This is part two of a three-part blog series (with cliffhangers) about my recent trip to the Music Technology in Education Conference held in Sydney from 11th to the 13th April. Part two will concentrate on my own presentations and part three will deliberate on the aftermath of MTEC2011 (there has been much tweeting via #mtec2011).
My Presentations @ MTEC2011
Now of course I am biased, but I think they went really well. My first large conference with over 5 hours of presenting and I enjoyed every moment of the interaction, the questions and the technical difficulties. However, from the outset of this post, if you attended any of my MTEC2011 sessions I would appreciate your feedback using this Google Docs form, MTEC2011 Sessions Evaluation – Samuel Wright.
From late 2010 when I submitted five proposals to Katie Wardrobe of Midnight Music and made each session ‘hands on’ with included coursework, I didn’t think any would be accepted – let alone all five! From October 2010 to April 2011 I managed to put together the following handouts, notes and videos that provided me with the opportunity to engage with my participants and show how rewarding teaching music with technology can be.
To start off the list of my presentations with materials I wanted to start with an organisational shout out to the organisers of MTEC for giving each participant a thumb drive (memory stick) that held every presenters session notes. I was able to refer to my notes, which participants could read on their own laptops and present from a Smartboard. In case something did go wrong, or participants wanted to explore (or tweet) while I was talking, I then uploaded all my resources to Spaaze.
Spaaze is a virtual lawn, cork-board or drop-space where educators, presenters or students can link materials, links, videos and files. In my case I uploaded all the materials I need for each session and directed my listeners to access it during the session. It is the green lawn on the ‘useful links’ part of my website or you can click the image above to access all my notes. View the linked video for a quick introduction to Spaaze.
Now for the Presentation Notes
I have linked them here as an ISSUU library, which means you can read and download them just by clicking on them. Additionally, if you are a music educator please check out my library and the libraries of others for more educational resources. I have many more projects which I will publish to ISSUU soon!
Don’t forget that if you want more of these projects I am available to come to your school to share my resources & help you develop exciting project based learning tasks that fit your programs. Contact me.
In the evaluation of each presentation I came away with the following points
• Having each presentation as a ‘hands on’ session allows more interaction with the participants
• Session notes, while good, are only part of the presenters toolbox. Being adaptable is a better requirement!
• Introducing each session with an example video or student work-sample was a good idea
• Spaaze helped me immensely in providing resources and for giving ‘extension’ opportunities to quick learners
• Have a series of ‘the next step’ projects to talk about e.g. when demonstrating a GarageBand task
• Linking the ‘Concepts of Music’ into each session allowed teachers to follow my thought process in lesson planning
• Participants, though shy, enjoy being involved just as much as my students would
