What is your favorite piece of technology?
Posted by jamesfrankel on June 1st, 2007
Today I am asking a pretty simple question to anyone who’d like to take a moment to respond: What is your favorite piece of technology that you use to teach music, and why?
This past February, my choices were published in Music Education Technology Magazine in an article titled Desert Island Technology, written by my good friend Scott Watson. I couldn’t pick only one so I chose Sibelius 4.0, the GEC3 from SoundTree, and GarageBand 3.0. I’d love to hear your choices, and I think everyone who reads this blog would benefit from the discourse that I am hoping will follow. Please take a moment to respond.
Have a great weekend!
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June 1st, 2007 at 11:18 am
James,
This is a trick question… My favorite piece of technology used in my classroom, by far, is the LCD projector connected to my computer(s). My favorite piece of music technology software is, by far, BAND IN A BOX.
With it anyone can create music and experience hundreds of styles and types of music. It allows my students (many for the first time) to “free their minds of the written cages” and improvise.
Great discussion topic, I hope you get a run of answers!
J. Pisano -MUSicTECHnology.net
June 1st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Joe,
Great point about the LCD Projector. I use it more than anything else in my classroom as well. I’m sure you know the feeling when one of those bulbs pop! My whole class grinds to a halt. I too love Band-In-A-Box but find that it is more difficult to integrate into my middle school curriculum than titles such as GarageBand and Sibelius. What kinds of things do you do with BIAB?
Thanks for your reply.
James
June 1st, 2007 at 1:31 pm
James-
I have enjoyed reading your blog everyday. Very impressive that you have kept your New Year’s resolution. I hardly lasted the month of January.
My favorite piece of technology is my MacBook Pro. I converted to Mac in January after years of loyalty to Microsoft. I simply do not know what I would do without it in the music classroom. It has added a dimension to my instruction that was clearly missing before.
My favorite application is split between Garageband and Sibelius. For the final 6th grade school year assessment project, I added “Make a Podcast of a composer from one of the periods of music that we have studied this year” to the list of options that students can satisfy this requirement. (The sixth grade curriculum covers music in a historical context.) I was surprised (and a little overwhelmed) that most of them chose to make a podcast. I will be posting some soon on my website.
Thanks again, James! Keep up the great work.
~Tony Sgro
www.tonysgro.com
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
Tony,
Great to hear from you - glad you’re enjoying the blog.
Podcasting is one of my favorite ways of assessing my general music students. Between GarageBand 3.0 and www.podomatic.com, I don’t know what I’d do when thinking up new exciting projects for the students.
By the way, love your website!
Best,
James
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Hi Dr. Frankel,
To answer your question, it has to be Garageband for me! So many options and ways to create, both with a “one computer classroom” or in a lab. For my latest Garageband creation, my fifth graders are just completing a new project where they recorded themselves reading childrens books from our “Guided Reading Library”. Then, they added music and sound effects after each page thus creating a “Book on Tape/CD”. We are creating a library of CD’s for the younger grades to use. This is very exciting for the older and the younger children and it is a huge music and literacy connection. Garageband is wonderful!
I am really enjoying your blog!Hope all is well with you!
Best,
Emilia
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:24 am
Hey Emilia,
It’s great to hear from you! Sounds like a fantastic project - our students do a similar thing (in English class), but there is no music component. Not to be a stickler (you know me - copyright geek), but be careful about copyright issues that might arise from recording children’s stories: although it could be considered a Fair Use to make the recordings and have them available to the students in the classroom or library - I wouldn’t make them available as podcasts. Once you make the recordings available to anyone online, you cross the line into infringement.
I love GarageBand, and echo your sentiments - as well as Tony’s above. The program is simple to use and quite versatile. Your project idea is the PERFECT type of lesson for GarageBand. It’s great to hear that you’re doing such amazing things with your students!
Best,
James
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:48 am
Hi Dr. Frankel,
Thanks for the tip about copyright. I was not planning on making this project available to the public. Only for our school use.
Best for a great end of the year!
Emilia
June 4th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I’m trying to be very teacher 2.0 and I’m going to say my web browser!
June 5th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Hi James,
I had Extron A/V Integrating systems (SMART Closet) installed in all of our music classrooms here at Belmont University. This wonderful piece of technology enables you to “Hard Wire” all A/V devices (VCR, DVD, Computer. Stereo, etc.) directly to a fixed LCD projector. At a simple push of a button, the music instructor can switch between various devices quickly and effortlessly. And the real beauty of it….No Remote is Needed for the projector! Even the most technology challenged instructors have enjoyed using this equipment.
This piece of technology is a little pricey, however, it has proven to be a very valuable asset to all our music faculty.
Blessings!
Keith
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:47 am
Absolutely no doubt about it - Sibelius. The single biggest use (and uptake by students) is creating midi files of ensemble pieces at a variety of tempi and posting them to a blog. Home practice of ensemble pieces has a new appeal. The evidence for this? If I ask students which version they can keep up with, they can usually quote the metronome mark which features in the title.
October 4th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
My most useful and favorite has got to be Audacity. I use this to make audio burns for my students creations in Groovy Music (Sibelius product). I use it to create audio clip examples for listening and theory projects. I use it to assemble my podcast. Since it is open source and very easy to learn, I have my students install it on their home computers and send me recordings of their practice sessions. I know that there are many other programs that can do these things, but they cost money (Audacity is free!) or don’t do everything I have described. On the technical side, it will also allow you to convert audio files which you legally own to use in other situations