Gapsky's Music

As I read through this week’s chapter readings and listened to the lecture I had an “oh yeah” moment as soon as backward design was mentioned. This is not a new concept for me but it is a concept I do not use as much as I should in my teaching and planning. I also connected with the curriculum priorities and how to figure out what to really teach and what material to just go over. I also enjoyed reading the section on assessment and how to use technology to complete this assessment. The idea of backward design, like I mentioned, is not a new concept for me, but it is a concept I have forgotten to use in my daily teaching and planning. Backward design has three steps; learning outcomes, means of assessment, and activities and instructional procedures (Bauer, 2014). For instance, in my first grade classroom the students are expected to be able to play quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rest by the end of first grade. From this learning outcome, I can plan how I want to assess i...

SmartMusic is a program that allows students and teachers to explore, practice, and listen to music through using either the software or the new web-based program. I have used SmartMusic before but I was shocked to see how much the program has changed, for the better, since the last time I have explored the program. The materials offered have vastly increased over the year, including the music listed on the software. The ease of navigation has improved and the use of the technology for a classroom has increased. Though I feel there are still some negatives about SmartMusic and its implementation I can vastly appreciate the positives of using this program in a performing classroom. Materials Offered The first thing I noticed about the new SmartMusic web-based program was the abundance of music available. Though I was not able look at the entire library without having an account I was able to see lists of music that was being added to the library. I was excited to see how many new ...

I was really excited to delve into this week's topic of performance and practice through technology because I felt I was finally going to see how to incorporate technology every day in my classroom, instead of just in a unit for composing. As I was reading chapter four, I latched onto a sentence that talked about "technology-assisted learning" (pg 93). This term really resonated with me because I feel technology can be a powerful tool in a music rehearsal and it can enhance the performance. Reflecting about this term I really thought about two topics, using technology to develop better practice habits and using technology to model good playing. The first topic about practicing was discussed in chapter four as well as in the weekly lecture. I love the use of the software SmartMusic to create great practice habits. I have used this program in the past for small assignments when we were offered trial runs of the program. I work at a summer music camp where we use SmartMus...

Before I began this week’s lecture I had no clue there was a difference to the format of an audio file. Immediately I was intrigued between all the different type of compressed audio files that you could have, MP3, WMA, AAC, and AC3. I of course have heard of MP3 as I was a part of the “MP3 Movement” in middle school when all of the MP3 players had just begun to come out. I still have my first IPOD from that time! I also recognized the acronym WMA as I have used files like that before, especially since I use mostly Microsoft products. After reading about the difference in compressed files I immediately went to my teacher website where I provide students with sound recordings, under a password, and I looked to see what type of compressed audio files I was sending my students. They were all WMA’s! I had not even realized that was what I was using, it's just what my computer formatted the files as and how my website uploaded them. I know a lot of my students love going to the website...

Noteflight is a website and tool that I am very familiar with. For my elementary students I arrange a lot of popular music and songs for use on recorder and xylophone. This website allows me to very easily input the music and make changes as I see fit. I love the fact that I can work on it at school and then go home and continue to work on it on my home computer. I also use this program a lot when I am assisting our marching band to rewrite certain parts. Again, the fact that I can jump on any computer and work on something is a huge advantage to using this website compared to others like MuseScore where you have to have the application downloaded to use. I am very comfortable with the input method on Noteflight and I think the shortcuts are easy to follow. I still struggle with the programming with input first and second endings and Coda's. I noticed that MuseScore's input for those were very simple to understand the first time, where in Noteflight I am still working on it...

Week two's lecture and readings discussed  many ways to create music through composition, improvisation. and being creative. My initial thoughts while listening to the lecture were very reminiscent. I remember talking about these various notating software and uses while I was in my undergrad. The newer programs, the web-based notation devices, was new but I have been using Noteflight extensively for the last three years so I feel up to date with those. As I began to read chapter three though I was hit with what I felt was a barrage of information on the process of creating, composing, and improvising. My first thoughts were on improvising. I teach primarily elementary aged students and I have been playing with the idea of improvising more lately because it is in our state-standards. What I have learned through the years is improvising can be so simple to teach in the littlest of way. For example, my students get to choose what rhythms to sing for the song, or what pattern of mi-...