Week #1: Technology as Tools

This week began an eight-week journey through the Technology Assisted Music Learning graduate class for the online masters of music education program at the University of Florida. When I looked at the syllabus on the day the class became available online, I saw a few familiar terms - Noteflight, Audacity, Twitter, to name a few. I have used various forms of technology throughout my own music education over the years, as well as in the various classroom settings in which I have taught during my young career. 

This class uses the text by Dr. William Bauer entitled Music Learning Today: Digital Pedagogy for Creating, Performing, and Responding to Music (2014). Dr. Bauer talks about two main groups of users of technology: digital natives and digital immigrants. Digital natives thrive in our technology-rich society, while digital immigrants have had to learn and adapt as technology has been introduced. It is safe to say that today's youth and young adults are digital natives, having been born into a world with technology. It is amazing to see the number of toddlers at my church who use iPads to play games or watch videos. For those born in the past 15-20 years, the ability to understand technology has become second nature. This presents an opportunity to use technology in ways more than just that of entertainment or convenience (Bauer, 2014).

Dr. Bauer states that "Technology can be an effective tool to facilitate student learning" (Bauer, 2014, p. 7). When I taught elementary general music, I was blessed to have various forms of technology in my classroom. I had two Mac mini computers, five iPads, and 5 Mac books. The mac minis were set up with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Throughout my curriculum, I found various ways to use the technology to help teach the concepts, as well as help reinforce the lessons. For instance, my third graders went through a unit on the pentatonic notes of the C scale during the spring semester. By this time, students were familiar with the solfege signs of do, re, mi, and sol. Through this unit, la was introduced, and these presented the pentatonic notes for the unit. After doing two class rotations in teaching pentatonic and doing some singing activities, we spent two class rotations going through the stations - Mac mini's, iPads, and Mac books. I heavily utilized the website called Teachers Pay Teachers to download games to use and edit for the reinforcement of the pentatonic notes. I had one game I edited, in which each problem to solve began with a recording of me singing a sequence of three notes. The students could click on the play button to listen to the recording as many times as they needed, and they were given multiple options of note sequences to look at and choose the one which matched the recording. Students were instructed to sing through each different option and then choose the one which matched. Because they were instructed to sing, I could easily tell if they weren't and make sure they are singing. Following this game, students could watch a video of Bobby McFerrin incorporating solfege into one of his acts. 

For the Mac books, students used a website called Tone Matrix to play around with sounds. The matrix was full of boxes. When clicked, each box would loop a pentatonic note. Students would activate as many boxes as they wanted, and many drew shapes with the boxes. For the iPads, the students played a game to which I forgotten the name of the app. The app involved dropping rain drops and drawing vines for the raindrops to bounce off of. When the drops bounced, they sounded a pentatonic note. The higher the vine was placed, the higher the pitch; the lower the vine placement, the lower the pitch. Both of these activities served as a release, but simultaneously engaged students in experimenting with sounds and sound collections. 

I do not think this unit would have been nearly as successful without the integration of technology. In the same right, we were challenged this week to compose a song using a brilliant website called Incredibox. This app is also available for phone or tablet, and it has a simple premise: there are "guys" who need help getting dressed. The options are broken down into four categories: beats, effects, melodies, and voices. It was fun to find different combinations of these different sounds to put together a custom recording. Activities like this, as Dr. Bauer talks about, are great opportunities for opening up students to new things and teaching them concepts such as composition. I have given students group composition assignments before, and students are often hesitant to try. Technology such as Incredibox, as well as other options like Garage Band, can be great tools for teaching and enhancing the learning experience, and should be used in the classroom. I will be using Incredibox with my students this week. I can't wait!

Jon

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York City: Oxford University Press.