Technology Blog - Week 4

This week has provided some challenges to me, mostly because I was away from home all week.  A majority of my communications with my classmates took place by typing on my iPhone.  Since we are in a technology class, it stands to reason that this is a positive thing, and that it proves how much power our mobile devices have!

I was an adjudicator at the Florida State Thespian State Festival this week.  I judged the solo musical event for 2 days, and the large group musical event for one day.  Many of the students ran into technology problems.   The sound systems these students were using were sometimes quite awful; a burned CD in an old CD player with terrible speakers, iPods attached to speakers, and others.  It shows how much bad technology can hinder a performance. 

Many of the websites and programs discussed in our text this week were very familiar to me.  I have used SmartMusic in my classroom for years.  6 or 7 years ago, it was a very temperamental program, but it has really come a long way since then.    I think programs like TeacherTube and SchoolTube are great, IF the videos you are looking for are there.  I prefer safe-sharing websites that allow teachers to share YouTube videos directly, without any advertising or comments being able to be seen.  This keeps the limitless resources of YouTube useable to teachers.

I am very familiar with Audacity, and had a good time working on my remix.  As I stated in my reflection, the most frustrating thing was the quality of the track that we were required to remix.  I did not like being forced to choose snippets that included all of the audio elements in one mixed down track.  It made it very hard sometimes to get the percussion to line up properly.  I would have much preferred tracks that were split based on the instrument (voice, percussion, brass, etc).  This would have allowed me to not only free myself from the constraints of existing percussion, but play around with individual parts more specifically.  I see a lot of potential for classroom use in Audacity, which is interesting because I always though of it as a tool for me, the teacher, not for my students.  It's a wonderful way to introduce students to remixing (and even arranging), without being too overwhelming on the student or the budget.