Music Education Technology

As I read through the week’s articles, I came to realize that there are a plethora of options in regards to music software, and ways to present that software to students. When I was reading the articles, I was able to recognize many of the technologies presented; however, it was also interesting to learn about other technologies in music and to get a more in-depth concept of the materials that I have heard of in the past. Reading about all the options from drill-and-practice software to game-based software and internet-based resources available to help students learn music made me even more aware that there endless possibilities for presenting musical concepts to students.

As I discovered some of the technology options available, I was able to think about how those options could enhance my students’ musical experiences and how they may respond to such technologies. Through the information provided in the readings, and from my experience, I think that music technology programs that are available to help learn music would present exciting ways to enrich musical experiences for students. From my experiences, as the articles mentioned, students seem to connect with technology, and they seem to focus better when they are presented material using technology. Anytime I have presented material to students utilizing technology, the students seem to respond positively. For example, when I mention that we will go to the computer lab to work with Finale Notepad, the students get excited. In addition, when I presented a piece of music using Sibelius, the students were more focused and engaged than when I just gave them a piece of music. Therefore, I think that utilizing some of the technology options mentioned in the articles would greatly benefit the students.

As mentioned in the articles, there are software options that can enhance music learning for almost any music topic imaginable. The technologies can provide practice and reinforcement of the concepts that a teacher presents to the students. Even though almost all the options available seemed as if they could be useful in some manner, there were a few pieces of software that caught my attention in particular. One such piece of software, which was mentioned in the articles “Automatic Accompaniment Generators,” and in the computer-aided instruction article, was Smart Music. As an educator, I am constantly seeking better ways to assess my students. The Smart Music program provides a means for students to evaluate themselves as well as provides evidence to the teacher for assessment purposes. In addition, the program can provide tools to help motivate students to practice their instruments, which is always a constant challenge, and to provide the students with support when they are practicing. Students can access accompaniments and other musical devices, such as tuners, that can help them to develop their musical skills. The students can also record their practice and have the program analyze their playing. These are all ideas that I believe would be extremely valuable to an instrumental music student’s development. The one downfall that I did notice was that students must have a subscription, which would cost about twenty dollars a student. Another set of resources that was particularly appealing were the internet-based resources. Many of these resources are free, unlike some of the other products. This attribute makes the internet-based resources easily accessible to students and easier for teachers to utilize. I have had personal experience using some of the web-based resources, such as the New York Philharmonic KidsZone and Arts Edge and they provide quality information that is presented in an appealing manner for students. In addition to the aforementioned resources, I also found it interesting to discover the many other products that are available, and how I may be able to use those products to make music learning more interesting as well as to discover more and varied means to teach material through the teacher resources.

Along with the software available to enhance music teaching and learning, I thought that it was interesting to learn more about some of the means that are available to present the music products to the students. I found the articles on interactive white boards interesting. In my school system many of the classroom teachers have interactive white boards and there are many training sessions to help those teachers utilize the technology. Unfortunately, I have not been able to acquire interactive white board technology for my classroom; therefore, I have not been able to experience some of the seminars on the technology. As a result, I thought that it was interesting to learn about the many different types of interactive white boards available. I have seen Smart Boards and Mimio Boards at my school, but I did not realize that there are so many other options available. Also, it was exciting to learn about some of the applications of interactive white boards, and I think they could be valuable tools. Interactive white boards provide another form of technology to help engage the students. With interactive white boards, students can be exposed to musical concepts, such as notation and composition, and then interact with software in the classroom setting. Interactive white boards allow the music teacher to add a visual element to their teaching, in addition to the auditory modality that is typically utilized. This will only help enhance student learning.

In addition to the ways that interactive white boards are used to present music material, I found it interesting to learn how “One Computer Can Deliver Whole-Class Instruction.” Funding is often a problem for music educators, and although a great deal of the music software mentioned is extremely appealing and can be extremely valuable, it is not always affordable and practical with the budget limitations in many schools today. Therefore, it was interesting to learn how music technology can be made available to music students even when there is only one computer available in the classroom. I thought the ideas Kirk Kassner provided were very engaging and entertaining for students. In the article Kassner mentioned creating games to help engage the students in music learning with a single computer. I think that this is an excellent approach because it helps keep all the students involved, despite the fact that not all students are directly working with a program at every moment. I thought that the game ideas as well as the learning station strategies provided excellent ways to help make a situation with limited resources valuable and manageable. I thought the ideas were practical and could provide students in schools with limited resources a way to expose students to all the valuable music technology that is available today.