I am admittedly a tech geek and have been since the first Franklin computer came out in 1983:
I had one like this, connected to a mono-color monitor…..And I felt sooo innovative. I would sit up late at night and type out poems and stories (yes at seven, I was weird). A bit later I added a dot matrix printer and wow….I could print my masterpieces and show them to people!
Fast forward ten years: I now had a commodore 64 that was way cooler with its 800k floppy drive…...which led to an amazing discovery. A floppy disc with some printable music on it!!
So I found a cool duet written in treble clef. I printed it out and then transposed it, by hand, into bass clef. I took my new “composition” to school and to show it off. I played the duet with a few fellow trombonists and started getting some great praise…..until a good friend and now Trumpet Professor, Travis Heath, pulled me aside and said, “You’re not a composer just because you transposed Bach’s Invention No. 8 from treble to bass clef.” - Oops. This was the first time that I loved and hated technology, at the same time.
After plagiarizing Bach, I continued to mix technology and music. From cool computer generated sounds and video game music soundtracks to live recording and composition programs, there was always something cool going on. But I did this all from home. There was no connection between my music/technology dabbling and my traditional music class. There wasn’t really much relevance back then. But now….the sky’s the limit. The technology available to music educators today seems limitless, yet many school music departments remain as the last bastions of technology free zones. Why is that? Is there no way to enhance rehearsals and performances with the use us technology? How about the tons of paper that we go through every year? Or the forever lost originals? Can technology save a tree or two?
As schools (like mine) move to a 1:1 model with each student getting a chromebook or similar device, the possibilities become endless. Students can use their devices as music readers, tuners, metronomes, or even video record themselves practice or perform. This is already the norm for many students outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom, however, device integration is only trickling in. Check out this article titled “The Paperless Music Classroom”:
It gives some insight into hardware, software, costs, management, funding and the pros/cons of going almost completely paperless in the music classroom.
Although this may seem like a pipe dream in some school districts, you never know when money will be dropped in your lap. Many schools are budgeting for 1:1 technology right now for the near future. It’s not too early to develop a technology implementation plan and have it at the ready.
Just be sure none of your students steal from Bach…...at least, not too much.
Agreed. The sky is the limit. The schools that I've had the pleasure of observing that utilize technology effectively in their music ed. curriculum seem to be fostering a level of musical creativity and skill set relevancy that the non-technology based schools I've seen do not.
ReplyDeleteAt the school I am interning at this year all students have chrome books and all teachers are required to have a google classroom account no matter what subject they teach. I have noticed that the music teachers use programs like Charms to be able to share music with their students from all grades and classes. They even put up recordings of pieces they are playing and singing. Implementing technology into the music classroom is something that is happening everywhere and as future educators, we need to be prepared for that!
ReplyDelete