Responding to Music with Technology

This week’s class started with reading in Music Learning Today by William Bauer. The starting of chapter five the story of Elizabeth a middle school general music teacher. Even though she was a middle school general music teacher, her passion and most of her education had been in choral programs. She was up to the task of teaching a general music class and wanted to instill the qualities that made her love choirs. At the start of her teaching, this was not a great strategy. The students did not respond to her teaching and they also showed no interest in the music that she had a passion for. So she decided to take a different approach to teaching music to her classes. Elizabeth had included the students in their own learning of music. This made the students excited about music and most of the problem that she had in the class went away.

When I look at this story it helps to remind me of a few things to remember about teaching. What music do students like? How can I make this a part of their lesson and still get them to the goal? How can technology help make them better musicians? What kind of music would they like to make? Students are all different each one has a different personal preference in music. We can start to answer some of these questions by just listening to the students. Having the student make a list of songs or share a song with class is a great incite on how to engage the students in making music. When a student can relate to the music they are making it draws them closer to the music. The participation is better and the students care about the music they make. This also makes the students willing explore new music to perform.

In the class this week we also look at a very powerful teaching tool Zaption. This website has a lot to offer the teacher and the student. When using the website you can take a video of what you like to cover and insert question about the video. This is also helpful for assessment and it can also be used in many situations. Also in the class we had to evaluate music software. I choose an ear training program called EarMaster. I have used other programs like EarMaster before, but this one was good for the beginner as well as the student who had taken ear training. We also used Diigo this week a website that organizes your bookmarks and allows you to tag them for later use. This week's assignments were beneficial to continue our look a music technology. The class also continues to expand our knowledge of what we can do to help a student become better musicians and performers.