When I think about what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century, one word comes to mind: TECHNOLOGY! School teachers are no longer sending out paper newletters once a week; now we have facebook pages and blogs. Homework and reminders for events come via iphones. Students will shortly be leaving behind the desktop computers and even laptops for tablets and IPads in each classroom. Textbooks will no longer be carried, but come in the form of ibooks. Many of these changes have already been made. The challenge now is to keep up with the advancements. The technology is often outdated months within being introduced and I wonder if schools may find it difficult to keep up with these changes for financial reasons. Much of the financial burden may fall on the parent, making public school education costs difficult for them to handle.
As a music educator, I am looking for ways to begin to incorporate apps, computer programs and other forms of technology into my program. Many of the music specific apps that I have found are not meant for large group instruction with only one IPad. However, I have found some music apps that have been useful to me for planning instruction. iClassics is wonderful for finding listening examples for composers at my fingertips and Pinterest has a pleathera of ideas for music lessons.
Rhythm Cat is a good introductory rhythm app that can be used, but classes of 23 who would benefit from this particular app sometimes have trouble waiting their turn. VidRhythm is fun for putting together short videos, but seems to work best with small groups and the record time is very short.
I am thinking of setting up a center to use some of these apps with. Some ideas for centers I have are: a listening center where students listen and fill out a listening evaluation that is grade appropriate; a music game center for review concepts; an IPad center with the music apps; a recorder center to practice fingerings for belt tests; a composer center (for learning about composers and for composing small pieces of their own), a keyboard center (with paper keyboards for now :)), and a music bee center (for note names and staff notation). Students can be divided easily into groups of 2 or 3 by selecting popsicle sticks and pairing them up at the beginning of class. This would also allow for students to take recorder tests with me on these days if they need to catch up on a belt.
I think it would be great to be able to sync our classrooms up and teach together or sing together or play together! Students could play while the other class sings or they could work together. It would be exciting to be able to connect with elementary classes in other states or even parts of the world to hear them sing or play for us and vice verse.
The possibilities seem endless and I hope that music is able to keep up with the technology or I fear that it will lose its place in the education of our children. Research has found that music uses both sides of the brain making it valuable in all areas of development. Music affects the growth of a child’s brain academically, emotionally, physically and spiritually. To lose this area of public education because we didn't keep up with technological growth of society would be tragic.
