Final Reflection

As a high school band director, I have tried my best to communicate well with students and parents. I have done this via group e-mail lists and a website. The website that I have used is a district maintained website. I have learned basic skills in CEP 811 to be able to build my own personal website that offers a one stop hub of information for all things regarding the band program. Our current district website is extremely limited in what I am able to post. I am excited to be able to post audio files of music that we are currently working on (or I would like students to use as a listening assignment), videos of rehearsals and performances, and have a way for students to upload class assignments to me.
In addition, I have a much better understanding of WebQuests in order to create assignments for students that are individualized and exciting to participate in. This will certainly help in the areas of music theory and music history that we don’t have time to get to during class time.
Lastly, I post detailed objectives daily. I write everything on the whiteboard with the goals for each rehearsal. I am excited to be able to use Power Point for these objectives and goals in order to capture the attention of the students and clearly articulate the daily goals through a medium that all students understand and use on their own time every day.
I feel that by using these tools, I will be a better educator by clearly displaying my goals and expectations, expand my organizational skills, and have clear and consistent communication with students and parents. I have learned so much in CEP 811!

MMC Online Experience Guideline

I feel that using a Podcast would work extremely well with reinforcing instruction within the classroom. Accoring to the Michigan Merit Curriculum Guidelines a Podcast "is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers." An example of how I may utilize a Podcast in my classroom would be a demonstration of a specific marching style or choreography in our competition show. The demonstration could be done in class in order to set the foundation and answer any questions. A Podcast could then be used in order to reenforce what was taught. The students then mirror what I am doing and explaining on the Podcast.

I don't feel that Distance Learning could be used in my classroom. Being a performance-based class, I feel that it would be extremely difficult to make good use of this technique. Accoring to the Michigan Merit Curriculum Guidelines Distance Learning is "a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy/andragogy, technology,
and instructional systems design that are effectively incorporated in delivering education to students who are not physically “on site” to receive their education." This method does not work well for modeling and giving hands-on advise regarding the specifics of playing the instrument for the individual student.

Google Docs

Google Documents is a free service that offers a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation application. I focused on the word processor feature of the suite. I found that the application was speedy and easy to use. There is not a great deal of features, but it does offer the speed. I found that the documents open quickly and that up to 10 people can collaborate on a word processing file. The word processor allows you to insert comments and footnotes, images, hyperlinks all using an easy to use toolbar. Your work is saved automatically or you can choose to “Save Now.” Google Docs works very well when using multiple computers (work, home, and friends) to access your files and edit them. I did not have any problems doing the tasks that I needed to do. This is an excellent feature for collaboration. The only negative I could seem to find is that are not a great deal of “bells and whistles” that are on Microsoft Word. However, for the use of accessing files easily over the internet from any location that has internet service, I am more than satisfied with what Google Docs offers.

Google Docs offers the same basic features as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. So, providing students have the knowledge to operate basic word processing programs, they will not have any trouble using Google Docs. Any word processing file can be used with this application. So, students using different applications can still submit and review files from Google Docs. This would work extremely well for collaborating on projects and the ability to work at home independently. The teacher would need to set clear expectations of what each student is responsible to accomplish as part of the collaboration.

Web 2.0

I feel that active learning and collaborative learning would both work well with blogs in the classroom. Students are most likely active at texting and using social networking sites and do so in groups with chat. So, they can apply those skills to the use of blogs in the classroom.

Independent practice could not be used for classroom blogs. Without the intervention of the instructor, blogs could get very inappropriate and mean spirited.

With a clear set of parameters and my supervision, I could see blogs working in my band classes to discuss how to make things that we are working on in class better, as a historical discussion tool that we don't always get to in class, and a general sharing of ideas as it relates to what we are working on in the classroom.

Wikis

http://mundopaul.wikispaces.com/


This was by far the most difficult task for me in CEP 811. Working with html is much more difficult. Is there a wizard that does not include the html? That type of editing is a new language and would take more than one week to get acquainted with.

WebQuest

When using computer-based instructional objects, the student dynamics must first be considered. Any class or forum should be tailored to the student's grade level, reading level, and comprehension level.

Some very good WebQuest examples are:

Music at the Pictures

History of African-American Jazz Musicians

I think that both of these examples are very good because of their demand for creativity and the clear expectations that are laid out for the student.

Traditional Web Pages vs. Blogs

Blogs have many advantages over a traditional web page. Blogs allow the user the advantage of knowing that there are real people behind the website, are updated more frequently, more affordable, build upon historical comments, and is based on a "post" format.

Web pages can be extremely pricey, have a deleted history, contain a great deal of detail, and are very impersonal.