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.