Learning to Podcast

I really understand what it means to be a life-long learner today; I created my first podcast! It was fun! It helped me to better understand why today's students love technology.  It's amazing the products that can be created, and as I was editing some of the statements made by my interview subjects regarding their use of technology, I became keenly aware of  how easy it could be to misquote or misrepresent someone's thoughts or feelings.  Technology ethics, another important concept to be taught. 

The assignment was to study students' use of technology. The link to my podcast is: http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/15277
I hope you enjoy hearing their thoughts about how they use technology in their world.  

Meeting the needs for 21st Cenury Job Skills

I have spent time this week reviewing many viewpoints and articles regarding the role of education in preparing students for their future, and what types of employment skills they will need to be successful in the workplace of tomorrow.  Focusing on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website, I discovered their mission is to ensure that education in the United State, K-12, has the development of 21st century skills at the core of its purpose and passion. The Partnership works to build understanding and value of these skills among leaders in the fields of education, business, community and government (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.). 

I found their website well organized, visually appealing and containing a wealth of information. The website explains the groups mission, history, members very well.  As I was working my way through the drop-down tabs across the top of their site, however, I found myself feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information available. The Skills Framework graphic (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.) gives a strong visual representation of their beliefs and mission and the important connection between student outcomes and the necessary support systems to achieve these outcomes. 

As I researched the site, I discovered an Arts Map, which was very encouraging to see that fine arts education has value and importance in this framework.  There are maps for all content areas, and as an elementary general music teacher, it is important to me that fine arts is viewed as a content area.  I also appreciated reading the links to what educators, employers and the public is saying about the value of 21st century skills. 

While I did not find anything on the website or in the literature that I disagreed with, I found myself frustrated at what felt like I was reading the same information over and over.  How often do we find that happening in our education professional development?  We hear of a good idea but there is no plan of implementation.  The more I researched and read, the more I found myself feeling this way.  I was looking for more sold implementation strategies on the site than what was offered. 

There is no doubt that the US education system has not kept up with advances in technology.  With a strong focus on assessment and mandated testing in order to provide the public with measurement data on the achievement of schools, we have fallen behind in equipping our students with the more important skills of communication, collaboration, problem solving and creative thinking, or the 4Cs (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.).  It is now more important that ever that teachers update their pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment to better prepare our students for their futures (Laureate Education, n.d.).

References:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/overview

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.) Skills for the 21^st Century. [Video Webcast].

https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_3397675_1%26url%3D

 

Using Blogs as a Productive Teaching Tool

As I continue to focus on the task of using technology to do different things rather than just doing things differently (Thornburg, 2004), I like the idea of using student blogs to analyze music.  The elements of music are frequently talked about and discussed in my elementary general music class.  In all grade levels, kindergarten through fifth, weekly effort is put into helping the students have an understanding of melody, harmony, pitch, tempo, dynamics, form, tone color, rhythm and beat and how they are used to create music.   The ultimate goal is to have students develop a discerning ear for how the elements are expressed in different musical selections.  Both the ear and knowledge need to be developed through frequent listening activities and exposure to a variety of musical styles and compositions. 

In fourth and fifth grade music class, students will create blogs about class listening selections.  The blogs will give students an opportunity to analyze what they are hearing using musical terms and strengthen their understanding of the elements of music.  Initially, their blogs will give them the opportunity to privately express their understandings and feelings about pieces of music.  As students' blogging experience grows, they could be invited to post comments about classmates interpretations. This experience could also lead to blogging between students in another class, another school, or even possibly a composer.  Incorporating this activity into the elementary music class curriculum supports the goal of doing different things because it presents the opportunity for very different lines of communication for students to experience.  It also gives every student a voice and opportunity to express their personal reactions to music in a private setting, something a tradition, teacher-lead class does not offer. 

Weekend Musical Accomplishments

It has been a great musical weekend!

It began with learning some new tricks on incorporating some of the teaching materials, such as Rhythm Call Charts and Note Naming Activities, into flip charts for my Promethean Board.  I am beyond excited about this new technology discovery.  I have spent the first four weeks of summer wondering how I would do this piece of the puzzle, really hoping that I wouldn't have to completely reinvent the wheel since I have already developed some leveled rhythm activities for beginning readers. This is when you love technology, when you learn how to properly use it, save time and be productive.  I can't wait to continue with more of this type of work this week.  It brings a peaceful and comfortable feeling to know that I am using my time wisely and efficiently to prepare for a new school year that will be starting soon.

Today I had the opportunity to perform, participate and direct in a concert at church.  We are blessed to have a vital, active music ministry program.  Some selections were Patriotic while others were summertime favorites.  We enjoyed vocal, instrumental and piano solos along with keyboard ensembles, handbell and senior choir performances.  Prior to the concert I was somewhat worried about audience attendance; how many people could we pull in on a holiday, summer weekend?  The support and interest was amazing! The pews were full of community and congregation friends and family there to enjoy and support our efforts. This is our second such concert.  Our first concert took place in October as we dedicated our new grand piano. 

All this leads me to think about my students and how they are exposed to music.  Their exposure and knowledge of music is completely different than what I experienced when I was growing up, mostly due to advances in technology.  I plan on uploading some of the performances to You Tube to share with the world. I will be able to show the video of the saxophone quartet this fall, allowing my students to hear and see a soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, which will have a significantly stronger impact on them as compared to my just telling them we have different sizes of saxophones.  Yes, technology can definitely enrich learning experiences, I am learning how to utilize and plan for such experiences, and that is as exciting as today's concert!

The beginning of a Blog

The time had come -- time to earn a Master's Degree and the time to upgrade my technology skills and integrating them into the classroom to impact and improve my teaching.  I somewhat chuckle to myself, and wonder what in the world I was thinking, but here I am creating a blog for my first technology class, questioning my every click!  One thing is for certain -- my knowledge and skills will improve and increase.  I'm just hoping I won't bombard the tech department with too many questions.

The questions I faced this week after reading and watching the Learning Resources was:  Am I using technology to do things differently or am I using technology to do different things?  I understand and appreciate the difference and accept the challenge to use technology to do different things, but I will also defend using technology to do things differently.  I will be using an interactive white board with my classes for the first time this fall.  Yes, we will still be reading and clapping Rhythm Call Charts and practicing note naming, but we will be doing it in a manner that is more interesting and exciting to the students, and in a manner in which they are familiar and comfortable using.  Doesn't that count for something?