School 2.0

I visited the School 2.0 website and spent time learning about it. The site is intended to initiate discussion about what schools might be like in the future (or currently) with the use of the technology tools that are available. I looked at the Learning Ecosystem map right away and was impressed with how well-thought it was. While it did not appear to be very user-friendly, watching the tutorial made it much easier to understand. It was interesting to watch clips of educators who are currently using this 'model' and to see how the various buildings and departments became interconnected on the map. It demostrated the concept that technology can break down walls and expose learners to more diverse school experiences. In one video, a teacher stated that our job as educators is not to teach students material, but instead to teach them to learn, asserting that technology is a vehicle for this. This thought resonated with me as I continue to think about making music education more 'contemporary', given the amount of music technology my students currently have access to.

Clearly, in these economic times, one challenge for school districts is to be able to acquire these technologies with the amount of funding available to them. I think that school districts could approach this challenge by thinking differently about budgeting. Perhaps some type of technology negates the need to purchase something else, like textbooks or visual materials. As I continue to learn more about technology , I hope it becomes more available as mainstreamed materials, instead of 'special purchase items'.

I like the School 2.0 site. I also envision it having a database of lesson ideas that range a variety of curricular areas, media clips of some of these ideas in use, and thought on how to use different types of technologies in the classroom.

Yong Zhoa podcast

As I listened to the podcasts, I have to admit that I struggle to find a balance with all of the new technology out there. The Youtube video we watched frightened me a little bit as a parent, given the amount of "screen time" it indicated that children get prior to entering college. My first instict has always been to limit the amount of screen time my own children have, and hope that my student's parents do the same. To much screen time, in my opinion, can limit a child's creativity and make them less inclined to be productive.

On the other hand, I did like some of the points that Dr. Zhoa made about where education is headed and how we need to change our thinking about what school should be like. Using technology as a tool can teach children life skills, such as decision making and creativity. I am still processing the discussion about limiting access to technology by filtering what our students are able to experience on the internet. What is the solution, then, to the issues of innapropriate material, cyber-bullying and the like? The discussion on gaming technology and and how that can be used to teach curriculum made me think. I have used that concept with my music classes as a means of teaching instruments of the orchestra on kid-friendly websites. But then, does that compare with being able to look at, listen to and touch a real instrument in my classroom? And does technology take the human element out of the picture to a degree? I can think of several people that I have known, particularly in college, who spent many hours in front of a computer, but then didn't know how to interact well with people or be productive in any way (like showering?).

I am rambling a bit, but these are thing I think about, especially with young children at home. I have to say that I am both hopeful and fearful about many of these things and wonder how we can find balance as parents and educators.

Collaborative Project

As an assignment for my online course, I was asked to consider what I might create as a collaborative project. It would be interdisciplinary, thus students could work on it in different "subjects" during their day and focus on the various types of concepts. My idea is for students to create their own musical instrument. It would have to play various pitches (perhaps the pentatonic, or 5-note scale) and be user-friendly. Students could touch on elements of sound in their science curriculum, write about their instrument for an ELA experience and compose and on it and notate for a musical experience. The kids could research how different types of instruments were developed through history and relate it to how their instrument evolved as they were creating it. The abilities to problem solve and think creatively would be developed during this project. The result of this project would be that students would have a functional instrument that could be used creatively and could reflect upon the experience of making it.

Google Docs

For this assignment, I was to research Google Docs, Skype and Nings. As someone who is pretty interested in technology, I had heard people talking about these technologies, but had never seen them in action. I was most excited about Google Docs. After watching a short YouTube clip about it, I thought the idea was brilliant! I, too, struggle with trying to make sense of various multiple copies of a document as it gets passed around from contributor to contributor. What a great way to have participants all enter data in one place.

I plan to use this personally for things such as church activities. I think that I will use this in the classroom in units such as 'Instruments of the Orchestra', while I am in the computer lab with my classes. It is a great way for us music teachers across the district in different buildings to update documents and forms together. I am excited about the possibilities.

Social Media

As an assignment for my online technology course, I am trying out a social media site called PLURK. My goals for participating on this site are to connect with other professional music teachers and perhaps discover interesting ways to use this site for educational purposes. I am definitely still learning!

As a diehard Facebook fan, I am trying to cope with the change in format. I like the timeline feature on the site, as well as the ability to have postings show up on other sites, such as Twitter. I also like that you can search for keywords that you might find in another's postings, such as the title of a musical composition. When I did a search for the compser Carl Orff, I found postings from people all over the world.

Find me on Plurk!
username: KimRudd

VoiceThread

http://voicethread.com/share/994697/

I just created a brief VoiceThread account to complete assignment 1 of the Web 2.0 course. I like that this is a media that allows many people to comment and record voice clips all in one place. I think that this is what some educators thought Facebook might be useful for, until it became so mainstreamed. I can think of many ways that teachers could use this site to involve students in a conversation about many different topics. I like some of the ideas that I read about on the VoiceThread site. I am definitely interested in learning more.

Web tools I like to use

Being a music teacher, I love the internet because it gives me access to many different recordings, resources and different video clips of musical performances. While I don't allow my kids to search YouTube, I love that it has so many clips on it that I sometimes like to show under my control. My fourth graders recently learned to sing the song "Kookaburra" in canon, and I was able to show the kids a clip of a live kookburra bird, along with the "laughing" sound it makes. I have used clips to teach famous songs from American history, as well as instruments of the orchestra. The amount of clips on the site is virtually limitless.

Since I have so many clips that I like to reference, I was so excited to learn about Delicious. What a great place to keep all of these links! I love that I can tag the links and find other links based on shared tag names with other Delicious account holders. It also keeps me from having to do a search each time I want to find a clip I once used. Now if there was only a place to remember all of the various passwords needed to maintain all of these accounts. :-)

Using wikis in the classroom

I just listened to the clips on using wikis in the classroom and think it is very exciting. I am still trying to differentiate the differences between using a blog and using a wiki. I like that the wiki appears to be one step futher down the path of using technology in a collaborative way. The history feature also seems to be a great benefit of the wiki. For children, who are spending an increasingly large amount of time on the internet, this is a great way to be able to post assignments and get students involved in getting feedback and reviewing work. I like the idea that when your work is on display for others, it encourages you to put forth a lot of effort and to do your best work.

The login and password process is an essential element of both the blog and wiki. Also, as our culture moves toward being "green", this is a great way to review and refine student work without increasing our paper consumption.