OneNote Exploration

      OneNote is a great way for teachers to get themselves organized.  Lesson plans and assignment can all be kept on OneNote.  It is also a great way for educators to collaborate with their colleagues. There is also a lesson plan template available to help educators write out their plans.  In addition to OneNote for teachers, there is a OneNote Classroom.
      OneNote provides a way for teachers to become more organized with less paper.  Lessons can be stored in notebooks based on grade level or subject.  Assignments can be shared with students through OneNote and emails.  These assignments can also have an audio component when needed for directions and help with lessons.  This would help our more aural learners.
      Educators can collaborate through OneNote by sharing lessons on a shared notebook page.  Comments can also be left for collaboration when colleagues have ideas to add to a lesson.  Calendars can also be shared between colleagues to help with scheduling and organization.
      The lesson plan template is a great tool to help educators plan out their lessons.  It is simple but easy to use and can be another great way to share lessons with others.
     With OneNote Classroom, students can submit assignments for the teacher to see and can also record video and audio.  It seems as though it is similar to Google Classroom.  I would like to try it with recorders.  Students could submit audio files of them playing a song to receive their Recorder Karate belt before coming to class.  This would make seeing them only once a week a lot more efficient.  I would be able to teach more than test and see where the students are during class, it could be done as an assignment.  I am extremely excited to use this in my classroom.

http://onenoteforteachers.com/en-US/Guides/Collaborating%20in%20the%20classroom%20with%20the%20OneNote%20Class%20Notebook

Week Seven - Productivity and Professional Development Productivity

      This week's reading and lecture had me really wanting to completely start the school year over in order to get organized in a timely manner.  I am still going to use a lot of what was mentioned to organize my classroom and my lesson plans, but it would be so nice to start the year with the organization already in place.  Digital calendars and digital communications are going to streamline my classroom and before school activities.  I already follow many music educators through blogs, but using my feedly account, I can organize them in a way that I can find them more efficiently.
      Using a digital calendar and a website for my fourth and fifth grade chorus will help keep the parents aware of what is coming as well as what the students need for a performance.  The website will also help me keep parents updated on what is happening in their students' music classes as well.  I can post a digital newsletter for each quarter for the parents to read.  Keeping them updated will help with communication about programs and assignments that may be due for recorder and piano lab.  I am very leery of being on Facebook with parents, but have been able to communicate with some when needed.  Something that I would like to be able to do in the future is to have direct communication with newspapers and press.  We have a media contact that everything goes through that handles all of the press for the school and we are not allowed to contact press on our own.  I wonder if that is something that any other schools have as well?
      Professional development can happen every day through music educator's blogs and websites.  There is so much information and ideas on the internet through these blogs and websites.  I have found many printable and digital materials to use in my classroom through other music educator sharing their ideas.  Something I would like to do is organize these onto my feedly account so that they are easily accessible.  Pinterest boards are another good way to organize ideas as well.

Bauer, W. I. (2014) Music learning today Digital Pedagogy for Creating Performing andResponding to Music. New York, NY Oxford University Press.

Week 6 Reflection: Responding to Music

      This week's reading made me really contemplate what I am doing with my fourth and 

fifth grade students to reach them and get them interested in music.  I have taught most of 

them since they were in Kindergarten and they have gotten the experience of playing, 

creating,  and singing music throughout that time, but some have already made up their 

mind that school music is not their favorite subject. Most of the time, I can get them 

interested in one or two lessons throughout the year, but it is hard to connect with them 

with every lesson.  With my students, I have noticed that if I try to connect the music of our 

world with their lives and families, they seem to connect more.  When studying Latin 

American music many of my students connect because they have heard the songs in their 

own homes.  

      Another way that students can connect to music class is by sharing their own music.  The 

music that they listen to away from school and choose to listen to.  I think that using the 

connection with the music that they listen to at home is a great one, if it is appropriate for 

school.  That is becoming harder and harder as the songs on the radio do not always have 

appropriate words or content for elementary school students.  However, if they are able to 

share what they choose to listen to, they could write about it using proper musical terms 

already learned in my class.  Developing students ability to respond emotionally to 

expressions in music is one of the most important aspects of music education according to 

Woody (2004). (Bauer, 2014, p. 109) Reaching students emotionally through music is 

important to get them connected to other types of music other than what they already know 

and are exposed to.  Our job is to expose them to other genres, but somehow connect with 

them where they are. Using WebQuests and YouTube are great ways to reach students 

where they are.  

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Week 5 Reflection: Assessment and Instructional Design

      It was very interesting this week to be studying about assessment and instructional design as I go back into the classroom for my fifteenth year of teaching.  This year for our professional development before the students come back to class we had a sharing session in the morning in which we were able to get some new ideas for the beginning of a new year.  That same day, we sat down in groups to write out specific assessments for our scope and sequence for second grade and fifth grade.  Having read chapter six before we met, I had some ideas in my mind of how to go about it.  
      My colleagues and I discussed the essential questions and what we wanted to make sure we wanted the students to know from a lesson based on the standard we were working on at the time.  We used a backward design to map out a lesson based on the standard in which we were looking.  Our questions were: "Did we want the assessment to be summative or authentic?"  Would the student be performing the task and would it be just from that one lesson?  Would it be cyclic?  Would we expect them to remember information from a previous lesson as well as the information that was just taught?
      I tried to bring up project based learning, especially with fifth grade and composing.  This was a difficult conversation as there were some teachers who did not want to deviate from their regular lesson that they always teach every year with composing.  Earlier in the week, the fine arts departments of every school in our county heard a presentation from the Dean of O'More College of Art and Design, here in Franklin, TN.  The biggest takeaway from his presentation for me, was that our jobs as fine arts educators is to foster creativity.  Our job is to create lessons that are designed to help our students develop the 4Cs (p. 153) - creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.  Our technology standards go hand in hand with our national music standards when teachers use instructional design to create lessons that are interesting and relevant to their worlds. 

Bauer, W. I. (2014) Music learning today Digital Pedagogy for Creating Performing andResponding to Music. New York, NY Oxford University Press.