Technology Integration in to the Curriculum

Technology Integration Goal: This year I will use and organize various types and modes of music technology as my significant supplement to my classroom instruction and homework.

Goal Objectives: For Technology Integration, I would like to regularly uses at least two resources: Musictheory.net and Garageband in addition to Schoology as a means of supporting instruction, assisting in homework, or is the assessment of work

Evidence of a graded musictheory.net home work assignment. Students are graded for completion of the assignment not for the number of correct or wrong answers, unless it is clear that a sincere attempt was not made by the student to do due diligence in completing the assignment.

Second Music Technology Resource: This year, I made a number of audio recording of in Garageband that had every students part recorded both individually and with in the context of the entire ensemble. This allowed students to practice with just me playing their part, or within the context of hearing me play all of the parts of the song, for them ro practice to and to ultimately record their homework to in Schoology. Students were also instructed into how to slow down audio on Youtube so that could also use Youtube recording for bother learning their parts to songs, as well as backing tracks for assessments in Schoology.

This is evidence of a screenshot of individual parts made n Garageband of different sections of a piece called Fire Dance for the Spring Concert 2019

Track Made in Garage Band of Just the First Part

Track of All Parts of Fire Dance made in Garage Band

Example of Garageband Track in a Homework Assignment

The Process:

Instrumental Music in the Instrumental Music Classroom:

The two digital technology resources that I used in my portfolio work are both great methods for diversifying and differentiating instruction for my students. The Musictheory.net work is great, because a student can do the work anytime at anyplace as long as they have wifi or mobile data. Student can also take their time with the assignments, they can choose to do them over and over again to increase their comprehension rate before submitting. Also with my permission, students can change the settings of the exercises we use to better serve the needs of individual students. I also like that multiple senses are involved in using these exercises. Students use aural, visual, and tactile senses when working with musictheory.net. For all of the exercises that I may employ from musictheory.net. They all allow for students to work at their own pace, and to work towards mastery at their own pace as well. It is very easy to use. Students are provided an assignment like the one above with a unique link to an exact web page that has the material we are practicing for that assignment. Once students have either finished the designated number of questions or have spent about 7-10 minutes on an exercise, they can submit to me the code that they will get from the website, and then I can verify that the actual did the requested work

Garageband in Instrumental Music

As for using Garageband for creating individualized tracks for students, this has greatly enabled student to quickly learn their parts in large ensemble pieces such as "Fire Dance" The Garageband recordings are both isolated so the student can just hear their part or they can hear their part along with all the other parts in the ensemble. The Garageband parts also allow me to provide play-along parts with a wide variety of tempos from very slow to the optimal concert tempo. Theses tracks also allow students to, at first, ot use the track with just their part on it, but then later they can play along with and do their homework with tracks that have the entire ensemble on them to practice playing in a more performance like environment. Garageband also allows me to take publisher provided recordings and to slow them down so students can gradually work to obtain the ultimate concert tempo of a concert piece.

Reflecting on Technology in the Instrumental Music Classroom

Technology has been a game changer in so many ways in methodologies of instruction in my classrooms. Both of the electronic based resources mentioned above give students more diversified, interesting, and differentiated ways to leaning a wide variety of material for my classes. Theses recourses at times are interactive and all offer ways of tailoring instruction and assessment to meet a wide spectrum of student learning needs. This year I feel I have used these two resources very well, but there is still so much more to explore and investigate. Bill Wagner at Nordhoff High School uses a few resources with his students that I cannot wait to try next year. Rhythmtrainer.com is just one of the many that I anticipate introducing next year.

The more ways one can use to try and teach the same material, it seems the better the chances that one of these methods will prove to be effective for some student. Today's students are already so much more technically familiar than myself, that it only make sense to try and use some of the vast electronic resources available though smart phones and computers to diversify the modes of instruction and assessment that I employ on a daily basis in my music classes.