OpenEd.io --A resource that EVERY TEACHER (or human) should know of (and use!)

I got an email over the weekend from my assistant superintendent. He frequently alerts his "tech guinea pigs" when he finds something particularly exciting. When I had the chance to look at OpenEd.io, the incredibly awesome resource that he had shared, I got lost.  I was lost in videos of amazing string quartets that I found by searching Jazz Music. I got lost learning about playing and soloing with the pentatonic scale on guitar.

Oh -- let me show you!


This is the  Quartet San Francisco playing one of my favorite Chick Corea songs: Spain. (On an unrelated (but totally awesome) note, I KNOW one of the violinists! He is originally from Maine, and  we played The Music Man together at a performance in Portland. A long time ago.)

I have never seen such a comprehensive list of music resources-- and they have videos, project ideas, for every subject you might imagine!

I now have playlists to use with my 7th grade Guitar Class:

As well as for Jazz music, for general music education, and for myself -- because there are so many things that I love!

Please-- do yourself a favor and check out OpenEd.io -- you won't regret it. You may lose a few hours in a time vortex - but it will be time well spent. If you do check it out, let me know what you find?

Transference of Knowledge in action in High School Band Midterm

I have had the great benefit of being on the team of educators and administrators that is helping lead the rest of the district through the lengthy, challenging and exhaustive (and/or exhausting) process of getting our curriculum up into the Rubicon Atlas format and servers. I have learned so much about content, delivery, knowledge and assessment through the conversations we've shared through this journey.

It is so exciting when we dig into concepts and I can see how I am already doing many of the recommended strategies. Recently we have been tackling the concept of Depth of Knowledge (DOK), in an effort to truly capture student engagement in all areas. Being able to recite facts does not always demonstrate true understanding.  See this chart that explains the different levels of DOK.

Chart by Dr. Norman Webb

DOK is different than Bloom's Taxonomy in that the verb is not the end result, as it is in Bloom's. In DOK it is how the verb interacts with the content, and the complexity of the thinking that is involved that determines the DOK.

An excellent resource that I found makes the observation that students involved in Career and Technical Education statistically perform better on state standardized test benchmarks, like the NECAP, or the MEA's of old. I can easily see this correlation because students in the technical learning classes, and those in the arts classes, are always transferring their learning into doing. It is never the simple recall of facts. It is learning facts, and then applying them. Every single day, over and over again. 

When planning for the mid-year exam for my high school band students, I was very interested in trying to capture the transferred learning that happens all the time in the ensemble. Therefore I gave students time to select one etudes in the warm-up book -- a sadly neglected section, which therefore ensured that all students would be sight-reading and preparing a completely unknown piece of music for the the mid-term. I gave them several class periods to practice in class before the winter break, as well as the rubric that I would be scoring them against, and reminded them to be practicing on their own when we returned to school after the new year. 

On the day of the mid-term, the students were given time to prepare, and then when they felt ready, they recorded themselves on their iPads, using the Moxtra App.  This app is my absolute favorite for use in music classes. The students imported the digital copies of the music into their Moxtra Portfolio, and then while reading the music from the iPad, they are also able to record their audio on the incredible microphones the iPads are equipped with.  The students then shared the link of their file with the sound file attached to me via email.

It was very exciting to see the level of detail the students used in preparing their selections. Dynamics, articulations and phrasing were all evident -- without any formal coaching from me on these pieces. They transferred their accumulated knowledge of musical concepts to this assignment! <insert fist bumps and high fives all around>

Here is a video that explains DOK a little more.

Depth of Knowledge from NYC DOE Promising Pract on Vimeo.

I really enjoy looking at DOK and trying to incorporate all four levels into my teaching at different times -- depending on which grade level I am working with. It is common sense, in many ways, but a very thoughtful and accessible resource that helps educators to use the common language, and speak to goals with precision and specificity. I am excited to continue exploring other ways of demonstrating what students actually know!

Amazing article that I HAD to share, and my thoughts on Music Education

This easily distracted band teacher just loves to laugh. Some of the best moments in any of my rehearsals happen as a result of hilarity that only happens when students are involved. Encouraging a culture of fun, yet being able to get right back to work, is a vital part of who I am as an educator.

When I student taught at at 4th-8th grade school, I learned a valuable lesson that has shaped me into the educator that I am today. I learned that I could be myself.  My cooperating teaching was loud, excitable and very easily distracted. But his heart was bigger than our whole state, and the students knew that they were important. It was in the safety of his tutelage that I realized that I didn't have to pretend to be the "all-knowing educator." I could be myself. Quirky, excitable and fun.

This article by AJ Juliani is an insightful and inspiring read that left me excited to get back on the podium-- but even more important, excited to take a look at my teaching style and see how I can incorporate more of the methods that encourage learning. In the article, Juliani states the three emotions that get the most traction in learning and education. They are Awe, Excitement and Amusement (or Humor). I think that anyway who remembers being a student will absolutely relate to this idea and agree. The best classes were the ones you were excited to be part of every day. The classes where the teacher made you laugh and the learning was memorable because it was fun.

Student teaching also taught me that being a music teacher is about so much more than just your philosophy of the importance of music. The value of music didn't change for me -- if anything, it became even more important through my career as I have begun to understand students as people who are experiencing life for the first time. It is critical that students learn how to be a beginner at something. In younger grades, children aren't so aware of the concept of failure. They just keep trying. But as they get older, they begin to associate inability to do something immediately with failure --- which is NOT the truth. In ability to do something is merely feedback. Feedback provides information. Failure produces judgement. Performing ensembles give students a chance to fail, to learn from what went wrong and try again, and to master. And the medium is fun, and social -- while using many different parts of their brain at one time.

In the band room the culture of the school changes. The students are no longer grouped by sport, by intelligence, by peer group, by socioeconomic status. They are simply Flutes, Clarinets, Saxes, Trumpets, Low Brass or Percussion. They learn how to work together with all different types of people, and no-one has to sit on the bench.

I knew that I would love being a teacher the day that I wandered the hallways in awe the first day of student teaching. Thirteen years later, I know without a doubt that I am in the right profession, and am excited every day to keep learning, and refining the process.

Using iOS GarageBand with 4th Graders Discovering Poetry

Our district is integrating iPads for all grade levels, and I have the good fortune of teaming up with one of our wonderful 4th grade teachers in using iPads to bring poetry to life!

The following is a basic tutorial for the concepts we will be using in the unit.

Getting Started with GarageBand on the iPad

When the program opens, it will create a new song, and take you to the instrument choosing screen. To select different instruments, swipe across the screen horizontally in either direction.

I recommend starting with SMART GUITAR.

When Smart Guitar opens, you can see several different chords in tabs across the front of a picture of a guitar.  The strings are interactive. You can play individual strings, strum across all six, or even bend the strings!

Touching the letter names of the chord plays full chord.  

The circular dial above the Bb is the "auto play" dial.  Setting the dial at either 1, 2, 3 or 4 and then touching one of the chord tabs starts a strumming or picking pattern that is repeated. It will keep playing until you touch the same chord again to stop.  You can easily change chords while auto play is going -- it is a very cool way to get an idea of what different song styles would sound like.

Before we start to record, there are some settings we have to change!

1st- We need to turn the metronome off.

To turn the metronome off, touch the WRENCH icon, and you will see the menu pictured.  In that menu, touch the blue and white area next to Metronome that show it as ON. When you touch that, it will slide to the left and turn gray, which indicates that it is off.

Next we need to adjust how long GarageBand will record for.  It automatically starts with 8 measure sections. It is easy to change, and best to do it before we do any recording.

In the top right hand corner, you will see a plus sign.  Tap the plus sign and you will see this menu.

Tap on the words SECTION A  and you will see:

Touch the grayed out toggle next to Automatic and you will see:

Which is what we want.  We have told GarageBand to keep recording until we tell it to stop.

Now --- for RECORDING!!

To record the cool sounds that you have created, simply touch the red circle at the top, and wait for the count in, and start playing. 

Make sure that the cursor (small tab that follows the music along the measure indicator) is where you want it to be before you hit record, or you may end up recording over something that you already recorded.

When you are finished recording, simply press the stop button. (The white square -- it only shows up during recording or playback.)

Now -- let's add another instrument!

To the left of the playback controls, you can see two buttons.  One that looks like a guitar, and is blue, and a tab with a bunch of lines.   The guitar is blue, because we are using the guitar right now.

Touch the tab with the lines and you will see:

This is the TRACK VIEW.

To add another instrument, click on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner.  It will bring you to the instrument selection screen. Swipe across the screen until you find the microphone, for the audio recorder. This is what we will use to capture the student reading their poems.

When you select the microphone, this is the the screen you will see:

Start and stop the recording in the same way you did with the smart guitar.  This time, when you tap record, the guitar music you recorded will play in the background.

When you are finished recording, press stop again, and then tap the TRACK button -- the one next to the blue microphone.

Now you can see that your song has a guitar track, and your vocal track.

If either the guitar or voice are too loud, tap on the picture of the instrument you want to adjust the volume of, and then click on the "mixer" button.  (It is between the loop and the wrench.)

In this menu, you can adjust the track volume, or how loud the selected track (or instrument) is.


When you are finished with your recording, click on "My Songs" in the upper left hand corner.  It will save the project, and bring you back to the screen where all of your projects are.

Garageband doesn't force you to choose a name for your project right away -- it creates a temporary title "My Song #."  To change the title of the song, simply TAP AND HOLD the current title of the song until a keyboard pops up giving you the chance to create a new title for the song.

Next time we will discuss how to get these creations into iMovie, to create a movie using the students music to accompany pictures of the students artwork.

This is fun and exciting!

The 2013 A.C.T.E.M. (Association of Computer and Technology Educators of Maine) Conference

My friend and colleague, Barbara Greenstone, is a well-respected technology teacher throughout the state. She suggested that I submit a proposal for consideration to the board of the ACTEM conference. I was so excited by her suggestion, that I immediately began working on my proposal for my "iPads in Band and Chorus: Great for Portfolio AND Assessments!" session.

I nearly missed the opportunity, however, when I didn't receive the email that told me that my proposal had been accepted! Thank goodness I am one of those gmail nerds that have every account (of many) forwarded to one primary account, because I was then able to find the email on the original email server. Relief! Disaster averted!

I am happy to share with you the video from my session at the 2013 ACTEM conference, where I share my best practices using the iPad for assessments, and instruction.

Watch the video here.

The conference took place on Friday, October 11th, in Augusta, Maine.

Moxtra and eBackpack . . . together forever?

Moxtra is my go-to app for anything that needs a playing assessment.  The sharing features are above anything that Notability has to offer, and the binder creation is a great concept that gives students a lot of control when creating digital Portfolios.

Since Maine's iPad solution included eBackpack, I was excited when I finally found a way to make the two apps work together. On paper it was awesome.  The first time that I had to grade more than 100 assessments, however, I learned that though it works, the extra time it adds to the process is a significant issue.

But -- I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me explain how things worked before eBackpack.

All of my students, grades 7-12, have iPads.  They download Moxtra, a free app, from the app store.
Using camera on their iPad, they take pictures of their music, and use those pictures to create binders for each song that we are working on.

When we have a playing assessment, they click on the page in the portfolio with the picture of the song, and when they hit record and record themselves, a new page is created, with the sound file attached.  They can then share that new page with me a number of different ways.  What I have them do is email it to me, which generates a link to their page with the audio file attached, visible on the web -- which means that I can access their assessment from any device, anywhere.

My email blows up -- but, it works.

eBackpack is a really cool program that you can use to hand out digital assignments, or instructions for a physical project, and students can turn in assignments right into eBackpack.  One of the awesome "sharing features" that I mentioned about Moxtra is the ability to "copy link," which I would have students do and then paste into a note into eBackpack, thus turning in their playing assessment using eBackpack.

Having them all in one place, with the amazing sorting features is great.  I could see at a glance exactly who hadn't turned in their assignment.

However. . .   when I sat down to start listening to the assessments, the extra time eBackpack takes to re-load after every time I listen to an assessment (on the iPad app) adds up to a significant chunk of time that I simply do not have.  A select few of my students were not familiar with eBackpack, so they simply emailed me their Moxtra file.  I was so grateful they did, because I was able to see for myself how much faster the process was using it the old way.

Because I hope to be using this tool for a long time, and have many, many students, time is valuable.  I will continue to search for an alternative to my email blowing up.  But I haven't found it yet. :)

Standards Based Report Card for Band Classes -- 6th Grade, 7th-8th Grade, High School

I was inspired to get on board with Standards Based Reporting after taking part in a course designed for music teachers to understand assessment practices. It was a thrilling class -- the chance to discuss what works and what doesn't and make informed decisions with new colleagues from around the state was an experience that changed me as an educator for the good!

Knowing that the state is moving forward with standards based reporting, grading and diplomas, I took advantage of the time and created my band stands for my high school level students as part of the requirements for the class. After the class was finished, I revised and adapted them for grades 7-8 and grade 6.

The challenge, of course, is implementing them and reporting them while still in a traditional grading system. In another post I will share how I decide to handle this quandary!

Here is the link for the High School Standards for Band Class.

Here is the link for the Standards for 7th and 8th Grade Band Class.

Here is the link for the Standards for 6th Grade Band Class.

The standards were designed around and incorporate the Maine Learning Results for Music.