Thing 10 – Borrowing and Sharing in CC

Up until this class, I was not aware of Creative Commons. As I delve into some of the resources, I will certainly be aware of it. Over the years of teaching and performing, I have been keenly aware of the copyright laws. It is stamped on every piece of music that I teach or play. The laws are a bit nebulous as to how much you can copy for “educational purposes”.

I think it is wonderful that I and my students will be able to learn from and expand upon information developed by someone who is also willing to share. I have not gotten to the point ( until this class) where I would have considered sharing on the web, but I think that will change. When you think of the possibility of many people around the world viewing and learning from your projects, your ideas, you want to make sure it is something worth “floating out there in space”. This would be the impact I would want it to have on my students.

I have not been able to think of any negatives if students are properly informed and guided about borrowing and sharing on the web.

Thing 8 – Wiki together.

Exactly ! Wiki’s are intended as a way to enable collaboration to present information on any subject. In the wiki sites that I read through, I found information on anything from books that could be viewed online in Grazing for Digital Natives, to assignments about the Holocaust. Book reports such as Turn Homeward Hannalee, where the students give a chapter by chapter summary and Go West, about life on the Oregon Trail are good ways to enable students to not only be informed but to inform others.

**** You internalize your knowledge when you share that information with others. ****

As a music teacher, I would enjoy creating a class wiki featuring composers, composing, musical styles, even famous musicians, past and present…etc.

After viewing some of the wikis, I would create a site that :

• Clearly stated a purpose/theme.
• Concentrated on maybe one or two subjects per quarter.
• Arranged the subject(s) into sections. This would allow for students/teachers to edit a bit more easily.
• Have a Resource site section, initially established by the teachers and then any additional information on sites added by the students. Of course, creativity in graphics and media would be encouraged and guided.

I think it would be a fun project to find a way for a class to compose a tune on a wiki site.

I am already enjoying playing around with my Wiki site in the Web 2.0 sandbox.

Thing 7a

I have really had an adventure in reading an array of Blogs. There is a Blog for practically anything that is known to man. I have really had to check myself and stay focused on my original purpose of exploring what was out there that pertained to the subject of music education. I am still in the exploration stage.

I have initially found a couple of sites that are of interest. As an example of how we can help each other, one of my fellow Web 2.0 classmates , Debbie Notestine, in her comment on one of my blogs told me about a blog she had read, about a man who has a site where he posts the sheet music and audio  to be played on a Ukelele. One of the tunes was a well known Hawaian Song called ” Lovely Hula Hands”. This site also lead me to a “tuning site” not only for Ukeleles but for violins and cellos.

Another site that I found was Amy M. Byrne’s blog ,“Elementary Music/Music Technology”, which is devoted to ways to teach students about composing, improvising … music and even some tips on what technology equipment would be helpful.

During my time of being ” focus challenged”, I found an article on Jekyll Island and beach erosion at the north end of the island. This is of interest to me since I and my family have spent at least a week, of just about every summer there, for the last 40 years.

I could go on and on but I will do that later.

Thing 5 – Thoughts on “Disrupting Class”

I thought the Techlearning blog about the book, ” Disrupting Class” by Clayton Christianson, was of interest to me. It was so interesting that I plan to purchase the book. In his blog , Mr Christianson admits to not reading the complete book, but says that what he has read shows that the book tries to present all aspects of how we as educators can work to customize education for all students.

As an instrumental music teacher, I am always dealing with the word customization . Each school year, because of the way we have to schedule, I always get a few new students mixed with ones from the previous year. Some have had previous training on the instrument but most have not. Some have come from other schools where Music Basics were presented a little differently. Of course, I spend the first few weeks/months making sure the students are all on the same page ( or pretty close). Then, and only then can I begin to guide them in making their tunes/parts make sense. Thus, here is where the “Disruption…” comes in which gets me back to what the book describes as “customized learning”. I know that this is going to happen every year so it would serve me well to be ready to adjust.

This past year, we had one 4th grade student who had been born with virtually no fingers on the right (bowing) hand. This student wanted to play the Viola. Both Ms. Chang and I put our heads together and came up with a type of glove that could be worn that would allow the student to draw the bow across the strings. The student did fine, but I would like to take some more time to find a way for the bow to be more stable on the strings. This was probably an ultimate use of ” customized learning”

Thing 4 – Blogging – Creative Learning.

I have been reading various blogs for the last few days. I could not stop at just 5 because each one of them seemed to have a different twist on how blogging could be used. Up until this class, I have never really investigated “Blogging”. I will have to say that now, I have joined the “Blogosphere”.

What is so refreshing about Blogging, is that even young children can have the chance to share ideas and opinions on their level and be collaboratively creative about their chosen subject. In Duck Diaries the children were free to write their ideas and opinions without having to worry too much about spelling.

There were two Blogs that I read about environmental concerns. One was about the need to use alternative means for getting your groceries home. I have already begun to do this myself, so this especially related to my life. The other was about our being more conservative with the use of the precious resource; water, which is very close to our hearts here in Atlanta. These are examples of ideas that allow other people to collaborate on an original idea for a solution.

Although I love to read, I am mostly reading articles in magazines, the newspaper or special interest websites. Now, I have added various Blogs. I do love a good chapter book but because of some visual problems , I have difficulty reading for long periods of time. I think the blog by Mark Ahlness about the volume of reading his students do, even though they are not reading in what we might consider a traditional way, says a lot about how information will be “consumed” in the future. To expand on that thought, the blog on “Rationale for Educational Blogging” did a nice job of giving reasons for using the Blog as a way of teaching students responsibility in public writing, how to collaboratively connect and learn from others and have confidence in their own ideas and opinions.

There were two more sites that really interested me, especially since it made references to “The Arts in Education”. Since I am an instrumental music teacher and a product of the Arts being taught in school it really spoke to my rationale for why we as teachers need to find some time to encourage the students to use their ” Creativity” and talents. Within that Blog was a film of a very inciteful talk by Sir Ken Robinson on why we might be killing that creativity.

This past year, We ( Prescilla Chang and me ) initiated an assignment that allowed our students a chance to explore their creative side. The students were told to compose a tune ( only 4 measures long) . They were given 10 basic rules of composition but the rest was up to them. This gave them a chance to show us and themselves what they had learned about music, so far. We had some students who ran with it and even added text ( which was not assigned) and also came to us asking for more staff paper to make their tune longer. We also had some students who used the minimal amount of space , which was OK because we understand that everyone is not interested in composing.

We (myself included) need to more occasionally, raise our heads out of our lesson plans and tune into our student’s needs to explore their own modes of learning and creativity. Yes, there are many Blogsites that are publishing inappropriate and incorrect information but I am sure with our informed guidance, the students will learn to be able to disseminate the ones that are worth reading.