Author: Teach2Connect

I found a great article today in the NY Times entitled “The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by their 20’s”.  It truly hit home to me the way our children have become accustomed to the speed of the digital age. They do not understand function without digital media.  It also hit home for me personally because I find myself in the divide between the digital native and the digital immigrant. I don’t understand how to “solo” task either. For example, I can’t imagine not being instantly connected to my devices any more than my kids can’t imagine it. I do however appreciate my ability  “to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to” (Vicky Rideout, p.2). Being a “thirtysomething” on the cusp of the digital divide does have its advantages.

Before I get on the big soap box, read for yourself and respond if you wish. Facebook, tweet, text…I’ll get them all.

May this Christmas find you blessed and surrounded by love. A special Merry Christmas from my lovely students from our Christmas Celebration dress rehearsal. (Oh, if only I’d had an HD Flip…hint, Santa, hint)

I’m wondering from my tech and teacher friends out there. What path did you take to become tech coach, staff developer, and/or pd teacher, etc.

I’m interested to know what types of coursework, experiences and the like may have been helpful to you.

A quick post to share a delight. The 6th grade is working on their multi-modal definitions of the word “attentiveness” using art, music, drama, and dance. One group was struggling with teamwork so a student came over and asked for “Wisdom”. Wisdom is our stuffed owl we use as a “talking stick”. They realized their need for the strategy, got him from the shelf and used it themselves! They are now working and ready to focus.

When the little things work, it makes the whole day great.

In my back to back third grade classes this morning I had an epiphany. It came from the students movement in the second class and I was so very pleased. The students were doing experimental movement to Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. In the process, one student was clearly shuffling to the exact rhythm (bom bom, bom bom, bombombom, bombombom, bombombom….yes, highly effective rhythmic language) while most others were matching the steady beat (bom…bom…bom…) This led to a wonderful teachable moment of beat vs. rhythm. The children took turns being the beat or the rhythm. This allowed for independent practice and individualized help for kids who still struggle with the concept.

This will allow us to beautifully move from the steady bordun for section A to the tremolo in section B when we add OI next week!

Thanks to Grade 3B, I now have a new lesson for October!

Here I sit trying to filter through the morning barrage of self-induced stimuli overload and have a morning musing. I think I’m “over” my igoogle page. I don’t think it is the best way for me to aggregate all I want to follow in the course of a day. As you can see, I have the basics-email, calendar, twitter, as well as my reader, the weather, facebook and my google docs. But I can’t seem them all fully. I am only able to process them in bits. That being the entire point of the aggregator. This frustrates me, because I inevitably open them up in tabs anyway. I think (as is faintly visible in the screen shot) I am more comfortable with tabs. If I’m gonna click, I might as well have them open individually. I’m trying to reflect on how this is relative to my needs as both a person with processing issues AND a type A??

Alas, yet another way for my scattered mind to be distracted when it needs to prepare sub plans before school has even begun…..

STJES Music Wordle

I am writing new curriculum this week and next. This week I am creating “new” classes for gr. 7 and 8. Gr. 7 will take Music with Ordinary Objects (MWOO) a la STOMP for 12 weeks and Gr. 8 will take Music Technology for 12 weeks. I also need to update my gr. 5 and gr. 6 curriculum this summer but that’s a whole ‘nother deal.

I’m finding myself very comfortable with the prospects of creating gr. 7 curriculum. I am expanding upon work I have done in small units with stomp-like themes. Now I am faced with the pinnacle questions as I teacher. “What do I want them to know?” “How will I know they know it?” “How can they apply what they know?” “How can they transfer what they know?”

So I sit with these as my primary platforms for creating this new curriculum.

Essential Questions

• How is music different than noise?
• How can ordinary objects make music?
• How is music organized?
• What character qualities essential to becoming a strong performer? an ensemble member?

Course Objectives

• The student will analyze, create, perform, and critique music with ordinary objects.
• The student will enable the character qualities which are essential to be a strong solo and ensemble performer
• The student will be reflective of the musical creation and performance process.

I have also created expectations and procedures for both the course and classroom and now I am mapping out 12 weeks. The penultimate being a final performance of 7th graders in a MWOO SHOW. (yes, I intended the rhyming)

I, as stated before, am excited and motivated for this work.

But I, the tech geek, am struggling with music technology. I am well versed in web 2.0 and tools to ehance collaboration and communication. But I am not well versed in what one would call “music technology”. Mostly because it is not a keen interest of mine. So this week I must also learn how to use mixing software as part of the work I will complete. Yikes! This is a more daunting task, which is why it is pushed to the “Wednesday” burner.

So, I open up this post to you, dear reader. Any ideas for my gr. 8 class? Please let me know, I’m definitely looking.

This week I finally, after three long years, finished my Master’s degree at The Johns Hopkins University. A Master’s of Science in Education with a concentration on Administration and Supervision will be conferred upon me next Thursday. I have tons of reflections on this process not the least of which is I do not want to be an “official” school administrator in the traditional sense. What I do know is that I have passions for change management, tech integration, and character development. Nevertheless, the degree is done and I am pleased.

I did my final seminar project on leadership for technology integration:

Graduate Seminar Presentation

(This is just scratching the surface, I could have gone on forever…..)

I also kept my entire Internship portfolio as a wiki. This turned out to be very worthwhile as my supervisor and I had to conduct our final interview via cross country teleconference. Whew!

So, the learning here is finished but learning never ends….what’s next?

In my search for a good online tool for my 6th graders, I went-a searching on the good ole interweb. I love kidspiration, but since I’m trying to incorporate more online tools in the class, I found these for your viewing pleasure.

bubbl

exploratree

ReadWriteThink

There are tons of printables, but I was most pleased with these three online tools. Cheers.