A few months ago I heard a rumor that Apple was thinking about buying a music streaming site called lala.com. Well, I had never heard of it, so I spent the next few days checking it out. They have since acquired it (mainly to get the talented programmers folded into the iTunes team) but it is still up and running.
You need to check it out too, and I'll tell you why. Do any of these things interest you?1. You can put your entire digital library online for FREE and listen to it from any computer.2. You can preview new music in its entirety rather than just a 30 second clip.3. You can buy streaming rights (they call it a "Web Song") to new music for one thin dime and listen via the web whenever you like.4. You can also download songs for 89 cents. 79 if you already own the Web Song.5. You can link to your friends and get/make suggestions about different music.6. You can make a playlist and embed that list onto any website where people can listen to the entire list (once) for FREE.Sound unique? It is, and clearly there are some ideas here that interest the likes of Apple. Who knows what Apple will decide to do with their new acquisition, but I decided to dive in.
I have to tell you, it's great having access to my entire library online. Lala has an app called the "Music Mover." Basically it looks at your collection and matches it to its licensed catalog. Anything they already have is linked to your account, and (here's the cool part) anything they don't have gets uploaded and hosted. No limitations, no cost. That is pretty sweet.
The embedding feature is great. Recently my colleague and I embedded some recordings of pieces we are starting to work on in our rehearsals (example above). You can see the embeddable players on our website. This is a great way for the students to at least hear the music one time (after the full listen, they get the traditional 30 second clip). And of course if the kids want to purchase, it's only a dime for the streaming version. If you've been trying to convince your students to "do the right thing" by purchasing the recordings of the music you are working on at school, purchasing streams at one tenth the cost of mp3's is a pretty nice alternative.I think this Web Song idea has some promise. Think about it, for 100 bucks you can get 100 songs from iTunes, or you can get 1,000 Web Songs. Sometimes you might want the download, but I think the streaming version can be a great (and extremely economical) option. I don't know if Apple will keep the feature (or the site for that matter) but for now I'm finding it to be really helpful.Anyway, head on over to lala.com and check it out. I'm "Brian W." on lala if you want to look me up.
Is the stereo in your rehearsal room located too far from your podium? If it is you probably don't use reference recordings and a rehearsal metronome as often as you should. Well if you have an iPod Touch/iPhone and about fifty bucks, you can stream music and metronome from your podium to your stereo. All you need is this device from Sony: The HWS-BTA2W ... catchy name, very easy to remember.
This little device (only about two inches high) is a Bluetooth receiver. Simply plug it in, connect the audio output to your stereo, then "pair" it with your iPod Touch/iPhone. Pairing works just like pairing a Bluetooth ear piece. Just like that, you will be able to stream the audio output of your iPod/iPhone from just about anywhere in the room. No time wasted walking over to the stereo. You can stop/start the metronome instantly (I like "Tempo" or "Dr. Betotte"), or pull up a reference recording on the spot. Pretty cool right?
Another nice feature: You can also transmit audio with these Sony devices, and they will pair with one another. So with two of these (one set to transmit, and one to receive) you can send audio wirelessly from anything that has a headphone jack, so you're not limited to devices with built in Bluetooth like the iPod Touch/iPhone. The only catch is that the Sony device is not battery powered, so you would need AC at your podium if you wanted to use one as a transmitter.
Bluetooth has a range of about 30 feet, so it's not the solution to everything, but for those of us who have multiple rehearsal setups in the same room, this can be a real productivity enhancer, and it sure beats running a long audio cable across the floor.
Update: I forgot to mention that this can also be a nice way to stream from your Mac too, since Macs have Bluetooth audio profiles built in and you can easily pair it with the Sony. Comes in handy when your computer is not near the stereo. The Sony will pair with up to seven devices.
Last spring as my wife was preparing to take her college choir on a trip across Europe, we were discussing how to keep in touch with the whole group easily. It is always a little nerve wracking when students are spread out across an airport terminal or sight seeing in a foreign country and the need arises to reach everyone. Time can really be of the essence in those situations, especially if the itinerary needs to change on a moments notice.
It occurred to me that Twitter might be a viable option for a mass contact tool. If you don't know much about Twitter, I'll explain it briefly as a service that people use for posting information, thoughts, or status updates. So it is basically like the status box in Facebook for those of you familiar with that feature. Twitter does a few other things, but not much. It really is focused on these brief 140 character updates, which are fondly referred to as "tweets."
Well, one of those "other things" that Twitter does is allow a user to receive updates from someone as a text message on their mobile phone. It was this feature that appealed to me, because it seemed to me that my wife could post one "tweet" and, provided all the students were "following" her, they would all receive the tweet instantly as a mobile text. We decided to try it. Over the next few weeks the students registered for Twitter, requested to be able to "follow" my wife's updates (which were set to private), and checked the box for receiving tweets from her via sms. Twitter sends a quick verification text to your mobile phone and then you're all set for getting tweets as sms. The whole process from registration to verification takes just a few minutes once you know the steps.
After a few tests stateside we were set. She ended up using this tool quite a bit, both in the various airports and across France and Austria. Any changes in plans were easily and instantly communicated to everyone. Worked like a charm, and sure beat trying to use a phone tree. If your groups travels a lot, it might be something you want to consider. If you students are younger and having Twitter accounts isn't a viable option, you could at least use it to communicate with your chaperones. It could also be a nice way to keep parents back home up to date as well. For example, you (the teacher) could have an account for communicating with the students and/or chaperones, and one chaperone could have an account for trip highlights that parents could subscribe to. In any case, let me know if you have any questions, I'm happy to help if you want to give this a try.
UPDATE: I now recommend www.sendgm.com over using Twitter for mass sms.
I had really good rehearsals today. I've been at this long enough to recognize that I usually have a burst of inspiration upon returning from our All State Convention. Do you notice this as well? I bet you probably do. You might have heard a great ensemble, or attended a session and picked up some great ideas. Upon returning to school you feel energized, and your students respond immediately. It's an awesome feeling. The question is, why can't we sustain it?
In my 25 Things About Music Teaching and Education I talk about the fact that great teaching takes energy. There is no doubt in my mind. Think of the teachers in your life that you respected the most, and chances are they were energetic. I know when I'm teaching my best because at the end of the day I am exhausted. Not in a bad way mind you, it's a good kind of tired (if you feel "beat up" at the end of the day that's another matter altogether). The next time you feel exhausted at the end of the day, think about your rehearsals and you'll probably find that you were really teaching well. Your rehearsals were focused, you knew what needed to be accomplished, and the students were with you all the way. It's so exciting that you'd think we would want those kind of rehearsals every day. But it's really hard to sustain, which is why a few weeks after All State I'm usually back to wondering why my rehearsals are lagging in comparison.
This year, I'm going to try to keep the ball rolling by continuing to give just that little bit extra. The students deserve it.
I've been thinking a lot about this astounding performance by elementary band students in Japan that showed up on Youtube. At one point in my career a young lady moved to the U.S. from Japan and enrolled at our high school. She had only been playing trumpet for a year, but my colleague Jim and I soon found out that she would strive to achieve whatever was asked of her, and at light speed. Jim gave her state-required scale page (majors and melodic minors) and asked her to learn it. She came back one week later and it was done. She just about broke Jim's heart when she told us she was moving back to Japan two years later (right after we got the invitation to the Midwest Clinic...ouch).
Having had the opportunity to host a high school band from Japan, I know a little about their structure and approach to music. It is not uncommon for students to specialize in something during high school, almost like choosing a major in college here in the U.S. If a Japanese student specializes in band he or she may spend three to five hours in band after "regular" classes each day. Most of that time is not spent in full rehearsal, but rather in small group technique work which is often led by the older students. Technical perfection is the constant aim.
This week at our state convention I had the opportunity to catch up with James Lambrecht (Augustana) who was asked to work with the Musashino Academy Band in Japan for ten weeks this past fall. These college students displayed a work ethic and commitment unlike anything he had ever seen. Every technical aspect of a new piece of music was completely worked out by the students prior to the first rehearsal. Dr. Lambrecht said he had to work hard to keep from laughing during the first read of a piece because it was so unusual to hear technical mastery as a baseline approach to beginning a rehearsal cycle, as opposed to something you achieve throughout the rehearsal cycle.
He is concerned that wind and percussion students here in the west are in for a rude awakening in the coming years. Having served as a dean of admissions at a major conservatory for five years, I share this concern. I regularly witnessed the top string and piano scholarships being won by international students from Japan, South Korea, and China. And these are also the students who are increasingly winning the orchestral auditions and the international piano competitions. Watching the video above, is there any doubt that Dr. Lambrecht is right about winds and percussion being next? These students are putting in many (many!) more hours and outworking our student musicians, those are the facts.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers that you should read. He feels that most of the world's greatest artists/athletes/innovators had something important in common: they accumulated and surpassed the 10,000 hour mark in purposeful practice. How many hours do you think the elementary students in this video have already accumulated? With a conservative estimate of four hours per school day and a 280-day school year (yes, much longer than our own) music students in Japan are accumulating over 1,000 hours per year, and that doesn't include practice time at home in the evening, weekends, or during vacation. That means that all of those musicians will reach superstar levels before graduating from college. Whether or not you agree with their model does not change that fact.
By specializing, students in Japan are not considered "well-rounded" by American standards. Yet I have often wondered if we are doing our students any favors by enabling a sort of nationwide broad-based mediocrity, whereby students are getting involved in lots of different things, but not doing any of them with unequivocal excellence. While Japan's approach may seem extreme, and it clearly not tenable in the U.S. for a variety of reasons, I have to think that somewhere between their approach and ours lies a journey that would favor more depth than our students currently have, and perhaps a little more breadth than their students experience. Regardless of that, I have to admit that even though I spent five years teaching elementary band (and thought I did a pretty good job) my perception of what an elementary band student can be expected to achieve has been altered, and I'm sure I am not alone.
A little joke that has traveled around the Illinois music teaching community is my book called What Is Wrong With Your Band? When you open the book, there is just a mirror. I am almost done with it, I just have to find the right mirror supply house. If it is successful I will work on editions for orchestra and choir.
The thought behind that (which some people miss) is that no matter what your situation, funding, location, demographic etc. what your students learn is still going to come down to you. If your ensembles are not everything you want them to be, it's not the students, administrators, or parents who are ultimately at fault. Don't get me wrong, those folks will certainly put some roadblocks in your way now and then, but it still comes down to how you are going to proceed.
Many of us talk ourselves out of teaching our best because of adversity. We convince ourselves that someone or something is preventing us from better teaching. "I have a weak senior class this year." "My principal just doesn't understand." "Oh sure, if I had his facilities and funding we'd be just as good."
Ever notice that some teachers succeed no matter where they go, and others don't, no matter where they go? Some teachers just have all the luck, right? Or is there more to it? Successful teachers know this: No one at your school is going to wake up tomorrow and decide that their number one priority is fixing your situation. What are you going to do to improve your situation for the sake of your students? Write down the things that are holding you back and spend some time deciding what you are going to do about it. In most cases the "ideal" job is the one you are in right now, you just haven't realized that it's up to you to make it ideal. Shut down the bitter little voice that says "it's not fair" and start addressing the situation.
We've all been there. You're just about to enter the rehearsal room and you think to yourself, "I really don't want to go in there today." There's just something about the chemistry between you and your students... it just doesn't feel right. What happened? You've started to give up on your students. We've all heard teachers say that their group is having a "down year." Rarely do we hear the admission that the teacher failed his or her students.
"If the students aren't doing what they are told, then how can it be anyone's fault but theirs? Maybe next year's seniors will be stronger leaders."
Sure, maybe.
When have you given up on your students? When it has become you against them. When kids sense that it is no longer a "we" situation, that the musical endeavor is yours and not theirs, then you are losing them. Look in the mirror and accept responsibility for what is going on. Maybe you over-programmed. Perhaps you didn't set up the right accountability along the way. Now what? Are you expecting the students to make the first move? They are kids for goodness sake. You must rebuild the relationship. Yes, the ensemble needs to improve, but we need to trust each other and get there together. Students can't make meaningful music without trust.
Don't confuse "trust" with letting the students do whatever they want. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creating a learning environment where students feel safe from ridicule. An environment where the students are not constantly looking to you to determine what happens next, or cowering after every mistake. An environment where students are striving to become more responsible for their own musicianship. You can have high standards without making your students feel as though you don't like them.You can put their musical experience ahead of your own and still have a great ensemble. The students must believe that they are fully capable of achieving what you have asked of them. And they must know that you believe in them.
You have to trust that your students are up to truly making the music rather than constantly being told how you want it to be, and you must begin to transfer the process from yourself to them. A great way to rebuild this responsibility is to stop conducting altogether for an entire rehearsal. Get them listening to one another and to stop depending on you so much. Do it in a positive way, not a punitive way. Remind them that they make the music, after all, and they need to take responsibility for their musicianship. They (and you) will be surprised at how much they can accomplish when they realize that everyone must be in the driver's seat.
It takes a long time to build trust, and even longer for students to reach musical self-reliance, but they can do it, and they will do it if you don't give up on them.
Many music teachers talk about the pursuit of excellence. Perfection is unattainable, so there is no point in pursuing it. I don't agree, and I don't think it's just mincing words either. There is an important distinction (and relationship) between excellence and perfection.
Excellence is not something you pursue, like a destination or goal. I think excellence is the result of the consistent pursuit of perfection....knowing you can't attain perfection but always reaching for it anyway. That is excellence in music ensembles. Everything that students do in rehearsal must be approached with the aim of perfection: Every attack, every release, their tone, the way they blend with the ensemble. Every second must be spent pursuing perfection... and not because there will be repercussions if they don't, but because they truly desire to be an excellent ensemble. We usually see the pursuit of perfection in performances, but we don't expect it in rehearsal. Why is that? Remember, I'm not saying the students will play perfectly in rehearsal, I'm saying they should strive to do so. The difference in your rehearsals will astound you, and empower them. This mode of rehearsal represents major cultural change within an ensemble, so it can take months or years to get there. Don't rush it, but don't shy away from talking about it either. If your students trust you, they will give it a try. Have you ever talked about what your expectations are for rehearsals? Oftentimes we assume students should "just know" why they are in the room. Don't assume. Give them a clear vision for where the ensemble is headed.
It is frankly an exhausting way to rehearse and very few ensembles get to this level. And it really requires the teacher to be ultra-prepared for every rehearsal because things move very quickly. You too must pursue perfection. It is a tall order, but the musical rewards for students are better than any any trophy they can compete for. When an ensemble reaches excellence in this manner, each student has taken charge of his or her musicianship. It is a joyous thing.
Excellence and trust is what you need in order to make meaningful music, and to create and maintain an upward spiral. I think Steve Squires first talked to me about upward spirals. He is a master at getting ensembles to understand the pursuit of perfection.
Everyone is familiar with the term "downward spiral" but we don't talk much about the opposite. Like downward spirals, upward spirals tend to continue once they get going. I think upward spirals are much more difficult to initiate though. I guess some people would call an upward spiral "momentum." But I think "upward spiral" is good for describing what we want a community of learners to undergo, particularly an interdependent class like an ensemble. Much of the musical discovery and refinement process is cyclical/circular like a spiral. You have spirals in the investigation of a piece of music, and you have ensemble spirals over the course of a year, and you have a big spiral that happens over your entire program over many years, or perhaps your career could even be an upward spiral. The important thing to understand is that spirals are not things that happen by luck or magic. Teachers are the cause of spirals, whether upward or downward.
In an upward spiral motivation, decision making, and achievement is spreading more evenly across the ensemble, and particularly away from you. At its peak it feels like you're hardly "teaching" at all, and excellence abounds. Jim Stombres and I call it "driving the Porsche" because it's so fun to teach. Colleagues will wonder how you got so lucky to be at a place where the students care so much, and surpass your expectations consistently, without any effort on your part. Don't try to convince them otherwise, you'll be wasting your time. Just be proud of your students for trusting you. You and your students know what has really taken place, and you need to be content with that.
When I student taught (20+ years ago) at Glenbard East High School, Ross Kellan and Greg Cunningham were in the midst of an incredible upward spiral. As a young college kid who came from a high school that was in a downward spiral, I was baffled. There was no anger, no yelling, no discipline issues. The students showed up every day on time with their music prepared. They were engaged and motivated. What the heck was going on?
What's in the water in this town? Little did I know at the time everything that came prior to bring a program to that stage. How could someone know, unless he or she had experienced it? Ross and Greg are great teachers. If you take professional days to observe other teachers (which you should) and you see a program in an upward spiral, don't think it's something in the water. You can create one too. When every rehearsal seems a little more focused than the last, when the students seem just a little more motivated each day, your upward spiral has begun. Don't waste it!
I don't like inefficiency/ineffectiveness, and when it comes to school I'm beside myself when an
ensemble is not in an upward spiral. I take it as a personal failure when the students are not
interested in the pursuit of perfection. At the same time, the way I get them to that stage is just as important to me as getting them there at all. It is a trust process. Trust is built. I don't want students to be there for me. I also don't want them to be there for themselves. They (and I) need to be there for each other on behalf of the music... making music together with excellence. Gene Corporon said "fear has no place in a rehearsal." I agree with that. I'm not interested in having a room full of compliant, fearful students. As I said earlier, I don't think music is meaningful without trust. Yes, you can have an ensemble that plays extremely well, yet it can still be full of fear. There is no trust in that situation. Some call that "old school" music teaching and wear it as a badge of honor. It doesn't interest me.
Helping students initiate and maintain an upward spiral is as important to me as the music itself. Actually they are inseparable. When students have this, they have educational joy. This is the most important of the 25 to me personally. Probably because I struggle so much in making it happen. Every community is different, every ensemble (every year!) is unique. It's a moving target, but it's a challenge we must undergo if we want meaningful music making for our students.
When students experience excellence and joy in your class... they have found significance and relevance in learning. Then your group will be on an upward spiral that won't quit. You will be "driving the Porsche."
It is unusual to be empowered to "do" great teaching. Good teaching is not only easier, but in many schools it is actually preferred. I think some leaders think great teaching is taking place when all the teachers are doing things in a consistent/compliant manner, and with minimal internal or external (parent) conflict. While that could be a trait of a productive teaching community, it's more often detached conformity. I think many school districts see conformity as the goal instead of empowering great teaching where the uniqueness of each teacher and content area is valued. And when I say "valued" I mean in action, not in words. All leaders will say they value the great teaching, but what we truly value is seen in what we do not what we say. But I digress.
Back to the idea of faculty compliance. I think teachers are inclined to conform because (usually) they were successful students. Successful students are traditionally the ones who conformed and aimed to please. Over time a faculty will generally consolidate to wherever the leadership expects everyone to "be." So if great teaching is a clearly defined and "acted upon" value in a school system teachers will reach for it. Conversely, if good teaching is the goal they will gravitate to that, and you know which is more likely. We as teachers have to accept part of the blame. We know that going the extra mile can make our peers uncomfortable, and so we hold back sometimes. Our unions have had a hand in this move towards mediocrity too.
So the bottom line is that although administrators often argue that they can recognize great teaching in any content area, I could go on for some time about the ways that great ensemble teaching has little resemblance to great traditional classroom teaching. For example, many of us have had great rehearsals... learning-ful rehearsals... where almost nothing was said (verbally). There aren't any observation rubrics that would characterize that as great teaching, yet we know that musicians create, problem solve, inform, and yes think in sound. And therefore we evaluate that sound and help to shape it through the gestures we make in the conducting process. We spend a lot of our instructional time teaching non-verbally. Many days it is my primary mode of instruction.
We hear alot about "learning styles" but what that usually means is different approaches to learning things that are written. Thinking, learning, and communicating musically is not understood. It would be a major achievement for our profession if we could get administrators to stop thinking they can or should expect to regularly observe traditional classroom techniques in the interdependent music classroom. In general, administrators and school boards understand very little about interdependent classrooms even though our society is becoming increasingly interdependent. More on that later, but remember that ultimately it is up to you to improve this situation. Music teachers are not merely teachers of students.
Great teaching takes tremendous energy. Energy to make it through the day, energy to explain your methods again and again to leaders and parents who may not know anything about music, energy to reassess your own methodology. It's much easier to merely be a good teacher. It's a problem when you are viewed as a malcontent or a thorn in someone's side because you want to do great work, but don't give up if you know in your heart that you are trying to provide your students the best education possible. I believe that great teachers always prevail provided they don't give up. And remember that moving to a new school is not necessarily giving up. There are always wonderful students somewhere who deserve great teaching. Don't become an "escape artist" who avoids conflict, but at the same time if you have done everything you can do to improve your situation and you are still unhappy, don't be a martyr.
I also believe that most administrators really do want to understand how and why teaching music is different. Again, they can't understand this on their own, so it's up to you to help them understand it. Don't give up. Like students and teachers, they can learn if you are persistent.
Great teaching will prevail.
An aside: Currently it is not politically correct to even SAY teaching. Today we must only say learning. Apparently it's not about the teaching, it's about what the students learn. Well of course it's about what they learn! When was the last time you saw great teaching taking place in the midst of terrible learning? Effective learning is entirely dependent upon great teaching, and we should not be ashamed to say so.
It can be lonely trying to be the best teacher you can be. That is a telltale sign (feeling lonely), and you shouldn't shy away from it if you can stand it.
Unless you are lucky enough to work alongside a group of great teachers you are going to be thinking and acting in a manner inconsistent with, or even contrary to, many teachers. You are never a hero in your own backyard. Don't expect it, don't even wish for it. Just give the students everything you've got and don't worry about the naysayers. If you worry about it you will become bitter. There are few things worse than a bitter teacher.
Over time you will find colleagues who think about teaching the way you do, if you keep an eye out and strive to connect with them. In the meantime you'll probably get a lot of blank stares when you talk about what you believe. When you have the opportunity to take a job where the other teachers are pursuing great teaching... go. Who you teach alongside is as important as anything else. Iron sharpens iron.
Despair is very different from loneliness. I feel despair when my group has entered a downward spiral. I usually find myself just sitting at my desk after a rehearsal in a sort of a daze. Ever been there? You have to work with all your might to get yourself and your ensemble back on track as soon as you feel despair. The longer you wait the harder it becomes. I have found that the quickest way is to apologize for it. I have never regretted apologizing for poor teaching, though I have regretted waiting too long to do it. Addressing your weaknesses is related to this.
Great teaching requires that you consistently address your weaknesses.
Here's an analogy: A guy has all his windows open in the middle of winter and so naturally the house is cold. But rather than take the time to shut the windows before he leaves for work, he just cranks the heat instead. He figures it takes less time to just raise the thermostat, and I suppose he is right about that.
Teachers (and Education in general) can be very adept at a quick fix like cranking the heat, rather than taking the time to solve a core problem. But watch out for the utility bill based on a quick fix. The quick fix is a killer of the upward spiral. The upward spiral requires time investments that ultimately pay dividends. Obviously we should invest the time to REGULARLY discuss key signatures, rhythm, technique, just intonation, etc. yet somehow we just don't believe we have the time. Not teaching these things is precisely the reason we don't have time. If you can't afford the time to spend five minutes per rehearsal away from the concert music then you have over programmed. It's as simple as that. And we have all done this. We need to invest the time in fundamental concepts. If you want to harvest, you have to plant.
I first heard about the investment of rehearsal time from Ken Snoeck when talking about spending a large percentage of his marching rehearsal on marching basics. He probably spent more time on basics than most because he believed so strongly in the dividends. We waste lots of time fixing things that kids should be learning to fix themselves, or preempting altogether because they see the problem coming. Investing time in things that allow students to take possession of their own musicianship is at the center of great teaching. But it does take a certain amount of courage to "give up" some of those precious rehearsal minutes.
Your students need opportunities in order to maintain an upward spiral. One example is part rotation. Chamber music is another. A big one is performance opportunities other than playing for mom and dad. Parent support is imperative, but students need to perform at places other than the school building for other audiences. It's important that students get to perform for a "knowing audience" of musicians from time to time. They should also experience what it is like to perform in a space created specifically for music performances. They should work with trusted music educators other than yourself. Opportunities reshape students' perceptions about music, so be careful about which ones you choose. You must be sure they allow the focus to be on the music itself. That is one of the reasons you need to be very careful about your decisions to mix music with competition. Competition can be a positive opportunity but it is extremely easy for young students to replace musical rewards with hardware rewards. Teachers must work very hard to keep music at the core of a competitive experience and unfortunately many fail at that imperative.
Knowing that the vast majority of our students will never participate in ensemble again after high school, shouldn't they have the opportunity to play in a concert hall before they graduate? Shouldn't they have the opportunity to share what they have learned with other musicians, and learn from them as well? Shouldn't they have the opportunity to work with educators who are "better" than you are at some aspects of making music? Are you open to sharing the results of your teaching? You should be.
A quick aside about clinicians. When you bring a trusted conductor to work with your ensemble, don't kid yourself for a single second that the person is there to make your students "better." They are there to help you get better. Whatever your students bring to the table that day, and whatever recommendations are made are a direct reflection of your teaching. If anything YOU should be even more engaged at the clinic than your students are. The ensemble is your mirror, it is a reflection of your teaching, remember that. After the clinic, have the courage to sit down with the clinician and get the truth about your teaching.
If you want a better top ensemble, spend twice as much time planning for your second ensemble. Over time your first ensemble will take care of itself. When I hear someone complaining about their top group this year, I know they didn't spend enough time with their second group last year. As a profession, we need a lot more (non-competitive) opportunities for "second" ensembles. Too often I see teachers putting far more effort into their top ensembles, and complaining about their other groups. If they were to step back and reflect, they might see the real reason for the lack of progress.
Basically what I'm saying is: Treat every group like a top group. Why reserve your best teaching for one particular group of students? The way I see it I teach my top ensembles for free, and I am paid for teaching my other groups. I work hard to earn my salary with those groups so many of those students will arrive at the top ready and able to take charge of their own musicianship. Are you saving your best teaching for your "best" groups? Consider turning that paradigm upside down.
The good news is that once you make this paradigm shift you will find much more consistency year-to-year in your top groups. You won't feel like you are starting over every year.
I will bet anyone who is reading this that you can count on one hand the number of times you have taken a full day off of work in order to spend a full day observing someone who teaches the same thing that you do. No, you cannot count your undergraduate observation hours! Anyone? This is something that continually amazes me. No one knows better than a music teacher what it is like to feel so different from everyone else in the building. Even when you have more than one music teacher in your building, you are probably still the only person who teaches exactly what you teach. You are a "department of one."
So you would think that we would all be looking for ways to learn from one another, but we don't. As a profession we are incredibly worried about being judged. Or we don't want to offer suggestions or advice because we think we'll be viewed as a know-it-all. Personally I find it bizarre, given that we spend all day in a ensemble environment where everyone's contribution is essential. You'd think we would have learned that going it alone is much more difficult. I started a group on Facebook on a whim. Although it now has a "membership" of over 1,500 teachers, a minute percentage actually share their ideas. That needs to change if we hope to remain relevant in education. Before this school year is out, you need to take a professional day and visit a colleague. Don't get in their way, just observe. The next time you are at your district music festival, spend at least two hours observing the guest director instead of sitting in the teacher's lounge complaining! When someone asks you if they can visit you and watch you teach, say yes! There is no reason to keep great teaching ideas secret, and everyone has ideas that can help us become better teachers.
Music performance is one of the only authentically interdependent classes we offer in American education. What is interdependence? A situation where each person relies upon the other. Blue and yellow are interdependent in the endeavor to make green. Musical ensembles are inherently interdependent. Every contribution a student makes to the ensemble changes the the reality for every other student in the room, and reshapes their contributions moving forward. Music teachers need to help students, parents, and administrators to understand this important truth. It is one of the most important benefits of music education, but unfortunately we have not done a very good job of explaining it.
It can be frustrating when we are presented with a "new" non-traditional learning concept. Cooperative learning, differentiation, and most of the other latest "discoveries" are often things that regularly occur in music classrooms (and will still be after capital "E" education has abandoned it for the Next Big Thing). What each student brings to the rehearsal every day affects every other individual's educational experience, both in the moment and over time. This is how ensembles work, and is an incredibly sophisticated form of learning. If you believe that students relate "musically" (which I think most of us do) then an ensemble of 45 has hundreds upon hundreds of musical relationships going on, oftentimes simultaneously. Unfortunately educational interdependency is not well understood and many "cooperative techniques" poorly implemented in traditional classrooms. Worse, music teachers are sometimes asked to implement cooperative methods in ways that are less effective than what we regularly do (again, in an effort to be consistent).
"Think-Pair-Share" is a verbal or written exchange for pairs or small groups. I remember one point in my teaching career where everyone in the building was expected to implement this in lockstep fashion, regularly. But our students are already thinking and sharing at all times, across the entire class. It isn't something we do as a separate "activity." It is an extremely complex and sophisticated form of "sharing" and supremely relevant to learning the content in my class. Yet this did not "count" (remember, conformity/consistency).
I have also heard that some music teachers are not "allowed" to cite part assignments or part-altering as "differentiation" when anyone in our profession knows that this is a completely authentic form of the concept that we have been utilizing for decades; perhaps the most genuine form of differentiation in your school at the moment! These are the types of disconnects we have to work to rectify. However, bear in mind that we must also be cautious of invoking the "music is different" argument in an effort to rejectall new ideas without giving them fair consideration. Great teachers are open to new ideas provided they can work authentically in our situation. A good friend of mine says "great ideas can only enter open minds." You need to keep an open mind, you need to resist becoming the bitter, jaded, "checked-out" teacher that "nobody appreciates."
Anyway, back to the idea of the Next Big Thing. What is the buzz in technology right now? Social networking. We are "uniquely wired to as social beings" is what we are hearing, and we want to learn and experience life with others. Education will be late to this as with most things, but once again music performance is by definition a "social" learning experience. If you ask students why they elect to take music classes they will almost always mention this aspect. I think music teachers have swept those comments under the carpet. The word "social" has a bad connotation in education... it tends to be the opposite of "academic." Socializing is something kids do in the lunchroom. As social networking continues to come to the forefront I think the "socialness" of ensemble music will be seen for the sophisticated and joyous learning vehicle that it is. The students already know this. Jose Abreu knows this and has had over 800,000 poor children in Venezuela pass through his orchestra and choir program, "El Sistema." See more about him here.
Something I'll never forget that Gene Corporon said to Jim Stombres and myself: "Everyone wishes they had just one more rehearsal. Well guess what... you just had it." The exact number of rehearsals that you have changes from concert to concert, and from year to year. So if you are consistently feeling as though you needed "one more" rehearsal there is a greater issue at hand, namely our tendency to approach early rehearsals lightly and wait to "get serious" until one week before the concert. Don't let the number of rehearsals you have dictate your productivity.
When you start treating every rehearsal like the last rehearsal, you will have what Steve Squires calls the "sense of urgency" that every great ensemble needs. Not frantic or desperate, but "on purpose." It's a bigger idea than "good rehearsal technique." Everyone wants a productive rehearsal. You can bet that any conference session with the work "rehearsal" in the title is going to be packed. But if you value the pursuit of perfection, invest time in your students' musicianship, give them great musical opportunities, teach with urgency, and look in the mirror regularly you will have good "rehearsal technique."
I'll get straight to the point: If you want to hear expressive music you need to request it, and the way we do that is by gesture, by conducting. I think teachers can make the switch from directing to conducting when they start to come to grips with the fact that the sound emanates from the students not from themselves. You need to help them shape their sound, that's what you're there for. You just can't do that very well by beating time, and communicating everything verbally is hopelessly inefficient.
I have heard many teachers scoff at the idea of being more communicative on the podium, and I believe that's a defense mechanism. If you can discredit conducting as "flowery, meaningless gestures" then you won't have to improve. We tell our students that musical technique devoid of expression is pointless. What are we showing them? Usually, it's technique devoid of expression. Again, we need to look in the mirror.
When was the last time you conducted at least one phrase without pattern? Give it a try. Stop thinking that you are in charge of the pulse (you're not) and using that as an excuse to refrain from showing the music to your students.
I graduated college as a "band director." Later I preferred to think of myself as a "music teacher." More recently a "teacher of students through music." I think those frames of reference have been changing mostly due to an internal struggle to find the relevance of education generally and music education specifically. I've given considerable time to the question of why music "matters." But lately I think "Why Music?" is the wrong question to be asking. I'm not even sure it's a valid question frankly. Sort of like asking "why does yellow matter?" "What would life be like without the color yellow?"
Nobody cares "Why Yellow?" It sounds ridiculous to even ask the question. The same is true for "Why Music." I know I'm at odds with many music philosophers by saying that, but I find it to be true for myself so I'm not going to shy away from saying it. I think the idea that that all students will someday study music from kindergarten through grade twelve was a noble proposal but it is unrealistic. We do not need to present music as all or nothing in order to guarantee its place in education. It is impossible for every student to study music for twelve years, just as it is impossible for every student to study art, or dance, or even computer programming for twelve years.
Music has always been a part of the way humans are wired and we're always going to have it. We value what we do, so clearly musicians and consumers of music value music. "Why Music" is self evident. Let's focus on some questions that will help us improve as educators. "Why Music" is the wrong question to be asking.
A better question might be "how do I ensure that what I intend students to learn each day is what I am actually teaching?" Even more important perhaps is "how do I ensure that what I am teaching is relevant to my students' lives?" And all of that in the context of knowing that most administrators or board members will not know the difference, nor care as long as the concerts are "good" and parents are not complaining about something or other. It is not incumbent upon teachers to answer why humans "value" music. What we need to address for ourselves and our students is excellence, trust, and relevance. That's my current philosophy, and I try to live it out in my teaching. On some days I think I even succeed. If philosophy is not what what we say but rather what we do, how would your students characterize your philosophy?
The bottom line is each of us needs to spend time considering our own philosophy... why we are doing what we do each day in the classroom. Philosophers and researchers are important, but remember that the vast majority of them spent just a few short years in public education. Most of us have far more experience. We are in the best position to think through and research what will make us more effective. The question is... will we?
Aside from building trust, choosing repertoire is the most important thing we do. It's an essential tool in the upward spiral. Don't be flippant about repertoire decisions. Many of us choose repertoire that is too difficult. No wonder we cannot afford to invest time in conceptual teaching when we are killing ourselves (and the spirit of our ensembles) trying to get ready for the concert. Others choose music that is not well-crafted and does not "share the wealth" evenly across the ensemble.
Keep in mind that there is a very good reason that the vast majority of compositions go out of print within a few years. You should spend more time researching and choosing repertoire than you do in score study (and you should do a lot of score study, right?). If you are a young teacher you should rarely perform a piece that is less than five years old. Later in your career you will understand why this is essential. Music that has stood the test of time has done so with good reason in most cases. Let the profession help you in this regard.
And catch this: Most of your successes as a teacher (and even more of your failures) are directly related to your repertoire choices.
More recently I've been preoccupied with "schooling" and education and the relationship between
great teaching
the exponentially growing "knowledge base"
"figuring out" vs. "finding out"
relevance
technology acceleration (also exponential)
and the convergence of all of these these
Technology--or particularly the acceleration of it--is demanding convergence. These are exciting times, but they are also scary times for education. You can read more about my thoughts on technology at www.facebook.com/teachingmusic. You should absolutely watch this video as well
The decision to provide a public education to every child is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. "In the beginning" I suppose the goal was pretty clear: Prepare children to enter the workforce and become "productive" members of society. If you didn't finish school you probably entered the trades and you served as an apprentice to an artisan or craftsman. White collar: finish high school and go to college. Blue collar: Apprentice. We're basically still in that model.
But what did a child "need to know" 100 years ago? What do they "need" to know today? The historical developments alone, combined with virtually no change in the school day or year lays the groundwork for an insurmountable mountain of knowledge. Nowhere is this more apparent than in technology, where not only is there more to "know" but the tools have become so ubiquitous and revolutionary (so rapidly!) that schools cannot keep pace with their meaning and application. This has always been true to some degree, but exponential growth means that one minute something can be 50 miles behind you and the next minute 150 ahead of you. There very well may never be a crossroads or true convergence for education and technology. Technology could easily be 150 miles ahead before we know what happened. It may have already happened. We need to give serious consideration to the way school "works" and how we can use the tools of today to get kids up the mountain. We need to come to grips with the fact that we are educating children for jobs that do not currently exist.
You might want to read that again. Watch this talk by Ken Robinson.
I am a technology nut. Not the kind where I like to build computers from scratch: The kind that wants to use technology to make other things clearer or more productive, more efficient, more meaningful. Teachers need to invest time in this area. The dividends will come. However, like certain teaching methods, technology should not be the focus. You don't use it "just to use it." Creating a Powerpoint presentation doesn't mean much if the content is poor. So don't force it. The more you are exposed to it, the more genuine uses you will discover that will help you to be more productive and assist you in teaching music to your students. Also, remember that things like tuners, metronomes and recording systems are technology too. We need to remind administrators that technology is not only about computers. The addition of valves to brass instruments was also considered technology at one time... you get the idea.
I remember my dad fixing our cars. Then in the 80s they began installing computers into cars to regulate and control everything. That was an interesting shift for do-it-yourselfers. Game over for the most part. It caused problems in the repair shops as well. When cars started relying on microprocessors the automakers had to develop diagnostic tools that were themselves computers. The mechanics had to learn to use these "tools" back then and I recall it being a difficult shift. They couldn't tell you the first thing about how these tools were made or how the tools did what they did. It wasn't like a wrench after all.
You might have to have some experience with traditional tools to know what I'm talking about here, but knowing how a tool is constructed went hand in hand with knowing how to ultimately use it. The idea that you would use tools that you couldn't "understand" was a fundamental paradigm change for them, in that there just wasn't time for "knowing" at that level. They had to jump straight to "using." So it was very difficult to comprehend a computer as a tool. It seemed like hocus pocus to hook something up to a car and have it tell the mechanic what was "wrong." Kids that started playing with Sony Playstations at age three have always used technology this way. It's something that they don't need to fundamentally understand in order to use.
I feel very alone as an educator who senses the ground trembling from the oncoming technology freight train. Most schools are woefully behind in the implementation of technology. That in itself is not uncommon, but what is interesting (or scary) is that the vast majority of teachers and administrators are completely oblivious to this. Why? They are uncomfortable with/scared of/ignorant in/ the use of technology. They didn't have computers when they were in school, so while technology is clearly "the future" it is not essential, or so they think. The common adult sentiment is that their school's technology capabilities and implementation is perfectly adequate, in some cases even "cutting edge." Where does one begin to address the myriad of shortcomings given such a premise? The students know what the deal is. They have far greater technology capabilities at home (or even in their pockets!) than at school. They can hold a video conference (they don't call it that) with anyone in the world, but we can't observe another orchestra's rehearsal from the laptop in our offices. That should be a shocking concern (greater capabilities at home than at school), but it doesn't seem to be, not anywhere I have worked. If the best tools for learning are at home, where do you think the learning is migrating?
We are at a point where children have unprecedented access to information in order to learn, create, and interact through readily available tools and methods. The kicker: the tools (and what the students can do with them) are beyond the grasp of most adults.... by far. AND, not only are educators, administrators, and school boards unable to realize the implications of this, they are actively suppressing the use of these tools and methods in school. The fact is that students can (and do) use technology far more extensively, productively, and creatively outside of the school each and every day. Like blue collar jobs of the past, you don't learn to use these tools in school. But unlike those jobs, these are the tools of today's white collar jobs. Big difference.
I'm not sure if we need a longer school day, longer school year, or if we need to cut things from the knowledge base. Probably a combination of all three. But one thing is for sure: We need to be using tools that allow for speed, flexibility, portability, and the ability to let students work together interdependently, and by that I mean in ways that are mutually beneficial and true to the content at hand. I don't know how else we will be able to keep up.
Remember, many of the careers we are preparing students for do not yet exist. We don't know where the world is going but we do know the tools that are taking us there.
It's one thing (during my childhood for example) when a kid could set the clock on a vcr and the adult couldn't. It's another thing entirely when a kid can find virtually any piece of information, can instantly communicate with nearly anyone on the planet but at the same time schools are busy blocking and ruling out these very tools. Schools do not understand what is taking place, but the kids do.
Facebook didn't exist in 2003, even though it strangely feels like it has been with us forever. It has over 500 million users now. Why the exponential growth? If you ask someone why they use it, they will probably tell you "because everyone else is using it... I can "get" to just about everyone I know." People who don't understand what is happening will tell you "why do I want anyone I ever hated in high school to be able to find me?"
Now the sad truth is that Facebook and many other Web 2.0 tools will give way to the next technology before the schools understand what it really was. I'm not advocating that schools use Facebook with students (though we are using it for professional development). Facebook is just one of many Web 2.0 tools in use today outside the schools. I'm pointing out that students are learning how easy and powerful it is to communicate, to get information, to organize, to connect to each other.
Would you say that some schools struggle with these types of things? Do you think networking technology could assist? Of course it could. But instead the students are going to have us in their rear view mirrors while curriculum sub committees are discussing a class in "Advanced Dreamweaver" (which is right now nearly irrelevant to using today's web). We have plenty of time to catch up you say?
Students are going home each day and teaching each other to use these tools. It is a perfect example of interdependent learning. I remember my daughter learning HTML from her friend who was 11 (my daughter was 10). She wanted to be able to customize her "Neopets" page. This was several years ago and now this type of learning is even more common in my opinion. Kids are teaching each other how to blog, podcast, how to make websites, how to create graphics. They are "tweeting" and using social networking sites. They are watching/creating "how to" videos on YouTube, and IM'ing each other to ask questions about their school work. It is dynamic, it is fast, it is engaging, it is creative....it is everything that school ought to be, especially the interdependency. It is not uncommon for many students who take a tech class to know more than the class can offer them. They are taking the class purely for the credit. Ask your students sometime about where and how they really learned to use technology.We are busy taking about No Child Left Behind. It should be no teacher left behind when it comes to technology use. We just have no idea how far behind we are as a profession. When you combine that with the exponential growth of technology you get a very clear picture of the crisis we are facing in education. If you want to get a clearer understanding of technology evolution, see this talk by Ray Kurzweil.
I got an email invite recently to attend an information session on using "clickers" in our school. It's a little RF (radio frequency) remote with a number pad on it. Kids can select a response and then the teacher can instantly see the aggregated results. Not a new thing, and potentially very useful. They'll pilot them in coming months, and then probably start to purchase enough so that years from now every classroom might have a set of clickers. Meanwhile right now, TODAY, you can use mobile phones as clickers. A tool they own themselves and use every day outside of the classroom (and one they understand how to use more effectively than adults). Are you getting the picture here? Fifty years ago we were telling kids "no gum in class." Now we say "no iPhones" which is altogether different but we think it's the same thing. Not even close. Just one example: schools could require iPod Touches much as they require scientific calculators. Custom applications could be written that turn the Touch into a clicker. But it could function as a far more sophisticated version. It can also be a scientific calculator, or a web browser, or a media viewer, or a data gathering device. If you have seen the App Store you know that mobile devices have almost unlimited application. A clicker will always be "just" a clicker.
So not only are schools usually late to technology implementation, but they often go about it in a way that is not open-ended and wastes money. You need an overall vision for what is happening with technology in order to implement it with purpose. If you can afford one hour, watching this video by Michael Wesch will probably turn your thoughts of the traditional classroom upside down. If you only have five minutes, start with this one. Youth has figured out how to leverage the tools for knowledge-finding, creativity, self-expression, and communication on a massive scale. And it has no more inherent dishonesty in it than a calculator. I remember when I was a kid and calculators hit the scene. They were considered "cheating." Now they are required. Go figure.
Academia is still assuming that Wikipedia is unreliable while meanwhile it is becoming the most vibrant factual aggregation of authoritative knowledge in the world, with fact checking and redundancy that dwarfs the resources of "genuine" sources. When did that happen?More importantly for education, how and why is it happening? Kevin Kelly, co-founder and chief editor of Wired, says "nobody is as smart as everybody." That is where we are headed. Fortunately music teachers have insight here because that is exactly how ensemble music works. But the exponential growth of technology and interdependency does not give us time to stand still at this point. It barely gives us time to blink.
Today was a teacher workday for us. I had my grades under control by lunchtime, so after lunch I started tackling something I've been thinking about for years: webcam-based digital assessments.
For many years we have been using video camcorders for assessments in our school. I prefer it to audio because it really helps to see the student in addition to be being able to hear them. But if you've ever dealt with setting up and taking down video cameras, you know it can be a hassle. Tapes, tripods, power adapters... over time it can become a deterrent. Assessment needs to be reasonable for the teacher as well as the student, right? I had been thinking about using one of our Macs for some time, but it just seemed it would take as much or more time to deal with the digital files. I decided to do a little research about automating the process.
Of course the ability to record audio and/or video on a computer has been with us for a while now, so this is not some huge revelation I'm sharing with you. But what I was interested in was a process that could (a) be run by the students while rehearsal continued, (b) allow me to review the files remotely (can you say at home), and (c) be easy to implement. If it's not easy, I'm not going to do it regularly, and regularity is what students need.
So basically the process I was after was this:
Student clicks a button, and a new video file is created
Record
Stop
File is saved to a folder
Repeat for as many students as necessary
Files are uploaded for viewing
The Key: Automator
A few years ago Apple released an application with OS X called Automator. Basically it is like "macros" that you may remember from other software applications like Microsoft Word. Automator allows you to "record" a number of steps that are then saved into a "workflow." This workflow can then be launched just like a stand alone application.
Automator is not exactly the type of application you can easily figure out. Fortunately I found a great site called automator.us that has some helpful tips and some workflow files you can use or modify. After a few hours I had a workflow that would:
Open a new video file in Quicktime
Offer the student a button to press to begin recording, and tell them to begin
When the student clicks the button to stop recording, tell the student "Thank You" and "Send in the next student"
In the meantime, the file is exported to
My iDisk (on me.com) which
Allows me to view the file(s) from basically anywhere, including iPhone or iPod Touch
So once I start the Automator workflow at the beginning of class, I don't have to interact with it at all, and the video files will be waiting for me when I get home. Pretty slick eh?
Next week I'm going to look into modifying the workflow to utilize Drop.io instead of iDisk. The advantage there is you do not need a me.com account. Drop.io is free and also has a nice player built into their site so you can easily view the video files in your web browser (and iPhone with the Droppler app). I'm also going to try to figure out how to have the student enter their name, which will then become the file name. Not a really big deal since the video thumbnails basically show you a picture of the student, but still would be nice. Hey maybe I'll even have the Mac speak their name at the end just for fun.
If you happen to have a Mac and would like workflow file, just let me know. Here is a little Automator example in case you are interested in seeing what the interface looks like:
Thanks to devoting a little time a few years ago, streaming music wirelessly around my house is in "set it and forget mode." This is especially nice during the holidays when teachers have a nice block of time to relax or entertain friends and family. Even if you aren't up for tackling "whole house audio" I'll start with a very easy tip for getting your holiday music organized, whether you are playing it from just an iPod or computer hooked up to speakers. The bottom line is that if you take a little time to get organized, you will listen to your music collection more often, even when it's not a holiday season.
Apple's Smart Playlists
A nice feature that Apple added to iTunes a few years ago is called the "Smart Playlist." This is a list that looks for certain criteria automatically so you don't have to manually find and drag tunes into a playlist (though that works fine if you don't have a huge music collection). Smart Playlists update themselves automatically as you add new music to your iTunes library as well. For holiday music the easiest way I have found is to have iTunes search the "genre" field for the word "Holiday." Presto, you have holiday music ready to go. However this method is not perfect. I have found that, oddly enough, not all holiday albums are classified with the genre "holiday." And perhaps you have some music that really isn't holiday music but you like to listen to it during the holidays. What to do? First, I'll explain how to re-classify your holiday music should you desire to use this method. It's pretty easy. I'll be talking about Christmas music here, with all due respect to those of you who celebrate other holidays. Alter as needed!
Getting Organized
First you need to be sure you can see the genre field while looking at your library (it doesn't show up by default). So look under the "View" menu and choose the view options. Check the box for "genre" and now you will be able to see whether or not a Christmas album is tagged as "Holiday." Now, type the word "Christmas" into the search bar, and most (but probably not all) of your Christmas music will appear. Click the top column of the album field to sort everything by album. Now scroll and keep an eye out for any album that is not classified as "Holiday." If you find one that isn't, select all the tracks for that album (use the shift key and click the first and then last track) press control and the letter i. Under the info you will see the genre. Press and change the genre to "Holiday." Press OK and all the tracks will be re-classified as Holiday. Now try searching for any other albums that may not contain the word "Christmas" and make sure they too are labled as "Holiday." Now your genre Smart List should work nicely. Shuffle and go! Caveat: If you have other holiday music in your collection (I don't know, let's say "Easter") then this method may not work so well for you. Read on.
As some of you have probably already attempted, you could also simply create a Smart List that looks at the album title field and finds anything with the word "Christmas." This works and is much quicker, though you may miss some albums that do not include Christmas in the title. You may need to add some other criteria to catch everything (click the plus sign to add additional criteria). Maybe you have some other Smart List creation tips. Leave a comment if so. Again the nice thing about Smart Lists is that they update automatically, so when you add new music your Smart List will see it as long as it matches your criteria. By the way, Apple's new "Genius Mix" feature would be a natural for holiday music, but unfortunately they didn't really implement it properly. I've found that when you click a Christmas tune and then the Genius button, it invariably includes a few unrelated tunes by some similar artist. Hopefully Apple will think about tweaking that feature.
AirTunes and the Airport Express
I've used AirTunes with an Apple Express in the past to stream audio from my laptop to powered speakers elsewhere in the house. But a couple of winters ago I finally got serious about it. I'm using my Apple TV as the source, and I have three Airport Expresses throughout the house that are connected to either powered speakers or an input on a stereo system. I like Apple TV because I can use it with my High Def TV to not only listen to my music on my home theater setup, but also rent HD movies through iTunes. But you can also use your computer as the hub for this idea just as easily. Note that some people hear about AirTunes and they start looking for where to buy "AirTunes." AirTunes is the name of the techology that is used by the AirPort Express. So it's already built into iTunes, and it's free. What you need to buy is the Airport Express.
Using the iPhone (or iPod Touch) with Apple's free app called "Remote" I can access everything from anywhere in the house. Additionally, the Remote app can select or de-select any of the speakers and also control volume, so you can route the audio on the spot wherever you want it to go in the house. Powered speakers are plentiful these days. You can usually find some nice sounding models in the computer area at any Best Buy, or take a look on Amazon. If you have an iPod dock, sometimes they have an "external in" jack on the back. With the right cord (male stereo mini to male stereo mini) you can connect the output of the Airport Express to that jack. You can read more about Airtunes at the following link. http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/features/airtunes.html
The article in the newspaper about GM Corp. initiating cultural change is significant. It tells me that US corporations finally "get it"! The old top-down, heirarchical slow-moving american corporate culture is breaking down and being replaced by a customer-centered culture where plausible risk-taking is embraced. This is the change we need in order to survive globally. Yet, the American school system seems to lag significantly behind this trend.
I'm part of the school bureaucracy, and here are the areas that frustrate me:
Due to the bureaucratic rules and laws concocted by non-educators, school administrators and teachers are forced into a CYA (cover your ass) mentality. For example, one mis-step with regard to a student with special needs could result in a giant law suit. This effectively aligns the focus away from what is best for the student.
The inordinate amount of regulation aimed at public schools creates a "follow the rules" mentality. Risk-taking is frowned upon. When the rules take center-stage, innovation goes out the window.
In many states, especially Pennsylvania, teacher unions have too much power and political influence. It is nearly impossible for a school district to furlough a teacher for poor classroom performance. The grievance and arbitration process is set up to protect bad teachers. I've seen it first-hand.....arbitrators rarely rule against a teacher, even in extreme cases. As a result, school administrators and teachers spend large amounts of effort negotiating contracts, fighting grievances and dealing with legal issues. The focus is not on students.
More bureaucracy, more regulation, more laws. The only thing not happening is more education. We need to take a subtractive approach to public education. Sometimes, more is just more! After 34 years in education, I get frustrated. Then I see educators who make a difference despite having the cards stacked against them. In this I take hope.
To every educator out there trying to make a difference in the lives of students, keep plugging!
I surf the web...... a lot. I gave up on saving bookmarks in my browser a long time ago. If you have more than 100 bookmarks you know why. It's a losing battle. Looking at your bookmarks, you'll be lucky if you can even recall what 25% of your bookmarks are about, based on the name alone.
So nowadays I find myself thinking "what the heck was the name of that site I stumbled upon for sightreading...." or "what was that high school on the west coast that had a great looking website...." Then I do what most of us do: I "Google it" until I can find the site again. Hopelessly inefficient. I've also added many links to facebook. Sure, that's a nice way to share something you've found, but what if you want to get back to it later? Facebook does not have a way to organize or search links that you have posted. You have to page back through your links to find what you want. Again, hopelessly inefficient.
Enter Diigo.com
Then more recently I found out about diigo.com. I posted about it, and some of you have checked it out. But clearly I did not make enough of an impact upon many of you, so I thought I would blog about it. I'm hoping that by the end of this post I will have convinced you to give diigo a try. I believe it has enormous impact for us as teachers.
So in short, diigo is a site for bookmarking sites. Big deal right? Well, on the surface yes, it can seem like no big deal, just one more thing to worry about. But there are two big reasons why you should try diigo. The first is for simple productivity. How many of you have large music libraries at your school or district? Can you imagine trying to find music without a database, master list, or other system? Some of us have taken on the task of creating a catalog system for our music libraries, so we know first hand how wonderful the outcome can be. Now, instead of picking through drawer after drawer in search of a piece, we find it quickly and easily. Well, that is what diigo does for the web. Every time I find a website that has something of interest, I send it to diigo where it gets cataloged for easy retrieval. And I can get to my diigo links from any computer easily (or even from my phone). Diigo allows you to add tags to your bookmarks, so for example I can visit my diigo page and type "wind ensemble" and I will instantly pull up all of my bookmarks tagged as such. Very powerful. The second major reason to try diigo holds exponential power for us, and that reason is collaboration. Diigo allows you to create groups. I have created a group called (shockingly) teaching-music. Anyone who is a member of that group can share any of their diigo bookmarks to the group. Imagine the possibilities. Sure, we all teach music, but we all have our areas of specialization. If everyone shared even just a few of their favorite websites, we could build a library of thousands of helpful sites. And it all happens automatically. The group library can be sorted, searched, discussed, etc. You can receive automatic updates via email anytime links are added by others. You can post annotations over the top of sites that point out specific features. It holds tremendous promise. Right now our group has just five thirty-two members. I hope you will seriously consider joining and adding just a few of your favorite sites. College students, I'm talking to you too! Even though you are not out in the field yet, you know a lot of great sites. One of the biggest problems we face in our profession is a resistance to working together. Please everyone, let's step up to the plate and be willing to share. First, join diigo (it takes seconds) and then join the teaching-music group.
