Music from an Upside Down Point-of-View!

Hi Everyone, Well. it has been a week!  I performed on the Five O'Clock Cruise with the Landshark Band and got to travel in the Caribbean.  We visited St. Thomas, Tortola, and Nassau!  It was a great time and I got to perform with some incredible musicians! But, all things end and its now back to class and work! This week, we are talking about technological resources that assist in assessment purposes.  I am a big believer in assessment as long as it is used for diagnostic purposes and not for a be-all-end-all evaluation.  The data that is collected, in my opinion, should be used in determining the direction and pace of a classroom and not the reflection of the teacher's work.  If the data, however, shows no growth over time, then it can be used in evaluating the instructor. I have used the Class Performance System in collecting assessment data and highly recommend it.  It is pretty intuitive and can be used by K-12 eas...

So, my post is a little bit early this time around due to the fact that I will be in the Caribbean sea in about 36 hrs.  I am looking forward to performing with the Landsharks Band and some members of Jimmy Buffet's band this week on the Norwegian Bliss  for the Five O'Clock Cruise. This week, we learned of one of our final projects: to design a WebQuest assignment for the music class.  I have to tell you, I am excited about this one.  I am basing mine on the exploration of World Music.  I am a big fan of Culturally Responsive Teaching and introducing students to different types of world music.  It has really been a blessing in my life to learn about different cultures and it has shaped me into the person and teacher I am. I'm looking forward to designing an experience that the kids will enjoy.  Although, I am still researching to make sure that I can follow the design specs and qualifications.  This should b...

So this week has been a whirlwind in the Master's PRogram for UF! We learned to both Social bookmarking and to utilize the Spotify technology to create playlists to use in class.  I have to say, it was really neat to learn about these types of technological resources that are available to us. Our readings for this week have shown me a new way to utilize technological resources in ways to help better my students understanding of music. The website diigo.com  allows us to bookmark websites that can be of great relevance to our classroom material.  I also found it fascinating that we could annotate the websites and put sticky notes as well.  The computer would remember them display the notes for every return visit that was made.  I can definitely see the benefits for the classroom and also for research purposes in the academic world. For Spotify , the opportunity to share playlists leads to many possibilities for the...

For this week, my class explored the applications of music technology in the classroom.   In our readings, we learned about the applications of different technological platforms like, SmartMusic and Audacity.  We ended the week with creating a remix of a popular Muppet song. One of the things that really hit home for me was the following passage from our readings: "Researches have found that students generally prefer to practice with accompaniments.  In addition, some students believe that practicing with accompaniment allows them to learn music better and to lean it more quickly." (Bauer, 2014).  I a, by sheer coincidence, seeing this very thing play out in my classroom.  For years, I used SmartMusic with my students while learning recorder.  For the first time, I do not have access to it and am teaching without it.  I can see the difference from past years.  The students are not progressing as fast as those who did have the SmartMusic res...