Noteflight

I have used Sibelius for years, and I was not looking to learn another app.  Noteflight was a pleasant surprise.  Inputting music was quite simple, intuitive, and a program I can see having my students use.  I used quite a few of the same inputting techniques that I have used in other programs, so the learning curve for me was greatly reduced.  I used Noteflight this week on both my laptop and my iPad.  Both platforms were very similar and consistent in ease of use.  I personally would prefer a typing keyboard with my iPad, I found using my fingertips a bit slow for me.  I did like the piano keyboard in the iPad; I use a keyboard graphic in theory lessons already.  You can think as a viola player, but you can also learn to input pitches from a keyboard.

I liked how you can highlight a place in a measure, choose the notation element, and it appears where you want it and where it should be placed.  The elements are organized in the edit palette in an order that makes musical sense.  I can see using this with students and having them understanding the differences in articulations.

As a Mac user, I did not realize that the typical commands that are used in many programs, cut, copy, paste, and save, were control X in Noteflight instead of command X.  Something I had some difficulty with this week and my students may also.  I wish there was a way to freeze one staff and allow students to create on a second staff without any accidental changes.

I intend to use Noteflight with my students; it works great, and it is free.  I have embedded my score "A Bicycle Built For Two" below.

Week 2 at the MMEA All-State Conference

This week I am attending the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Association All-State Conference in Boston.  Technology is enabling me to keep in touch with my schools through email, my middle school students learning with Socrative, check in with my Kent State cohort through Blackboard, and complete my homework with Noteflight and MuseScore.  I have attended a few sessions so far, technology and string education mostly.  The more I learn at Kent, the more I see at conferences, the more I want to have my students improvise and compose.  In the past I have tried a few projects, but I am still apprehensive about teaching musical creativity.

As I was reading chapter 3 this week, I read about Hallam’s work on page 50.  “To establish an environment conducive to creativity, educators can provide (a) creative opportunities, (b) necessary resources, (c) appropriate stimulation, and (d) sufficient time” (Bauer, 2014, p.50).  I can do this in each level of my teaching!  Creative opportunities can be rhythmic or tonal improvisation, composing using graphic notation, conducting the performance of the graphic notation, or directed improvisation.  Necessary resources will be iPads, dry erase boards, and good old paper and pencil.  Appropriate stimulation can be tricky, but think of real life situations where students can connect.  How about composing a loop in Garage Band that could be used as the on hold music in the school’s telephone system?  What about recording a directed improvising as the “sound track” to a picture book, theme music for a video game, or for a character in a TV show?  Sufficient time is going to be the hardest step.  I need to choose carefully and thoughtfully what skills I want the students to develop, and be sure the class has enough time to explore, experience and develop the skills.  As one of my favorite clinicians says; “Teach an inch wide and a mile deep”.

PS – As I continue going to sessions and talking with people, the more grateful I am for the Kent MMME program.  In most sessions, I have come across an author or a book that I’ve studied in another class, software program, and even the APA formatting!

Reflections of my first week

I am a digital immigrant and this has been quite a week for me.  To understand my thoughts on this week, I need to take you back to the beginning.

It was 1992, our oldest daughter was in second grade, and one night in the fall was Family Open House, a chance for the students to show the school to their parents.  Our daughter showed us all over the school, but it was the room next to her classroom that taught me a lesson.  It was the school’s computer lab.  We went in and she showed us what she had learned.  It was KidPix, a drawing program for kids.  She went so fast that we couldn’t follow her.  Our seven-year-old knew more than her parents!  How could we help her learn?  Soon after that, we got our first computer, an Apple IIc with a green screen!

Now, 23 years later, remember that second grade daughter?  We have used Skype to stay connected to her when she lived in Hawai’i.  I am taking an on-line course about technology.  I have a blog and a Twitter account.  I use technology in the form of laptops, iPads, computer projectors, smartphone, multiple programs, and apps.

I use lots of technology, but I am hoping to be able to integrate technology into my classroom and into the hands of my students.  TPACK will give me a way to understand and integrate technology in the classroom.  I can even follow TPACK tags on Twitter (#TPACK), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/tpackdotorg/), or on on-line (http://www.tpack.org/).  I really appreciate the author’s point of view that integrating technology involves technical, content, and pedagogical knowledge.

The videos and web pages that supported this week’s learning were very easy to understand.  Each one explained one part of our personal learning network (PLN), either Blogger, Feedly, or Twitter.  They did not talk down to the beginner, but gave the information I needed to understand the usefulness of the social media part of the PLN.  I can foresee that I will be using my PLN for many years to come.

 

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org”

Ta-da!!

I am posting for the first time in my new blog!!