This morning I am in Atlanta, GA for the CMS/ATMI Conference. SoundTree is a sponsor for the event and is providing a hands-on technology lab for the conference. Today is the ATMI Pre-Conference which focuses on Delivering Music Instruction with Web 2.0 Social Computing Tools. The schedule is filled with some of the leading experts on the topic. Everything from Ning to Wikis will be discussed and I am very much looking forward to presenting my work with blogs in the middle school music classroom as well as my graduate students at Teachers College.

For those of you who won’t be here today, perhaps you’d like to share some of the strategies that you use with your students, incorporating blogs, podcasts, wikis, nings, and more. I’d love to open a dialogue here about how you are implementing these powerful tools for learning in your classroom. What grade levels are you using these tools with? Is there an appropriate age to start using them? Does your music program have a MySpace page? Facebook page?

I welcome your comments and questions.

I have posted some podcasts that I recorded last night during the first week of my A&HM 4029 - Intro to New Technologies in Music Education course at Teachers College. The presentation revolves around my philosophy of technology in music education.

I welcome your comments and questions.

Tonight I begin my teaching duties at Teachers College Columbia University where I am teaching two sections of Introduction to New Technologies in Music Education. Because of my new position at SoundTree, this is the only actual teaching that I still do and I am thrilled that I am able to do so. The course provides students with a very broad overview of music technology and its integration into the music curriculum. There are five projects that cover various aspects of music technology - everything from word processing to GarageBand. Although I am always exhausted by the end of the night, it is a truly rewarding experience to spend time with the students at TC. It is a vibrant learning community and I am proud to be a faculty member.

Take a look at the course syllabus and the project guidelines. They are based on my good friend Tom Rudolph’s book: Teaching Music With Technology 2nd Ed. I welcome your questions and comments. Have a great semester!

My 7th Grade General Music students at the Franklin Avenue Middle School (as well as the students of my colleague Elizabeth Lavery) will complete their World Music Wikispaces today. The project requirements have the students to select a culture from their family background and then create a website that showcases the music and culture. The students have been working on their wikispaces for the past week, and this is the first time we’re trying this project. I’d love for you to visit their sites (links to the sites are at the bottom of the project requirements page) and give the students some feedback. Better yet, have your students check out the sites and perhaps create their own.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Over the past year I have gone a bit crazy creating online resources for my students at the Franklin Avenue Middle School in Franklin Lakes, NJ.  Between Wikispaces, MusicEd.net, and PBWiki, I have created 16 different websites for use with my music students.  Yesterday morning I was looking at the whiteboard in my room and saw that I had seven different web addresses on the board - all of which were pretty long addresses.  I finally decided that it was time to create one website as a central portal to all of the various websites that my students use.  Introducing FAMSMusic.com.

I first created what I think is a pretty slick looking website using one of the new templates in iWeb ‘08 (I used Darkroom).  Next, I purchased the domain name using GoDaddy.com.  It cost $24.95 for two years.  Next, using the web space that we have at my school, I posted the iWeb files that I created.  Finally, I copied the URL that the files were posted on and used the Domain Forwarding feature with my GoDaddy account to forward www.famsmusic.com to that URL.  This free service also allows you to “mask” the URL so that users only see the web address you want them to.  In a nutshell, when someone types in the address, the DNS server sends you to the files on my school web server.  After about 90 minutes of work during my lunch and prep the site was finished.  Please take a moment to check it out.  Hopefully it will give you some ideas for creating your own music department website.

I  welcome your comments and suggestions.

Last week I taught the first ever TI:ME Course in New Jersey at my middle school in Franklin Lakes.  Villanova University is offering the courses through their very popular Summer Music Studies Program.  The course went very well, and it felt great to be teaching in my own lab.  This week I begin teaching a TI:ME 1B Course at FAMS.  This week my students will be utilizing CAI software titles, creating podcasts, and creating multimedia presentations.  As a supplement to the Course Resources Page, the students will be blogging about thier work on our Course Blog.  I am looking forward to a great week.

For the next two weeks I’ll be teaching at the Shenandoah University in beautiful Winchester, VA.  I will be teaching three different courses along with Dr. Lee Whitmore and Bradley Smith of SoundTree.  The Shenandoah Conservatory recently purchased a fabulous new lab from SoundTree and it will be great for the students to have a hands-on experience in such a beautiful facility.  To check out the class blog, click HERE, or to visit the course resources page, click HERE.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Today I am at Central Connecticut State University as a part of their Summer Music Institute, where I will be teaching a course titled Teaching Music With GarageBand 3.0: Applications Across The Curriculum for the entire week.  I am really looking forward to teaching the course, and I have already set up a Course Blog and a Resource Page on my website.  Students in the class will be creating loop-based compositions, podcasts, film scores, and podcasting websites.  For a complete listing of courses that are being offered at the CCSU Summer Music Institute, click HERE.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

For the next seven weeks I’ll be teaching TI:ME courses and music technology courses around the country.  This week I’m teaching a TI:ME 1A course at the Dr. Henry Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro, MD through Five Towns College and SoundTree.  The facility is without a doubt the nicest school building I have ever seen, and the Music Technology Lab is beautiful (though quite warm!).  I have created a blog for the students in the class to continue the discourse outside of class time, as well as a resource page on my homepage.  Please take a moment to read what the students have written in response to the questions that I have posted.  I’m sure that you will find their answers as insightful as I do.  As has always been my experience here in Maryland, the students are excited to learn about how technology can be integrated into the music curriculum, and I am looking forward to a great class.

Tonight is Broadway Night at the Franklin Avenue Middle School where I teach.  I have been putting this concert on as a fund-raiser for the past nine years with the generous support of the Franklin Lakes Education Foundation.  Broadway Night brings the incredible talent of Neil Berg and his performers to our school.  Berg is an accomplished Broadway composer and each of the performers he brings has starred on Broadway either presently or in the recent past.  The concerts are always extremely popular and most sell out.  The concert brings in thousands of dollars for the music program at my school.  This year (and many years in the past) those funds are targeted toward our music technology lab.  So how do we do it?

Without going into specific numbers, I submit a grant request each year to fund two special events - Broadway Night and Jazz Night.  Each concert brings world-class performers to the school.  Each concert also features our very own students - always creating memorable performances.  At tonight’s event the cast of the Spring Musical will be giving a sneak preview of The Music Man during the performance and the students will join the stars for the final song of the evening.  The grant from the Education Foundation covers about 75% of the cost of the show (performer fees, sound fees, and dinner for the performers).  After covering the remaining 25% of the cost, the remainder of the funds raised go directly into the music account.  This year I’ll be adding another workstation to my lab and will make several additional software and hardware purchases.  Jazz Night happens in June and has our FAMS Jazz Ensemble open for world-class jazz artists (previous performers include Mulgrew Miller, Benevento-Russo, Steven Bernstein, Dave Douglas, Ravi Coltrane, Charlie Hunter, Erik Lawrence, Dave Valentin & Willie Rodriguez).  I am still negotiating to get this years performer.

While there are many resources available to music educators to find funding for technology - including Tom Rudolph’s book Finding Funds for Technology,  and the MET Magazine column on funding written by Stephen Wilensky, I created my own events to raise funds for my lab.  It’s not as hard as it sounds.  If you’d like to email me specific questions about these events and ideas on how to get similar things happening at your school, please email me at: jtfrankel@hotmail.com.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.