Searching through YouTube for music videos is something that we as musicians, especially choir directors, do frequently! I enjoyed my "required" searches for this class, however, and found a few extra tools along the way that I know will help make my future searches quicker!
I chose to search for High School choir videos, and actually found one of our Poteet Choirs from 2007! I also put in a search for college choirs, and then specifically, UNT, my alma mater, and found a great chamber performance of "Jesu Dulcis Memoria". I also searched for videos on family vacations, since that is on my mind right now - and found an interesting video on a BEACH vacation in Lido, Florida. My "how to" video "find" was the "Iowa City High Freshman Concert Choir Rehearsal". I'm always looking for tips to teach sightreading to beginning groups and YouTube offers resources for this. However, you have to be careful as some of the choirs obviously, do not have the "polish" and quality that I'm wanting to "model" in my choirs!
Finally, I searched through worship music as I am often using YouTube for new ideas and songs at my church. Since I seem to be having a "beach/mountain" theme this summer, I chose this video!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Thing #17 - podcasts
I was anxious to get to this "thing" since my son is constantly talking about several Christian podcasts that he subscribes to. I explored several of the educational podcast sites and found some that I think would be useful in my field. One that especially fascinated me was the Cranbrook Composers' Podcasts. This is an excellent tool to encourage musical creativity in middle school students set up by a fine arts teacher. Through The Tech Teachers I found a podcast for music lessons. This could be a tool to aid students and teachers in their search for additional instruction on a specific instrument. I like the feature of the continual updating of information through podcast subscriptions.
In my field we already are using many forms of this such as digital recording of students testing to "pass off" on our contest music and sightreading. We also frequently post mp3 files of music we are currently learning on our website. In my church worship ministry we also use alot of these features such as mp3 files of music for upcoming worship services and for teaching new songs to the congregation.
Perhaps another use for this "thing" could be for clinicians at TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) and TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association) to podcast sessions from our conventions so that we as music educators would be able to hear sessions at our convenience and leisure rather than trying to "absorb" all of it while we're at these conventions. We would also be able to "re - listen" to the sessions as needed!
In my field we already are using many forms of this such as digital recording of students testing to "pass off" on our contest music and sightreading. We also frequently post mp3 files of music we are currently learning on our website. In my church worship ministry we also use alot of these features such as mp3 files of music for upcoming worship services and for teaching new songs to the congregation.
Perhaps another use for this "thing" could be for clinicians at TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) and TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association) to podcast sessions from our conventions so that we as music educators would be able to hear sessions at our convenience and leisure rather than trying to "absorb" all of it while we're at these conventions. We would also be able to "re - listen" to the sessions as needed!
Thing #16 - LibraryThing
Being an avid reader and since reading is one of my favorite things to do in the summer, exploring "LibraryThing" was very interesting to me. I did several searches that I thought would be applicable to my class -- "composers" (narrowed it down to "Bach"), "piano", and "choirs". I was surprised to find that not only did it give me a very extensive listing of books on each of these subjects, but also listed actual music. What a helpful resource! Several ways that I would use this would be to assign students who are researching and writing reports on composers for extra classroom work, or to make up assignments for missing a performance, or simply to find out more about a piece that we are working on to find resources quickly. Another way would be to use it to find repertoire for a specific composer or music history period or style.
In my personal life I think the 50 Book Challenge would be a fun tool to use as a family since we are all avid readers! I could even see us involving our extended family in this. My two sisters and I have 14 children between the three of us! I also enjoyed seeing a book, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, listed on the "25 Most Reviewed List" when I explored Zeitgeist. I "randomly" bought this book at Half Price Books and read it earlier this summer!!
It was an easy read and very thought provoking. I can see why it's on the list!
What a great and very easy to use tool this is! I definitely will explore it further and use it again!
In my personal life I think the 50 Book Challenge would be a fun tool to use as a family since we are all avid readers! I could even see us involving our extended family in this. My two sisters and I have 14 children between the three of us! I also enjoyed seeing a book, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, listed on the "25 Most Reviewed List" when I explored Zeitgeist. I "randomly" bought this book at Half Price Books and read it earlier this summer!!
It was an easy read and very thought provoking. I can see why it's on the list!
What a great and very easy to use tool this is! I definitely will explore it further and use it again!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thing #15 - Wiki Sandcastles
Playing in this sandbox was quite an experience! I'm glad I was forewarned about all of the steps!
What a unique tool this is for communicating information, sharing pictures, collaborating, and organizing data! I really loved it and had fun setting up my page. I enjoyed expressing myself creatively in this way and can see this as a very useful means of communicating in a classroom or as a department. I usually introduce myself to my choirs at the beginning of each school year and try to share a little about myself personally with my students through a collage or a "me bag". Maybe this fall I'll use a wiki page instead!
I also brainstormed about uses for this in my church worship ministries that I'm involved in. We collaborate on worship planning and a wiki would be so much less cumbersome than emails!
I really liked visiting the other wiki pages of my classmates and reading the "burning questions" - quite thought provoking! Of all of the "things" so far this is definitely the one that I spent the most time on, by nature of the assignment, but also, because I found myself wanting to be more creative and it was really fun to experiment and play in the sandbox! After all, building sandcastles is so much fun!
What a unique tool this is for communicating information, sharing pictures, collaborating, and organizing data! I really loved it and had fun setting up my page. I enjoyed expressing myself creatively in this way and can see this as a very useful means of communicating in a classroom or as a department. I usually introduce myself to my choirs at the beginning of each school year and try to share a little about myself personally with my students through a collage or a "me bag". Maybe this fall I'll use a wiki page instead!
I also brainstormed about uses for this in my church worship ministries that I'm involved in. We collaborate on worship planning and a wiki would be so much less cumbersome than emails!
I really liked visiting the other wiki pages of my classmates and reading the "burning questions" - quite thought provoking! Of all of the "things" so far this is definitely the one that I spent the most time on, by nature of the assignment, but also, because I found myself wanting to be more creative and it was really fun to experiment and play in the sandbox! After all, building sandcastles is so much fun!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Thing #14 - Wikis
My exploration of the various wikis lead me to quite a wide range of types and educational levels which I felt would give me a broad range of ideas to get my brain going on how I might implement the use of wikis in my own professional and personal life.
I'll start with my favorite one, a Salute to Seuss. This was a special project for a specific purpose during a specific time period (4 months). The ultimate result and culmination of the project was for all participants to participate in a "read along" using Skype on October 22 to celebrate "Seuss Day".
The features included a slideshow, worksheets, and specific standards broken down by grades. Although geared toward kindergarten through 6th graders, this type of special project could easily be adapted to secondary education as well. I would love to try this with my choirs possibly for a UIL competition. We usually work toward this goal for about 4 or 5 months and could use the wiki for various steps along the way such as information/history on the music we're learning, language pronunciation for our foreign language pieces, comments and editing from the students with their input on the progress we're making, information on extra rehearsals, and finally, comments on the other performances that we listen to.
Another wiki that I looked at was the FHS Wolves Den set up by a teacher in a small 1A school district for her classes. It was very elaborate, detailed, and all inclusive - basically, a complete "manual" as it were for her students and parents. This reminded me of what you would find out by coming to open house (meet the teacher night) and reading all of your child's "packet" about a class all rolled into one website! It even had a link to the school website as well as a link to email the teacher, not to mention a link to the town newspaper! This type of wiki would be an excellent tool for me in my profession to replace our "Choir Handbook" which basically encompasses our calendar, grading policies, performance policies, uniform requirements, and all general information for the year.
Finally, I explored a 6th grade classroom wiki - Room 15 wiki. This was more user friendly and organized in a more basic way, obviously, to be more readable and usable and to invite more editing and commenting from 6th grade students and their parents. It had sidebar links to information for assignments and classroom information. I think if I were to set up a wiki for my class I would start with a more basic format as this one, rather than the more complex one such as the FHS Wolves Den that I discussed above.
I'll start with my favorite one, a Salute to Seuss. This was a special project for a specific purpose during a specific time period (4 months). The ultimate result and culmination of the project was for all participants to participate in a "read along" using Skype on October 22 to celebrate "Seuss Day".
The features included a slideshow, worksheets, and specific standards broken down by grades. Although geared toward kindergarten through 6th graders, this type of special project could easily be adapted to secondary education as well. I would love to try this with my choirs possibly for a UIL competition. We usually work toward this goal for about 4 or 5 months and could use the wiki for various steps along the way such as information/history on the music we're learning, language pronunciation for our foreign language pieces, comments and editing from the students with their input on the progress we're making, information on extra rehearsals, and finally, comments on the other performances that we listen to.
Another wiki that I looked at was the FHS Wolves Den set up by a teacher in a small 1A school district for her classes. It was very elaborate, detailed, and all inclusive - basically, a complete "manual" as it were for her students and parents. This reminded me of what you would find out by coming to open house (meet the teacher night) and reading all of your child's "packet" about a class all rolled into one website! It even had a link to the school website as well as a link to email the teacher, not to mention a link to the town newspaper! This type of wiki would be an excellent tool for me in my profession to replace our "Choir Handbook" which basically encompasses our calendar, grading policies, performance policies, uniform requirements, and all general information for the year.
Finally, I explored a 6th grade classroom wiki - Room 15 wiki. This was more user friendly and organized in a more basic way, obviously, to be more readable and usable and to invite more editing and commenting from 6th grade students and their parents. It had sidebar links to information for assignments and classroom information. I think if I were to set up a wiki for my class I would start with a more basic format as this one, rather than the more complex one such as the FHS Wolves Den that I discussed above.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Thing #13 - Delicious
Delicious is AMAZING!!! I had so much fun with this! I can think of so many ways to make my life as a choir director and my personal life as well, much easier by using this! It took me a while to figure it all out, but after following the steps in the activities it finally clicked and I realized it is really very "user friendly". I explored a few random sites by doing a search on "High School Choirs" "and "piano" which was interesting but a little too broad and very overwhelming. The High School sites mostly took me to specific high school choir websites, which could be helpful if I was wanting to see how other schools set their web pages up. However, the most helpful way for me to use Delicious will be to tag the websites that I use OFTEN, and that is exactly what I did.
I'm sure that I will be adding to these as I come across other websites that are helpful for me as a choir teacher and will find some sites that my colleagues have found to be useful as well.
Specifically, the Charms website(an office management system specifically designed for music teachers) is indispensible to our choir department at PHS. We use it for literally every operation and organizational system that we have! By tagging this site on delicious I will be able to access it easily and allow others to access it as well. I also tagged the TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) and TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association) websites. The information and functions on these sites are so essential to teaching music in Texas! This will help to keep me updated and informed of legislation concerning the fine arts in Texas and also upcoming clinics, conventions, UIL rules, etc...
I'm anxious to hear how other music educators use delicious to aid them in the multitude of tasks that confront us daily including choosing music, staying current on UIL rules and requirements, rehearsing and preparing for concerts and competitions, teaching theory, and not to mention trips and all that goes along with that! Certainly, anything we can find to help us will be truly DELICIOUS!
Here is the link to my bookmarks for further information: My bookmarks
I'm sure that I will be adding to these as I come across other websites that are helpful for me as a choir teacher and will find some sites that my colleagues have found to be useful as well.
Specifically, the Charms website(an office management system specifically designed for music teachers) is indispensible to our choir department at PHS. We use it for literally every operation and organizational system that we have! By tagging this site on delicious I will be able to access it easily and allow others to access it as well. I also tagged the TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) and TCDA (Texas Choral Directors Association) websites. The information and functions on these sites are so essential to teaching music in Texas! This will help to keep me updated and informed of legislation concerning the fine arts in Texas and also upcoming clinics, conventions, UIL rules, etc...
I'm anxious to hear how other music educators use delicious to aid them in the multitude of tasks that confront us daily including choosing music, staying current on UIL rules and requirements, rehearsing and preparing for concerts and competitions, teaching theory, and not to mention trips and all that goes along with that! Certainly, anything we can find to help us will be truly DELICIOUS!
Here is the link to my bookmarks for further information: My bookmarks
Thing #6 - Comment on RSS feed
I really enjoyed finding out about the 30 options for finding books DIGITALLY and how to build a digital library! I admit I never really thought about this before. I LOVE to read and usually read several books a summer, as do my children, so this could open up a whole new world of reading for us as a family, and myself, as an individual. On her blog http://macmomma.blogspot.com/2009/06/30-places-to-find-free-books-book.html she lists sites with a wide range of types of books and reading levels for everyone!
I just returned from a trip to the beach, so was especially interested in the audio books and "Beach Reads" on one of her links. (www.amazon.com.) What a great way to interest our students and children in classic literature, novels, history, or whatever THEY might be interested in!
When my children were young we always enrolled in the local library book clubs and summer reading programs. This was how I instilled the love of reading in them. The concept of building a digital library could also instill this love of reading in our students and maybe even build confidence and excitement in students who have not been exposed to a wide range of subjects and have not been surrounded by "readers" in their households as my children have been. Why not branch out to a new world of "storing" books other than literal shelves in a library or book store??? (We can still enjoy the "hard copies" as well !)
I just returned from a trip to the beach, so was especially interested in the audio books and "Beach Reads" on one of her links. (www.amazon.com.) What a great way to interest our students and children in classic literature, novels, history, or whatever THEY might be interested in!
When my children were young we always enrolled in the local library book clubs and summer reading programs. This was how I instilled the love of reading in them. The concept of building a digital library could also instill this love of reading in our students and maybe even build confidence and excitement in students who have not been exposed to a wide range of subjects and have not been surrounded by "readers" in their households as my children have been. Why not branch out to a new world of "storing" books other than literal shelves in a library or book store??? (We can still enjoy the "hard copies" as well !)
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