Instructional Technology Blog » Music

Putting It All Together

Janice — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:39:08 +0000

If you have received your new teacher computer you have worked with various professional development modules from Instructional Technology. Many of you have asked for an example of how to put all of the learning together in a presentation that uses the presentation station as the primary delivery device for a class project.

Here is a PowerPoint designed for a high school music class to be used on the presentation station. The PowerPoint demonstrates how to combine the videos of your choosing, Delicious, and PowerPoint 2007.
youtubesymphony.ppt

The presentation gives an overview of the YouTube Symphony so that all of the students view the selected videos and have a chance to participate in a class discussion. This gives them all a base of common knowledge that will help them as they work on their assignments.

After viewing the PowerPoint, students are given a study packet designed using the PowerPoint notes feature. Assignments outlined on each slide page with instructions. You print these out from the slides by going to the Office Button > Print.
A pop up menu appears.
Go down to Print What: > Select Notes Pages and Click OK.
Using these pages, students are able to work from any computer at school, at home, or at a public library to access the Delicious resources and complete their assignments as scheduled by the teacher. Using resources in this way allows for whole class and individualized learning.

Notice that the PowerPoint is saved as a .ppt not as a .pptx in order to place it in a file share for students to take home to their own computers. The .ppt will work on a Mac or a PC with older versions of Office installed. By using the file share at your school you also have the ability to give the presentation to students who were absent.

Teaching Music with Technology at Coe Elementary

Gary — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:07:52 +0000

Teaching Music with Technology
Ken Pendergrass’ music class at Coe Elementary uses all the “regular” tools for teaching music: textbooks, drums, chimes, electric and acoustic guitars, and an old piano. But, once class begins he incorporates some new tools into his instruction, a presentation station with a multimedia computer, and a cart containing 16 “multimedia” laptops.

For Mr. Pendergrass’ students class often begins with a simple mini-lesson using the presentation station. For example, with his students gathered around he uses a music editing program called GarageBand on the computer with a projector to help the students visualize and understand the concept of form in music, specifically a “Rondo” and “ABA” pattern. After the mini-lesson, students to create their own Rondo examples using the same music editing program on a laptop. Their excitement is evident as students collaborate as they create their compositions. Once the students have completed their task, they save and transfer their work to the school server. The server storage allows Mr. Pendergrass easy access to review, share, and assess the students’ work.

“This biggest thing for me is giving hands-on access for the kids…to create music like they listen to…their motivation shoots out the roof.”

To listen Mr. Pendergrass’ interview, click the following movie.

Using Video From the Internet

Eric C. — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:13:29 +0000

More and more teachers are looking to the Internet as a source for videos to use in their classrooms. But before getting carried away there are a couple of major considerations to think about. First, is access to the videos you want blocked? Second, is your school’s Internet connection robust enough to handle watching video?

Access to Video

Schools must comply with federal CIPA rules in order to keep students safe and get network infrastructure funding. For almost all school districts this has meant Internet filters. As video content has exploded on the Internet so have the restrictions for student access which often means that student access to video sharing sites like YouTube are blocked. You have two options to solve this problem.

Use sites that are not blocked like TeacherTube.
Transfer YouTube or other video from computers that have access to the site, teacher workstations for example, onto presentation stations so they can be shared with students. (full directions here)

Bandwidth Issues

The District’s access to the Internet is limited by the amount of service we buy from the Washington State k-20 Network. Schools are further limited by the network infrastructure that connects them to the network operations center at the JSCEE. Schools connected by fiber have better bandwidth than schools that are not. Within the next 3 years we should have almost all school sites connected by fiber, but until then many elementary sites that are not connected will have less access. Keeping all this in mind, it is important to treat Internet access as a scarce resource. Your options:

Download video in off peak usage times and then show during class. A great way to do this is to use video podcasts. see Podcasts for the Classroom
Use streaming video if you have a fiber connection, but be aware of possible network slowdowns if several classrooms are using Internet intensive applications at the same time. (You may also want to check with your librarian to make sure that their book checkout times are not severely effected). Links to great video sites for education.