Google Sites

Program information site

This week I had to create a website! I'll admit to feeling slightly uncreative and a little frustrated by the process. I certainly will not be making any money in the website design field anytime soon!

My site was created to be an information resource for teachers, staff and parents concerning our upcoming spring music program. This is a big deal at our school and quite the celebrated event! This is a basic design that probably will not be used in reality. Unfortunately there are several steps to go through in order to actually implement this sort of thing in my organization. Here I have created the basics and will explain what I might also add to the site if  I was allowed to do so.

Page one is the general info page. A three month calendar gadget is perfect because this is about how much time the whole school is aware of program preparation. Of course I am preparing much earlier, and in future sites could easily provide updates throughout the year. I would love to begin with my earliest ideas and allow staff, student and even parent input!

Page two lists the actual program and a countdown gadget to the day. Again this could be utilized during the year as adjustments are made to the program. Often I will tentatively plan to use certain songs but then a class or a student will really shine with something new and/or unexpected so I will adjust the program accordingly.

Page three deals with specifics that classrooms will need to know. I send out emails and usually paper memos but these things get lost of overlooked. Having a webpage would be a great resource for this type of information. Classes could also provide feedback and ask questions as needed.

As our organization begins to implement technology I can see this tool being a great platform for our students to interact with the internet. I would love to add pictures of students actually practicing and provide updates on props and set design. It would be helpful to take it truly public to serve as promotion of for the program. I will definitely keep this tool in mind for next year and see if I can make a go of it "officially" with my organization!

Concept Map

This week I developed a concept map for a music class I might do with either my older elementary or middle school EI students. I will admit it was a little difficult because we spend a lot of time with picture communication or symbolic communication in what we do. However, I did like the idea of creating an overall picture of the project as a point of reference for my students. To have a diagram like this could be useful in providing a place to look back and check work; to make sure we are on task and completing the necessary steps to successfully do the activity. I chose to do a song-writing task and have organized the map with the two major divisions in the task - music and lyrics. We would first discuss the song topic - this may be a title, a theme, or even a style the student would like to use. The first main component of our writing would be music, which includes the rhythm or beat of the song; harmony, which involves the chords; and melody, which provides music for the lyrics. The second main component is the words. This side is divided between the chorus, which repeats a main idea several times; and verse, which generally is the part of the song that tells the story. I would use the map as a reference point throughout the lesson, drawing students' attention back to check for all aspects of the song, to problem solve when having difficulty generating ideas, and to assess the final product.

I do like how the concept map provides a picture of how complicated the process of writing a song might be. Just be looking at it I realize that I may need to put more effort into developing the musical portion of my song because there seems to be more parts to it. I also can see how the chorus is a simpler portion of the words. I would probably want to start with that to get my process started. Seeing the longer chain for the verses might encourage me to think about my story and how I will develop it over the course of the song.

Screencasting

ooThis week's project was more fun than I anticipated - and easier as well. My screencast shows use of an app for my computer that creates music with use of a grid and the four elements: earth, wind, water, and fire. It is simple to use and provides a great experience for my students. In addition to just having fun using the computer and engaging in a successful and productive activity, students practice attention, patience, listening, and executive function when participating in this task. I could use this screencast to assess a student's ability to follow directions or to provide a short activity for the classroom if I was unavailable.

Enjoy!

Side note: I redid my original screencast. The first one was very large and I couldn't upload it. What you have here is the shortened version. I would provide a short example for the student  before having them create their own. I also would record the projects so each student could listen to their own a well as their classmates' and talk about the differences in each. We also could discuss what sounds they enjoyed the most and why.

Maps and more

This week I am making a Google Map and creating an assignment with it! My assignment is for hypothetical students, as my students would not complete an assignment like this. My idea for this lesson comes from the problem I noticed with many of my older EI students. When we would talk about current music and artists they seemed to have little to no idea about anything outside their realm of existence. This idea is to partly address that issue and hopefully provide a broader world view for them. One of the things we have talked about is how different people, places, and things influence and affect the music we listen to and the musicians we enjoy.  My assignment idea is to have students locate people around the country that they know and make music. This might involve Facebook contacts, family, friends who have moved away, and people they have heard of. Another addition might be places where famous musicians grew up or went to school.
My map includes several people I know via Facebook and LinkedIn, who are either directly involved in making music or have kids in school music programs. Follow up to this lesson might include finding out what exactly these people are doing with music, sharing songs and concert dates, or talking about what might influence the music based on location.



View Who's Making Music? in a larger map

The second part of our assignment was to look at some of the business uses for Instructional Technology and discuss how they could work for me. One section that caught my attention was when talking about Project Managers and Instructional Designers. I could see the teacher as the project manager - solely responsible for all the aspects of instruction: planning, developing, teaching, assessing...It occurred to me that if Instructional Designers could take on some of that responsibility the teachers might be freed up to give students more attention therefor making their jobs more fulfilling and effective. A second area I think I see coming to education is the "better, faster, cheaper" idea. It seems to me the business model is fast approaching education and I think we would be wise to jump on the bandwagon - it may be what saves education. It will change the way we think about evaluation, budgets, accountability; maybe all aspects of education. In the long run however, it may allow us to continue to do what we do. Just utilizing web-based training could save time and money, and provide a challenge for designers to provide high quality instruction.