prove they know how to count the rhythm on the spot. There is no time to think about it, look ahead or copy off someone else because the tool is creating these rhythms on the spot.  I have used this tool with my students and it has proven to be effective in making them think on their feet and access their rhythmic reading skills...

This week in the Butler band room we are gearing up to head into our home stretch of concert series. Next Thursday begins our BUSY season, as we present a concert at Butler on Saturday we will present a concert at the Phi Beta Mu Invitational Concert at Male High School and the following Tuesday we will play at our annual District Assessment festival at Atherton. As we are gearing up for this crazy set of performances, we turn to our technology to help us prepare. Every rehearsal is crucial for getting our music prepared and finding time outside of rehearsal to maximize rehearsal time is imperative. The tool I use to help me utilize my time outside of rehearsal is the H1N Zoom Recorder. This recorder is one of the handiest tools I have ever purchased, because it can be my ears when I am working. I usually record the entire rehearsal this time of year for multiple reasons. The first reason is the obvious one is to record the band's progress and to listen to it outside of rehe...

This week I found a new blog that discussed how to plan instructional maps, lesson plans and course schedules for a Music Technology course.  The blogger describes different formats for planning different level classes at different lengths, including 9 week, 18, week and 36 week long course maps.  Not only were there sample maps helpful in designing a course plan for the music technology classes, I found it interesting how the blogger draws parallels between the traditional ensemble music class setting and the music technology class. Her approach is to treat the technology as an instrument, while she uses the five main elements, rhythm, form, melody, harmony and expression, of music to create her curriculum map.  She points out that most instrumental music teachers approach their instruction from the perspective that they are using melodies to teach students how to play an instrument rather than using an instrument to teach melody as a concept. Music technology courses ar...