During October I was fortunate enough to be asked to attend the AIS ICT Integrators Conference at Tara School for Girls in NSW Australia. The organisers asked me to present on my integration of Music Technology into the Classroom, as well as give demonstrable lessons or units of work students attendees could take away and use. I am finally able to get to my computer after the Christmas rush and as the year comes to a close I thought it would be good to show my students’ efforts for 2010 as I move on to other adventures.
Needless to say I was speechless and scared at the same time. I am currently a part-time music teacher, part-time guitar teacher, part-time masters student and although that doesn’t add up what was I going to present on? In my classroom and private lessons I was writing various units on using various CAI (computer assisted instruction) software to help my students build up their aural and notation skills. I was interested in the results various CAI software packages had on student learning when integrated into a holistic music program. That is, not just sitting my students in front of a screen for an hour or so, but actually integrating drill and practice software with classroom singing, instrumental practice, music theory and project based learning. When my students would turn up to class and ask, “what are we doing today?” with excitement in their voices I knew I might be on to something.
The result was better than I could have hoped. The conference was a complete success with exciting presenters such as Jeff Utecht @jutecht and Jenny Luca @jennyluca. Many presentations were inspiring and well worth a revisit in the new year.
To view the complete content from my presentation plus free downloads and videos visit the virtual noticeboard Spaaze here and make sure you scroll around (up, down, left and right) as I had embedded many different resources depending on my audience.
I have included as a PDF download my review of CAI software Auralia and other IWB applications including their uses in the music classroom. Below is also a short video on how to navigate in Spaaze. Just imagine using this site to promote your own students’ work to parents and the wider school community! It can be made private or public and as an educational tool I would highly recommend you taking a look.
Top image courtesy of http://ateneocord.org.ph/
