Category: Uncategorised

Coding

Coding is an entirely foreign concept to me, and we explored it in class this week. It was exciting to see the resources that are available to students and to see the modern and complex things that students are learning about. I can’t say I found the experimentation with coding to be entirely useful to me – I was able to create something but the process was frustrating for very little product at the end. I also can’t see myself using it as a music teacher. I’m excited for my peers in the class who might be able to use this resource in the future.

The presentation my peers gave on cell phone use was interesting. I personally don’t think we should be afraid to tell students to put their phones away. I like the idea of having “technology breaks” to give students time to use their phones if they need to, but they shouldn’t just have free access to them all the time. I think, by teaching students that there are appropriate times to use a cell phone and to not, we are teaching them a valuable life skill.

Distributed Learning

I love the idea of courses being accessible to students in multiple ways. When I think about a multi-access classroom, I think about how beneficial it can be to students with mental health issues specifically. If students have the option to take a class from home, it eliminates having to have that conversation about why a student wasn’t in class that day which can be a really difficult conversation to have over and over again. It also allows them to not fall behind when several days are missed. It makes me happy to know that it is becoming more of an option and that educators are thinking about accessibility. I don’t think there is a ton of potential for a multi-access music classroom, as you really have to be there for that kind of instruction, but I’m glad to see that it is happening in other classrooms with different instructional styles.

Minecraft as an instructional method:

This week we had students from Colquitz Middle School and their teacher come in and talk to us about Minecraft.  The teacher has been finding success using it as an instructional tool in her classes. It’s certainly a concept I have never thought of, so I was intrigued to learn more about it.

I had personally never played the game before this class, and I found it quite overwhelming – I had to make my screen really small because just moving around in the game made me feel super dizzy and disoriented, which I wasn’t expecting. I’m sure it’s something you get used to, as I’ve heard of people who can play it for hours.

I think that to use Minecraft as an instructional tool effectively, you would really have to know your students and be confident that it would work with them. Video games are something that I’ve found people either like or dislike, and it’s hard to change their minds. I feel like in the average group of middle school students you’re going to have some that are really keen on the idea of playing Minecraft, and some that are entirely disinterested. You would also have to really trust that your students are going to stay focused on the content you are trying to teach.

My favourite part of this lecture was seeing how excited the students were about learning with Minecraft. I love hearing kids talk about things they are passionate about, and it is clear that these students really enjoyed learning in this way. It was also clear that they have a great relationship with their teacher, which was also nice to see.

I don’t think Minecraft is an instructional tool that I will ever use (I can’t see how it would fit in the music classroom), but I’m still glad that I got to be a part of this lecture and see how much the kids who are doing it enjoy it. It is also nice to see a modern take on instruction.

The SAMR Model

After learning about the SAMR Model, I was a bit unsure about its use in the music classroom. Since then I’ve looked at a few resources on using technology/SAMR in the music classroom and realized that there are some things I already do that could fall under SAMR.

A reminder of what the SAMR Model is:

Some examples of SAMR in the music room:

Substitution

• Using a tuner on your phone

Augmentation

• Using musictheory.net or Tenuto to learn aural skills or theory concepts

Modification

• Using Google Docs so students can collaborate on a music research project

Redefinition

• Collaborating with other schools using Skype for a musical performance

These are all really simple things that I have seen, experienced, or thought about. Seeing them explained under the SAMR Model makes the concept seem a little less foreign to me, and I’m glad I looked up these resources to help me understand the concept a bit better.

Graphics & PowerPoint

Using PowerPoint to create graphics is actually something that I have done before, in middle school when I was required to take an information technology class. It is admittedly not a tool that I have used much since. I missed this day in class, so I watched the videos and looked at the links – it was nice to get a refresher on it and see that people are actually using this model to create interesting things.

I have always liked PowerPoint, even just as a presentation tool – I’ve found it versatile and easy to use. I also like taking a presentation and turning it into slides with just a few key points on each – it helps me remember my presentation better and feel more confident in it. I’m really intrigued by the workbooks that Mike Taylor has created using PowerPoint – they look really professional and it’s something I have never thought of before. I would like to try something like this while doing a score study.