Music Technology

Unfortunately today is the very last music technology class. I have learnt a plethora of knowledge over the semester. Going in to this semester I was very intimidated with all the technology involved within music education as it is a world I have never explored/seen. As a busy guitar tutor I have been a very old school pen and paper tutor in the past before but can happily say this class has inspired me to use more technology within my tutoring.  I have fallen in love with the online browser software 'Soundtrap'. We learnt about Soundtrap through the semester and have explored it's amazing capabilities. In my lessons using Soundtrap I teach my students how to set up a drum loop and once they have done this I teach them how to create a bass part to record over the top just using the computers keyboard. Once we have done this I get them to either play chords or improvise over the drum/bass loop. This is just one extremely positive outcome of me applying my learning in this cl...

 What was cool about today’s class was that we got to experience Canvas as a teacher not a student. Canvas is such a great learning resource and organisational tool as a studying student but it is also just as beneficial for the teacher. In class today we created our own school called ‘6pm high’. After creating this school we were taught how to use all the great features within canvas such as creating a quiz, page or discussion. We were also shown how to make the resources interactive with hyper links and videos, even going as far as interactively running noteflight through canvas. Below is the sample quiz and discussion I made on canvas:  These holidays coming up I would love to make my own canvas for the guitar tutoring school I run. It would be a great way for me to have on hand resources and learning tools for the students and away for them to easily access them at home on their own learning device. It would also be easier for me to set homework and track progress and it w...

After enjoying a week off in week 10 we got back in the swing of week 11 with an important discussion of how technology works in the classroom and some boundaries that come with it. The first thing we learnt about was '1 to 1 which means brings your own device. One child = One device. This has many perks as student's have their own learning work space to learn, be creative and do school work. To ensure every student has equal opportunity it important to have an understanding of affordable devices. Devices don't have to be expensive, we learned that a Chromebook of $300 can achieve all the same learning outcomes and necessary learning softwares/apps as an expensive computer/Mac book of $1200 plus. One to one is prescriptive as it is locked in to the school's network meaning teachers have full control of the learning and what's accessible from apps to internet exploration. This is very important as it ensures digital safety of students and locks/bans them from accessi...

 In today's class we were introduced with this concept called 'learn through play'. Also one of the most fun ways to learn. James did minimal speaking he just showed us what we could 'play' with and the rest was up to our individual creativity! I really enjoyed this as curiosity and adventure were massive factors in this process of learning often answering our own curiosity with the creative adventure. James had set up a midi guitar which was my favourite activity!! It was awesome to have the guitar playing wacky synth sounds/ambient sound scapes. It gave me a new of looking at the guitar as a tool of creating/exploring music. I didn't even know MIDI guitars existed. This is a game changer for me as I could imagine the guitar being more user friendly than piano for some students in the classroom. At my high school we only had MIDI keyboards and they were great!! But as a guitarist had of I had a MIDI guitar I feel like my composition assessments and soundscape a...