One More Thing

I have really enjoyed taking this course. Working with all of these tools is a lot of fun. Sometimes it certainly can be frustrating, but when you sit back, take a deep breath (or a break) and come back to the project, most of the time you figure it out and you have that huge sense of accomplishment. I am a "figure it out" kind of person anyway, so that fits me. I have enjoyed getting more familiar with tools and even terms that I have seen before but never know what it was or how to use it (such as RSS feeds, wow, what a cool tool). I was just talking to a friend and mentioned blogging and linking to a site, and they asked "you know how to link?" and I smiled and said, "absolutely!" :-) When I read the course description, I knew it would be a lot of work and take a lot of time ( and it was and it did!), but I knew it would be worth it. Many years ago when laptops first came out, I enrolled in a program where we did projects and lessons on computer and if we completed that course we could keep our laptops. I know that many people that took that course had to turn their laptops in, but I was determined to keep mine and I did! In fact, many of the things I learned in that course are the foundations to the technology skills that I do have today. This course reminded me of that and I knew going in what was in store, and I really enjoyed it. The only problem was that I had to take a two week vacation right in the middle, where I would not have access to the Internet, but I worked hard to get ahead where I could finish when I got back and here I am! Now that I have learned about the tools and am much more familiar with wiki's, blogs and such I want to keep using them. I am not completely sure exactly how, but I will work out the details between now and school starting in a few weeks. I have always been a person that hated to write, but I kind of enjoy blogging...hmmm. In closing, I want to thank those of you that spent a lot of time reading and keeping up with our assignments, I know that is not always an easy job. I can't take courses like this during the school year because of time commitments, but I look forward to many other offerings in technology during the summer!

Thing 23

Visit 23 Thingsters

I enjoyed looking around Ning. As I mentioned in the last post, I enjoy facebook a lot, but to have a site like that just for teachers is great. Granted, there are not a lot of music groups or even posts about music on the site, but I think that will get better as more people become aware of it. I enjoyed looking at a discussion thread about music technology. As you can tell from me taking this course, I am always looking for ways to improve my knowlege of technology and specifically music technology can certainly help me in the classroom. The thing about interactive sites like this (and of course all of web 2.0) is that it connects all of us across the country and the world. I like being able to interact and discuss something of interest to my classroom with a band director or music teacher in California, or Virginia, or Israel, or anyplace. The thing you realize is that even though we are in different areas, and sometimes different situations or socioeconomic circumstances, many of our problems are the same and the more we share ideas, the better we solve them and our students are better for that sharing and interacting.

Thing 22

Okay, so now I have to admit it, I am a Facebook addict. I actually resisted the idea of joining for a long time. I knew about my space and Facebook because my youngest son was a member of face book while he was in college (my oldest son still resists the idea) and of course many of my students have talked about their accounts and what was said or done for the past several years. To be honest, I was a little afraid to join, but my wife joined and began to reconnect with people that we had known from the past, many that had been my students. Therefore at her and their urging, I joined. I now realize what a wonderful tool this is. Since I joined a few weeks ago, I have reconnected with many of my ex students and have caught up with where they are, what they are doing, and that is a great benefit to both of us. Because band is such a family thing and because we do grow close to our students as we literally see them grow up, it is wonderful to see what they are doing with their lives, see pictures of their families, or just see where they are. I literally have ex students across the United States, many with all kinds of occupations and we all have the common background of having experienced band together. In fact, not only did I reconnect with my ex students, I reconnected with MY ex band director, who is now on Face book! Even though it is a social network, it does serve an educational purpose, because I can tell my current students that there is a future, that their current experiences in band will serve them well in it, and that they will have those connections for the rest of their lives. This helps be be a better teacher and helps them to be better students and helps all of us realize we are lifetime learners. In fact, many of my ex students that are now teachers tell me that many of the things they use in their classroom now, they learned from me. I am really glad I joined and I encourage anyone especially teachers to join and connect with students and ex students.

Thing 7b

Interesting question raised in this poll.................Can a teacher be a good teacher without technology? Here we are in the middle (or towards the end) of a course that deals with technology tools that will help in the classroom, so what a great question. The responders in the poll mostly voted yes as the answer. In my opinion, yes is the correct answer. I think a teacher can be great and very effective without technology. See, in my opinion, a teacher is effective because of his or her relationship with the students. If they believe in you as a teacher, they will listen and learn no matter if you just have chalk and a green chalkboard or if you have computers on every desk all the latest "gadgets" installed. I think technology is a wonderful tool and can really make learning easier, but like any other tool, it depends on the person using it. For instance, I can go to the local hardware store and buy all the latest tools for carpentry or plumbing, but just me holding them or owning them will not make me a good carpenter or plumber. So my opinion is that while technology is a wonderful tool, it has to be put in the hands of a master craftsman (teacher) to be highly effective.

Thing 21

Google tools can be a lot of fun to work with. I am somewhat familiar with them because when I got this new laptop, the home page I began to use was google. Immediately, I made an iGoogle page with things of interest to me. I have weather, latest news from sources such a fox news, sports news from ESPN and sports illustrated, and things like that. Also, recently I have begun to use google maps. I did not know much about google maps, but begin to work with it when I was planning our vacation to Wyoming. I was able to plan out the route, get directions and approximate travel times for all of the trip. I can also use this application at work because we do travel a lot as a band and when I need directions to a stadium or school, it will help a lot. In fact, with the encouragement of my son, I downloaded google maps on my mobile phone and have had a lot of fun working with it and using it for directions while traveling. The other thing I chose to use for this assignment is Google alerts. I follow some sports teams for fun and one of them is the Dallas Cowboys. So I added them to my alert and it will be fun and interesting to see what information I receive.

Thing 20

I think Google Docs might just be the most useful thing I have learned about in this course. I am a list and spreadsheet nut and am always using those type of tools to organize all of my office work and student's work. I found it very easy to work with so far, and will spend more time in the next few weeks trying things out. I did not do a work document for my sample, I went ahead and did a calender. We are in a busy season with the band right now, getting ready for summer band, and so I just put my summer band calender on it. I have worked with some other calender programs and found them somewhat difficult to use. This one was very easy. Also, when I am in the process of developing the calender, I can send it to all of the other directors (6) and they can put their dates on it so that we will have a really nice master calender to use for planning. I use spreadsheets to track the students tests, playoff scores, fundraising monies paid, and fees paid. Some of them (especially the ones that list specific amounts on them), I will not be able to use in a shared format because not everyone needs to see that type of information, but some of them that show where the students are in their progress (just like the one used for this course) will be very helpful. Also, in addition to my duties here at MHS in the band office and with my own students, I also organize, schedule, and administrate the UIL Solo and Ensemble for Music Region 3. I use a spreadsheet to schedule everything, and this tool will allow me to get input from the other directors in the region when I am scheduling their students. I have seen google docs used some this year and I am glad to be able now to work with it myself!

Thing 19

VoiceThread seems like a really fun tool. What a great way to share pictures and get comments. In fact, if you posted an album, you could get comments from those in the pictures, maybe telling stories or memories about the pictures. Maybe it would be a memorable vacation where everyone wants to tell his or her side of the stories and it would be a wonderful way for the family and friends to share. We just got back from a vacation and we usually post pics on the web(facebook) and get comments and such, this would even be more fun because of the audio capabilities. As far as classroom use, I can actually see a use for it. Many times we use pictures of formations in order to teach and sometimes we have pictures of the live performance. I could see us using this by posting it and then having the students give comments on how we can improve, or things they like or don't like about it, critiquing it in any way. I think this would be a very fun way to get student feedback on what we are dog and I think it would encourage a lot of participation.

Thing #18

YouTube fun! Well, it can be! Many things in this course are new to me, but YouTube is not one of them. I had heard of it, but was not as familiar with it until I got my new ipod touch. Of course, it has a YouTube button and I started watching them on it. So many are very funny, and yes, there is some less than desirable content, but there are good, usable videos on there as well. For this exercise today, I typed in marching band. Well, since that is a common performing organization, there are a zillion (well, maybe not quite that many) videos of various marching bands from across the country and across the world, most taken by very supportive parents and friends of those marching. Well, we are no different here in Mesquite, so of course I typed in "Mighty Maroon Band" and "MMB" and found several videos of past years (with a different director) and some videos of my groups as well. Even the slide show from this year that we present at our banquet is on there. A few of them (my videos) I wish had not been posted, because they are early in the season and we do not sound all that good yet, but I know parents and friends are proud. Then, for the how to video I typed in "how to cook in a dutch oven" and of course there are videos on making almost anything that can be made. I like using YouTube as a learning tool. And if you want a laugh, type in "bulbous bouffant" a video I became familiar with when my wife used it at her school for a humorous teacher skit in preparation for TAKS testing week. As for as using YouTube for education, we (as marching band directors) use it when we research ideas for a show. There are very few new ideas, just recycled ones and you can learn a lot from what others have done before. We did a lot of research on this year's show and hopefully it will be a good one when it is posted on YouTube as I am sure it will be at some point.

Thing #17

MP3 files (and MP4 with itunes) have taken over the music world. We use a digital recorder to record our students for tryouts and tests. We also have posted mp3 files of our show music on our website so that our students can listen and learn from them. We also download music from publishers websites and allow our students to listen to it. Many publishers provide that service for free, but some charge about the same as itunes. I do have itunes and an ipod and I download music for personal use all the time. My church also podcasts the services and if I miss one, I just download the podcast and listen to it on my ipod. However, one thing we have not done in our classroom is to subscribe to a regular podcast. I can certainly see the benefit from this idea, however because it can provide a regular link from an individual student to a master teacher or performer on his or her instrument. For instance, one of the podcasts I listened to was a saxophone teacher/performer and his were all about techniques for playing and improving saxophone performance. If a student were to attend a lesson with a master teacher once a week, it would cost a lot of money, so not only would it be convenient and beneficial for the student to subscribe and listen to a regular podcast, it would save him or her a lot of time and money. I previewed several of the music education podcasts. Some of them were well done and well organized, some were not. There were a good variety of topics considered and covered. I also looked around on the general education podcasts. Most of them were either too technical for me, or just did not apply at all to anything I do in the classroom.

Thing #16

Library Thing is very interesting. I enjoy books a lot in fact, i have been known to hang around a bookstore or two so much that the rest of my family will leave me behind. However, as much as I am intrigued by it and will probably join it, it would not be a tool I could use much in my classroom. However, what a great tool to use personally for just books on various interests that I have and also for some professional development books. I like the way it is organized. In the author search, I typed in "Clancy" because I know he is a famous author, but there are a LOT of people named Clancy! Then, for a tag, I typed in "camping" because I read a lot of outdoor books and I was surprised at how big the list was. Of course it listed every book that had that theme in it, but that proves what a great research tool it is. I am not a big group or discussion person, so I don't know if I would use those features, but for those that do, what a great place to connect with people of common interest! I enjoyed exploring this site and not only will I be back, it will be a place I recommend to friends and colleagues.

Thing #15

Whew! This assignment was the longest so far and the most tedious to me. However, I did enjoy learning how to build the page and put things on it. It took me awhile to figure out what the instructions meant and how to make the table of contents. I did a lot of experimenting and finally got it done. Also, when I first started, I didn't save enough and lost some material, but I figured out how to fix that also. In fact, this entire assignment was me using Habit #3 from the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners! But I took my time, tried several things, figured out what worked and what didn't and finally got it done! I really like doing things like this and have always wanted the know the skills to build web pages, organize material, and present the information in an attractive way. In fact, our organization (MMB) has a website and I have to depend on professional web designers to run it because I have never had those skills. While I am just a beginner, I thought it turned out well for my first time.

Thing #14

So I am really thinking about this......I am reading all these wikis and seeing the cooperation and collaboration of the teachers, students, parents, grandparents, friends, and yes, even strangers. I am really impressed. I am thinking about this because I teach in a classroom without written assignments, without computers, but I am wondering how I can make this a part of our organization. I took a class on wikis a few years ago and I tried one for awhile but did not stay with it. This makes me want to try again. Anyway, I enjoyed reading through the various ones and here are the ones that stand out to me. I liked the Thousands Project. This is one in which students ask questions, but open it up for answers from anywhere. The questions are organized very well, listed by month and many of theme have a "theme" to them. Another one that I enjoyed a lot was Schools in the Past. This is also a question and answer wiki, but the questions are asked of parents and grandparents and then posted by the students. However, it is open to anyone that wants to post about their school experience. In this wiki, spelling, and organization are not that important, just content. Some other sites that are different, but I enjoyed reading were the Westwood Schools Computer Science and FHS Wolves Den. These are for High School students and are more structured in nature. For instance, they are written and posted by a select group of students and instructor. The information is given about various projects and assignments and then those are posted for all to read, review and share. In fact, the Westwood is a closed wiki and says so. If you are not a member of the class, you cannot join!
I am sure the students are very proud of their sites, because we all know when students are given ownership of something, they really can make it special.

Thing #13

You know, when you are sent to a site called delicious it might make you hungry. Well, obviously this site is not about good food, however, I am sure you can search and find things about that. But today as I explored the site I was looking for things I can use in my teaching. Obviously, I am a band director and as such, I teach both marching and concert bands but in addition to those types of bands, I also teach a jazz band. One of the things I have had to search for is resources. Many times in the years I have taught that class, we have not had enough students for a performing ensemble, so we have learned about the original American art form called jazz. With that thought in mind, I chose to search for jazz websites that could be used as resources by myself and my students. I found several that I can use and I know there are plenty more. I found delicious very easy to use, easy to read, easy to go from sites to sites, and overall very user friendly. I do a lot of internet searches for all kinds of things and have noticed tags before, but this is the first time I have tagged something. Many of the sites I tagged already had been tagged by someone else using the same terms, but in a few cases I added some that were original to me. I look forward to using the site in the future not only as a teacher, but for personal use. I enjoy traveling, camping and outdoor cooking and am always exploring sites about those things.

Thing #7a

Technology...........the very word can scare you, make you think, worry you, or any number of emotions. At least it does if you are over a certain age. Many of us enjoy learning new things and just are in awe of what can be done, but learning something new is not always easy. The point of this blog is that I was reading my post on google reader (many of which are about technology) and I found two that really interested me. The first one was describing Twitter and how it is and has changed the world. He brought up the current events in Iran and how the entire world is following them through individuals that are twittering and using other technology to spread the news and events. It makes me think how the world has really become much smaller in recent years, there are really no secrets, I remember saying "that will never happen" when talking about the future when I was a child and now it has happened and is in fact, old news. The second post I found interesting was one about a technology person that has trouble with computers and machines acting up. I suppose it is kind of refreshing to realize that even the experts have trouble sometimes and it is not just me. Makes me want to take a deep breath and then get back to learning and experimenting and crashing and burning..........

Thing #12

So I ought to name this post confessions of a compulsive listmaker. I suppose I am the king (or at least one of them) of listmakers. I make lists for almost everything I do, and so it was very easy for me to see the potential of ta-da list.
However, the potential is not just for me to use, but for my students as well. I am a very goal oriented person and I stress that to my students. I want them to set personal goals and we work together every year to set group goals for MMB. This will give us a tool that will make that process much easier and even fun to do as we work together to make lists and check the accomplishments off. Actually, besides ta-da list, I also looked through the rest of the listed tools. Some of them I would probably not use in my current setting, but several I want to look at later and use. We currently use a calender program, but the 30 boxes might be better. I liked blabbview as a possibly humorous way to make announcements, and with next year being a travel year, letterpop might be a great way to give information to students and parents about the trip. I really enjoyed many of the tools and as I mentioned, now that I know they are all available, I will be using some of them.

Thing 11

This was a lot of fun to play around with. I tried several of the Flickr mashups and then tried the various image generators. I found that I enjoyed working with the generators much more. I suppose that is a good thing, because in my field that would be the type of thing i used most. What a nice, creative way to make signs, instructions, and directions fun and interesting to read. I also enjoyed working with the various logos, because we certainly do a lot of that and have over the years worked with a lot of graphic artists in designing show theme shirts or band shirts. I do not have some of the creativity of those people, but I enjoyed working some and I know the more I worked with it, the better I would get. My favorite image generator was The Happy Face Generator, However, I made the above picture with Custom Sign Generator

Thing #10

This slideshow starts with a typical US band setup marching what we call "corps style" in a stadium and then shows bands from other countries, mostly street marching or sitting and performing, however one Japanese band is competing in a gym. This helps students see what other bands across the world have in common with them (everybody marches parades) and different (we compete on football fields, others compete in different arenas).

photos included are

silly nose marching band by simon blackley

Marching Band on the Rhine by sapphireblue

Guntar Wedding Marching Band by brocktopia

Marching Band 01 by MShades

Fukushima Marching Bands by likeablerodent

Shrine Bowl Marching Band by baysmom3

Thing #9

So I decided to type in Marching Band just so see what all I would get. Well, along with this interesting picture of a band from Portugal taken by Simon Blackley, and of course many pictures of bands and competitions across our country, I got a lot of pictures from other countries. That made me begin to think of a great idea, why not allow students to see what other students in other countries are doing within the same type of activity! After all, since music is the universal language, why not try a little Universal Marching Band. I think this will be quite interesting and fun for students. Obviously pictures are such a great resource for us as teachers, and within this category of marching band (a visual production anyway) an essential tool for teaching. I was somewhat familiar with Flickr, having seen the name on pictures, but I had never actually searched it. This was a fun activity and I look forward to putting together the slide show on the next"thing"

Thing #8

Ahhhhh, copyright. What a fun thing we deal with every year in my field. However, many publishers and composers work very well with marching bands and allow us to use and adapt their music. I had not heard of the Creative Commons until now. What a great tool to use when dealing with things on the internet. I can see how it can make both teaching and learning easier because it can really open the door to so much material. It makes me wonder if there are any musical arrangements that use it. I know composers and publishers are very picky with their works many times and are afraid someone will adapt them poorly and I certainly understand that. In fact, that is why you do not hear a lot of current popular music played by marching bands because copyrights have become so restrictive. I really like the idea of the CC and I am looking forward to spending some time researching it as it deals with music and marching band.

Thing #7

Okay, so I will just get this statement out of the way. I do not like commenting! I am working on it and hopefully I will get better. My personality is more that if I am in a group of people having a conversation, I mostly listen and rarely say anything. Obviously, this is going to help me get out of that box and that is a good thing. I do know that when I was reading the posts that I wanted to comment on, I certainly read more carefully. In fact, one of the feeds on my reader is a blog that I have followed for several years (did not have any idea about RSS as I mentioned in an earlier blog) but a few minutes ago as a result of this assignment, I commented for the first time. I answered a question that was posed by the writer. See, I have known answers or had comments, but I tend to have the "someone will have a better answer than me" syndrome. Therefore, thanks 23 things for pushing me a little!

Thing #6

Searching for blogs to feed my reader was interesting. I tend to look for blogs that are fairly easy reads, and hopefully use some humor. Finding the educational blogs was not as difficult because having read one blogger in the assignment yesterday, I knew I already liked the way Cool Cat Teacher wrote. I like the fact that she has a daily post about a variety of topics. I was also able to find another that I liked, so I know I will enjoy seeing their posts. Looking for blogs in my field was more difficult. In fact, I was disappointed that there were just not that many blogs about band and the educational aspects. I was able to find some news feeds and some interesting articles. During this time of year, anyone that enjoys and follows student musicians is a fan of Drum Corp International. They are an organization made up of several musical marching organizations across the country. These organizations are not bands, they are corps. What is the difference you ask? Well they do not use any woodwind instruments, just drums, bugles (brass) and color guard. The students that are members of the various corps, travel and compete every summer. They will ride buses all night to get to the next town, sleep on a gym floor when staying overnight, and practice and compete almost every evening. This culminates in the World Championships held in August. Most of us that teach marching band use their "style" in our field presentations and they have had a huge influence on marching band across the country. We currently have a Mesquite High School Band Alumni student marching with The Crossmen, and he will be performing here in the Dallas area this summer. Many of our current student and ex-students are looking forward to seeing him.

Thing #5

Before I write the assigned topic, I just want to say I really enjoyed learning about the RSS feeds. I had seen them before but had absolutely no idea what it was about. This thing has been fun to work on. Anyway, the assignment is to talk about a post on the reader. I was interested in reading the NECC convention blog. Of course, it is talking about a technology convention in Washington DC, but it made me think of the two conventions a year that I attend and how technology has changed them. The blogger was writing about using various technologies to get the most from the convention and at our conventions that is now possible. For instance, many times speakers that I want to hear are at the same time, and I used to have to make a decision, but now with podcasting and such technology, I can still get all the information and not miss anything. I hope to use many of the thing I am learning to help in my convention experience this summer and next spring.

Thing #4

I found reading the different blogs very interesting. One thing that is very evident is the different personalities and viewpoints of the blog writers. Some are very formal with careful punctuation and grammar (mostly teacher written), some just express the ideas given without stressing those things (student written) . Many of the blogs seem to be a type of editorial, with the opinions of the writers being expressed. Most of them seem to tackle big issues of the day such as technology problems within schools, environmental issues, and issues with education. There seems to be a good, healthy dialogue between the writers and those that give comments. However, some are just dialogue between students, or students and teachers. I enjoyed the blog done by the Elementary children on the story of the duck, and on a much different note, I enjoyed reading the blog written about some of the dangers of technology in the classroom because it made me really think about my students and situation. Of course that is the point of many of the blogs and one reason so many enjoy both reading and writing them.

Thing #2

I find all the Web 2.0 information very interesting. I can just think of all the changes that have been made in my lifetime and how technology has changed. In my world (band/music) there are many ways to use technology and there are some things that don’t and cannot change. I would love to see every student assigned their own laptop with all textbooks already downloaded on them and they just carry that to class, e-mail assignments, or as this is teaching, use blogs and wiki’s etc. I think the biggest problem is money. I know some of my students have computers at home and are very proficient, and some do not. Even in this day and age, many of my students do not have e-mail addresses! I know the initial investment would be expensive, but if every student had a computer, the entire world would be open to them. I can see many people being opposed to that (what will they do with them? what about losing it? what if they look at something they are not supposed to? and on and on), but i would love to see that happen. i have a grandchild who is a few years from school, but she lives in south LA and who knows what kinds of technology will be available to her in those schools that just are not well funded

Thing #1

As I look upon the list of the 7 1/2 habits, I find that many of them are things I do on a regular basis. I am and always have been a very goal oriented person and I am almost a compulsive "listmaker". Probably the biggest challenge will be getting used to using technology for everything. I really like technology and love learning new things about it, but many times it is not always my first choice to use (age maybe?). For instance, many times I will use a legal pad and write notes instead of making a spreadsheet, or using some sort of technology or program to do the same task.
However even with all that said, I am really looking forward to learning new things because I always enjoy that. I have always enjoyed learning about things that are not as familiar to me. As a band/music teacher, music is very important and I still have much to learn about it, but I love watching other teachers/craftsmen work and learning from them especially in subject matters that are very different. Anyway, I think the easiest habit will be setting a goal and accepting responsiblity to work toward it.
I think the most important habit for me to have as I work through this course is viewing problems as challenges. Already, as i have begun this process I have had computer issues or program issues and I worked through them and learned something from it. I know that process will continue and if i will not allow myself to be frustrated, I can really benefit