Technology in a locked School System

As a long term substitute, it is interesting to see how local board's of education have not embraced a Web 2.0 philosophy. In my opinion, the decision makers are uninformed as to the benefits that a mixed approach classroom can provide: Face to face instruction each day, then online instruction at home where they can relive the lesson, or interact with the content of the lesson. This gives students more access time with the materials. Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind when I think about this. So far, every group or online group activity has been blocked or banned by the system. As an example, I currently go between two schools. It is difficult to keep up with all the meetings at both places. I attempted to set up a Live.com one note notebook where we could collaborate online from wherever we were. This was blocked, so the system is actually preventing their teachers from being more productive, especially when we have to collaborate to meet the needs of the kids.

Music Instruction must come into the 21st century

With many music programs in schools, the need to integrate 21st century technology components into the curriculum have become paramount. For a musician, we currently can create, edit, produce, and distribute music from our own computer stations using computer technology as a vehicle for creating a marketable product for the music community. In the past, we have had to visit a live performance in order to experience art. Now, we can use the computer to create our own musical field trips. This software will allow a new generation of young music composers, singers, and players opportunities to interact with music.

In music production, software such as Finale and Sibelius are the industry standards. There are less expensive versions of software that can be used to create and edit music. Musescore is an open source music writing program that can be used to get you introduced into electronic composition. As with any software program, there needs to be some learning time involved with how to navigate and create your scores. Finale makes "Notepad," which for less than a nice evening meal at a restaurant, allows the user to start creating their own music. Finale and Sibelius both allow realtime performance input via midi, mouse, or note name via the computer keyboard. The trick for real time performance is the quantization settings. It is quite tricky to play in perfect time, so editing your recorded performance will be in order in most cases. As with learning anything that is new for us, it seems difficult at first, yet with repeated practice and repetition, it becomes easier. Many of the tools are very powerful, once you learn to use them. This can be saved, and then the software will create a recording of your composed work, which is a great benefit for copyright, as well as distribute the creation using webpages, blogs, and the Sibelius and Finale music sites as well.

In my experience, there are very few students who are exposed to this type of music immersion. We are busy teaching music literacy and performance skills for our students for the school and local community. The standard that Students will read and write music apply's here partially. Music creation software allows the students to focus on a best practice in learning music by writing it, editing it, producing it, and distributing it.