Interactivity #4 - The Pedagogical Uses of Technology

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I chose this lesson plan because of its reliance on student expression in the form of composition.  These types of lesson plans can really draw the student into the content that is being conveyed.  It is important in any subject area to attempt to give the lesson a personal meaning for the students, or to relate it to their social lives, cultures, and personal thoughts, feelings, and attitudes.  There was a gap in this lesson plan in that the students were to immediately be able to play the rhythm chart after a basic verbal lecture. With instruments, it is extremely important for the teacher to demonstrate how to play the instrument, and with different notation, it is important that the teacher physically shows when to play.  Another gap in the lesson was that there was no tie into traditional notation.  The students would potentially not be able to translate a rhythm chart into note values.  Therefore, it was extremely important to add the final piece of notation so that the students could translate this lesson into other rhythmic lessons that are taught with traditional notation.

Reflection: Technology Inventory for Music Education

There was something very interesting that emerged from all of this data, that I believe is specific to Music Education.  There are two very different, though equally important, types of musicians and those are the instrumentalist and the singer. In college, music majors have different paths depending on your chosen concentration in a specific instrument or voice.  As the only voice major in my content area group, I noticed that there were technologies that my instrumental major classmates knew that I didn't, and I'm sure I contributed technologies that they didn't know.  For example, I never knew about the computer program called Pyware that Scott mentioned.  It is a program that helps generate marching band drills, which is something singers don't know much about.  I found this assignment very interesting and helpful, because all music majors, once graduated, will be certified to teach both instrumental and vocal music, grades K - 12.  This list of technologies may help me in my future, especially if I end up with an instrumental teaching job, because of the different tools my fellow classmates have shared.  This interesting piece of data is specific to Music Education because there is no other content area that is so spilt between two different categories.  Even further, teaching music in primary schools is vastly different to teaching music in secondary schools.  Therefore, the number of technologies that can be used in music classrooms is large. Yet, another reason as to why this assignment may help in the future.

Interactivity #2: Technological Influence in the Music Classroom

We are living in an age where technology advances at an exponential rate.  Each day new technologies are introduced into our everyday lives for the sole purpose of making life easier and more enjoyable.  Therefore, it is a logical conclusion to make that these new technologies will find their way into our classrooms.  Many technologies are already found in the classrooms of today and of years gone by.  Music education has relied on a various pool of educational technologies since its inception; the earliest technologies were in the form of musical instruments and have evolved into the ipod and micro-sized recording devices.

In regards to which technology has had the greatest impact on music education between 1820 and 1990, I believe that the radio has had the greatest impact. The radio brought the world's music to the ears of students in the classroom.  Famous artists, live broadcasts, and intellectual musical discussions were brought into a classroom that might otherwise not have heard such music at an elevated quality.  The different time periods of music seemed to get closer together in that the music from 200, or even 500 years prior was accessible in the classroom.  Some may argue that the phonograph changed the course of music education.  While I agree that the phonograph started the ball rolling, it was really the radio that allowed students to hear a larger variety of musics because they weren't held hostage by the musical collection of their teacher.  Another excellent aspect of the radio is that it influenced later technologies like music-based television, podcasts, and online radio.  These mediums further promote the exposure of different music from around the world.  There are hundreds of music-based television stations that cater to every genre and culture.  Podcasts and online radio stations allow for music from around the world to be portable.  These technologies are used from the youngest primary grades through undergraduate and graduate work at the college level.  Technologies like these are making the world's music more accessible for our students in the classroom.

The YouTube video entitled, "History of Educational Technology," further supports my feeling that the radio has had the greatest impact in music education throughout history.  The radio was not only used for music education, but also for a variety of subject matters.  At the time of its invention, the radio was the newest fad technology out there.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt communicated with the American public with his famous "fireside chats," and the new musical form of jazz was widely heard.  Without the use of radio in the classroom, and then further supplemented at home, certain musical genres would never have become as popular or influential as they did.  Jazz, Rock-n-Roll, and the 1960s Folk music may not have received the same success as with the radio.  Students who heard these types of genres in their formative years were exposed to a great shift in popular music that they would've otherwise missed without the radio.

Hey, turn up the radio!

First Post

Hello all!
Welcome to my blog for Integrating Technology into the Classroom! I may be a bit late in starting this up, but I sure hope to catch up and have some interesting conversations.
Happy blogging!