The “P’s” of Tech: Productivity vs. Procrastination

              Did you grow up knowing the ins and outs of a PC, but now feel the social allure of a Mac? Love your iPhone but your cousin swears by Anroid? Microsoft is your “suite” spot, but Google docs seems the wave of the future? Go for it all! But your tech must be a good fit for you. I have recently seen more education-related websites, apps, and app add-ons than in the entirety of my career to date. The two questions I continually revisit are, 1) is this technology truly new and beneficial, and 2) do I have a productive need or desire for this technology that is not already fulfilled? If I can answer “yes” to one or both questions, I invest at least an additional five minutes discovering the resource.

              If I don’t have a goal set forth before I sit down at my computer or peek at my device, then I will procrastinate, guaranteed. When entering the rabbit hole of social media or e-mail, I often set a small goal, such as, “I will discover an uplifting article about parenting and re-post it,” or “I will send a note of encouragement to a friend.” Even our procrastination can become productive with tiny goals laid out. Here are five additional ideas that teachers and administrators alike could develop to increase our roles as effective leaders.

1. Shortcut Keys. I know this sounds trite, but I’ve come to realize that most people use a mouse or trackpad for the majority of tasks that could be done with shortcut keys. Remember Henry Ford and the assembly line…the fewer times we touch something, the greater our productivity. Search for “PC or Mac shortcut keys” to find a one-sheet that you can keep handy until the strokes come right off your fingertips.

2. Google Calendar. Chief among the growing conglomerate of Google products is the calendar, especially for those who lead multi-faceted lives as teachers, parents, spouses, and perhaps have other careers that need managing outside of education. In my own household, we manage, share, and/or subscribe to six separate calendars (each with beautifully color-coding). The Edmond North Orchestra calendar that I manage is also visible on our orchestra website, and families can link into it for their own viewing and immediate updates. Google Calendar also sends notifications and reminders.

3. Twitter. If you are not using Twitter as a professional learning resource, begin today. An article like this is only the tip of the continued learning and productivity iceberg.

4. Clean. This has nothing to do with technology, but it is worth every bit of time. An organized space begets organized thoughts. Take the time, every time, to establish an organized workspace, and include your device views and organization of your apps as well. The productivity in ideas and palpable knowledge will far outpace the cost in time.

5. Take It With You. Evernote, Google Keep, and now even Apple Notes are all apps that allow us to organize and keep lists and related photos, e-mails, and documents in our pockets. Whatever works for you (please share!), download it, and take it with you. I can sneak three minutes in a grocery checkout line reading on my Kindle app. Unlimited podcasts suited for numerous interests drive along with me on my 26-minute commute. We don’t always have to be productive, but I am certain we will have greater space for leadership and creativity when we are!

Are You Tech-Effective?

                Our orchestra program recently received a generous sponsorship from SmartMusic (makers of Finale music notation software). After about four hours of delving into the software, I was ready to load it on every iPad and computer I could find. However, I couldn’t quite harmonize how to best fit SmartMusic in with the units I had prepared, and I politely postponed the sponsorship until this summer when I have time to build the lesson around the tech, not the other way around. Fortunately, they will renew our complimentary educator subscription in June, and the students’ subscriptions go live in the fall! I’m excited to really build meaningful lessons around this constantly evolving and well-supported technology.

                The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has a series of standards for education stakeholders. Several salient bullets surfaced when I read the standards specific to school administrators.  ISTE Standard 2 in general encompasses the responsibility administrators have to implement technology at their site. “Ensure instructional innovation focused on continuous improvement of digital-age learning” (2a), “Model and promote the frequent and effective use of technology for learning,” (2b) and “Ensure effective practice in the study of technology and its infusion across the curriculum” (2d) seem challenging as our schools continually serve a wider audience. From tech-resistant career teachers, tech-savvy millennial teachers, and of course, our digital native students, the most important strength an administrator can demonstrate is to model and steward what s/he views as most important in technology. Ironically, what continues to be most important is what always has been: we want all of our learners to leave with the ability and passion for finding a solution (notice…not a right answer). What becomes harder to teach is the know-how to sift through the world-wide-web of solutions that grow exponentially by the second.

                The significant points of ISTE Standards 3 and 4 address the implementation and financial considerations for an administrator. “Allocate time, resources, and access to ensure ongoing professional growth in technology fluency and integration” (3a) is perhaps the most valuable. A frequent concern of educators is that we do not receive adequate training on new technology, and it goes underutilized, or worse, dies out before it was given a fair chance. “Collaborate to establish metrics, collect and analyze data, interpret results, and share findings to improve staff performance and student learning” (4b) is often overlooked on the back end, and the technology, again, remains underutilized or misdirected in its use because we do not concretely evaluate and adjust for its effect on student and teacher learning.

Teachers and administrators have a great responsibility in how we wisely invest every ounce of time, energy, and money in our students. These basic questions give a starting place before adopting/investing in new technology:

1. Is this technology truly innovative or a lateral-move version of technology or other methods that students already know how to use?
2. Does the technology promote Bloom’s higher functions of learning (evaluating and creating vs. remembering and understanding)?
3. Does the technology connect and loop back to prior knowledge.
4. Does the technology have value outside of your classroom/curriculum/subject?
5. Are students active or passive when engaged in this use of technology?
6. If a guest educator walked into your classroom, would the technology use be something they share with other educators?

Tech for School Concerts

The Zoom Q8 HD Video Camera

              I recently saw use of Periscope, an app that allows the user to live stream video from their phone to a chosen recipient. It reignited my interest in live streaming orchestra concerts, and I thought a blog on this and other uses of technology specifically for school concerts might be of interest.

              The most basic thing we have done for several years is to scroll a PowerPoint presentation before the concerts. Since many of our patrons (parents) arrive early to drop off their student, we capitalize on their time in the auditorium to scroll meaningful quotes, music education-related statistics and advocacy ideas, jokes, and other student celebrations and recognitions. Click HERE for an example. This low tech, easy-advocacy tech is a must for this season of concerts.

              At our winter concert this December, we may roll out an opportunity for patrons to donate via text. A popular method of giving demonstrated so strongly by the Red Cross and other disaster relief agencies, “text-to-donate” options are plentiful. Several sites are available, each with nominal percentage or subscription costs and a seeming high ease of use. My only hesitancy thus far is that I don’t want to replace the larger thoughtful giving that happens in our community with impulse giving in the $5-10 range. Obviously more research needs to happen on this front, but since I have a projection scrolling, it is worth a try to garner more community support.

              Recording concerts has become much easier and affordable. For quick and easy recordings, usually for back-up to our primary recording, we use a Zoom H2. This handheld, battery-powered unit has stereo condenser mics with 90^o or 120^o configuration patterns and can record around two hours at highest quality on a 2GB SD card. The quality is great for our purposes, and with the use of recording software (Audacity is free; I use Sony SoundForge to edit recordings), we can make a near-professional mp3 files to share through Dropbox links on our website and other media. This is a great option to share student recordings without worrying about the mechanical licenses needed to produce and sell each song on a CD (Important note: it isn’t legal for a school to sell a CD of a concert recording without paying for the appropriate licenses…do the right thing!).

We use a Zoom Q8 HD video camera with built in stereo condenser mics (or the option to input your own higher end mics) and a 32GB SD card. This is enough memory to record over eight hours of high HD quality video with really clear audio. The Q8 will be the link to live streaming our concerts in the near future. Youtube has started a service, and there are numerous video tutorials on how to set up your Google+ (Youtube) account to process live streaming. Our performance venue has a strong wi-fi signal, but a hard-wire internet connection to the laptop is preferable.  We have media releases in place for our students, so now the only remaining challenge is to find a volunteer to hit record while I conduct!

Tonal Energy - Must Have Music Tech

The green smiley face of "in-tune-ness" in the Tonal Energy app

                Do you remember Dr. Beat for $140? The McAdame metronome for $500-plus? The Korg analog tuner with an actual moving needle to indicate pitch? What about this one…the Strobotuner. I will admit, these are still standard and highly useful, reliable tools for the music classroom. I still use them in certain settings. However, at the end of the day, it’s all bundled up in an app that will set you back $3.99 – Tonal Energy.

                The marketing department nailed it just in the name, Tonal Energy. Optimized for iOS and Android, this app includes a tuner, pitch producer, metronome, recording analysis, and piano keyboard. The tuner registers any pitch in any instrument range and can also be set to intermediate, advanced, or professional settings and adjusted for just or equal temperament, or another ten tunings I’ve never heard of! In addition to displaying cents sharp or flat, there are also strobing arcs that center toward a middle green smiley face when the note perfectly centers. Kids love the green smiley face of “in-tune-ness.” In addition to registering pitch, the tuner can also hear and play back the pitches it hears. Finally, the tuning wheel will sustain pitches, again across all registers, and with a wide selection of MIDI instrument sounds. This proves most useful not only in producing a pitch to match for tuning open strings, but also in producing drones for students to intone while playing scales or other diatonic patterns. I often demonstrate for the students with my violin against the drone, allowing them to hear the true consonant intervals versus the resistant pulsing of dissonant intervals.

                The metronome function has all of the basics, including tempo selection or tap-tempo selection that allows you to determine a tempo by tapping on the screen. I do wish that the tempo were more quickly adjustable (like the spinning wheel on my Dr. Beat or Seiko metronomes). Within the pulse selections are an array of subdivisions that can be turned on and off while students play, and the time signature choices are all covered. Simple 4/4 all the way to 7/4 in all of its configurations (2+3+2, etc.) are available (but if you are really needing a metronome to help you through that mess, maybe you aren’t ready for a mixed-meter tune!). I have yet to find the ability to change the sound of the beat (I would sure like the Dr. Beat-style that has a lady bark out “one-two-three-four” in a German staccato), but I suppose we can’t have it all.

                Finally, with mirroring to a projector, the piano can be a useful teaching tool. Allowing students to concretely see the relationships of half steps versus whole steps on a piano keyboard sure helps strengthen their music theory and aural skills. The piano keyboard is one of the greatest visuals in explaining enharmonic notes, why E# equals F, but C# doesn’t equal D. Most commonly, I use Tonal Energy through a Bluetooth audio connector on our classroom stereo. In Bluetooth mode, the only drawback is that students can’t use the tuning function and get the green smiley face…but there are enough other benefits to offset this small joy.

Tech for Sight-Reading Practice

                Many music teachers are still looking for that silver bullet that allows them to practice sight-reading quickly, effectively, and above all…DAILY! The challenge of passing out music and collecting it just for a five-minute exercise is inefficient. I have successfully used classroom book sets, like Rhythm Sessions for Strings by Gearhart & Gearhart and Bach and Before for Strings by Newell, but again, there is a small time loss in distributing and collecting these materials. Enter www.SightReadingFactory.com.

                www.SightReadingFactory.com is a random generator sight-reading website designed for every instrumental or vocal education instrument. The user can select an exercise to be generated for an individual instrument like solo oboe, or a heterogeneous group of instruments, like a string orchestra or mixed vocal ensemble. Next, the user chooses settings. There are six ability levels ranging from simple stepwise quarter and half note rhythms, all the way to triplet eighth notes leaping an octave and involving accidentals. Any major or minor key signature is available, as well as all basic compound and simple time signatures and tempo markings. The user can also choose how long of a study period s/he wants before a metronome begins to click off.

A screenshot sample of a Level 3 exercise for String Orchestra

                Beyond these basics, I maximize the tool with the “disappearing measure” feature. Accompanied by a metronome, students can hear the beat, and once a measure is finished it disappears. To take this further, when the exercise counts off in the beginning, I hold off the students’ performance two or four more beats so that the music disappears before they arrive at playing it. The skill our students learn is much like driving. We don’t look at the lines passing us on the highway (the measure we are playing). Instead, we look down the road at what’s coming (the measures ahead of us). Above all, 100% of our students are totally engaged in this activity.

                Other tricks that I use with Sight Reading Factory (SRF) include having students perform the excerpt in a different octave or completely transposed to another key. Interval reading comes into play, knowing how far to skip or leap in a foreign register. To emphasize learning of intervals, we utilize the companion website to Progressive Sight Singing, performing “flashcards” with our voices and solfege hand symbols that strengthen interval recognition up to a fifth (so far). There is more to come about this resource, but I find it couples well with SRF.

                SRF is affordable and worth every dime. A one-year teacher subscription is $34.99 with student account add-ons for $2.00 each, and they accept school purchase orders. The site offers great tech support and updates often. In a classroom, teachers need a large scale projected image hooked to the internet, and they are ready to go. I use a large overhead image, as well as a smaller SMART board image for our wide-ranging ensembles. If you are looking for that daily dose of sight-reading medicine, I encourage any music educator to give Sight Reading Factory a try.

The Flipped Music Classroom: How to "Handel" It

I began this school year with the flipped orchestra classroom in mind. I realized immediately that even more detailed planning is needed on my part to make sure the objective is clear to our students. First, the students need an understanding of the difference between rehearsal and practice. Rehearsal is that which takes place as a group; practice is the activity done by the individual, whether at home or at school. I sought to flip because I wanted to become more involved in the practice, the individual struggles and successes. Our first “flip” occurred when the students received 20 minutes each Tuesday to practice individually or in small groups while I walked around observing, assessing, and assisting only where it seemed needed (i.e. they fail to correct repeated mistakes). Following this guided practice, students then break into chamber groups where they can continue working on the classroom music, or they can work on student-chosen chamber music by some of the great composers.

Taking the flipped classroom even further, quite by accident I've had a group of students begin forming their own 15-piece chamber group during our 20 minute tutorial period. Right now, they are just enjoying running through tunes. While still in a nascent stage, the next step is that they lead themselves in selecting music, rehearsing, and making group decisions on what and when to stop and fix. Eventually, they could even switch instruments and teach each other’s instruments.

The model of a flipped classroom that I've always known includes teacher-created videos for the students to study at home. The closest comparison that I have witnessed is teachers and several university professors recording excerpts for the students so that the student may see a professional performing at a high level with the option to play along with that master. Taking this to the next level, a technology company called SmartMusic allows students to record and be assessed by the computer. While really great, my hesitancy here is that the students may become reliant on their eyes and not their ears to fix their mistakes. I guard against the video game mentality, regardless of how motivating it can be. Take Guitar Hero…I’ve found trained musicians find it less intuitive because music involves so many more parts of the brain than just lining up symbols and buttons.

YouTube videos, professional recordings, and now even companion DVDs to our method books are valuable resources that I encourage students to utilize. An especially useful YouTube channel comes from violinist, Todd Ehle, who has created 60 quick videos on numerous concepts of string playing, from the basics of posture to the finesse of advanced both strokes. We learn language best by imitating, and these resources are especially beneficial in the formative years as students are mimicking how to create beautiful phrasing lines and sounds. In the long run, I would hope that they form their own performance opinions and move away from just imitating the ideas of others.

The flipped classroom is an investment well worth the time and risk. Our ultimate goal should be that our students develop such a passion for learning ours or any subject that they are able to continue learning well past their days within our four walls. I am hopeful that we will continue developing a safe culture that allows us to take these risks. When we succeed, the student becomes the master. 

Tech Wars: from Home to School

In our home we have an iMac, Apple TV, personal and school iPads, iPhones for him and her, and even relic iPhones that serves as game systems for our boys or dedicated streaming audio players in far-to-reach places (think garage). It’s obnoxious. We use a wireless speaker system for whole-home audio. When it all works, we are none the wiser; when it doesn’t, it is intensely frustrating. Apple store galore, and what am I using to write this? An HP desktop computer.

I’ve heard the quote, “Apple products are for those who like to play. PCs are for those who like to work.” Each summer I become quite adept at using the iMac, especially with iMovie to create the annual “How to ENO” video. My iPhone is a wonderful tool for staying on top of communications (e-mail, Twitter, etc.). The primary balance is that I don’t let all of this tech push in on my family time and life. Above all, the lion-share of my output is done on a PC. With the use of Dropbox, I am able to work seamlessly on my home PC, laptops, or the four Edmond Public School desktop PCs that I utilize at various sites. I have tried Evernote to sync my work, but when it comes down to it, I am able to best produce using Microsoft products on a PC. Just today I used Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Publisher…and it’s our day off.

What does this mean as many of our schools consider a move toward wireless classrooms, in the cloud, using only Google’s suite of products (which continue to grow)? I have little apprehension about what comes next; I look forward to whatever it is. One of our greatest challenges in education, technology or not, is to continually create and to teach our students to be creative. Sir Ken Robinson’s widely viewed TEDTalk addresses creativity so well to say, “We shouldn't confuse ‘things not working’ with ‘therefore we shouldn't try anything.’” Our responsibility as creative change agents is to consistently evaluate if:

1. something is working and why/what parts.

2. something is struggling but may need more time.

3. something is not working and should be stopped.

4. something is working in one place but not another.

My primary concern regarding progressive changes to technology in the Edmond Public Schools is that, because of the size of even a small investment in such a large district, we may see something as struggling and thus give it more time, when in fact we should stop doing it. Likewise, because of our sprawling range of demographics from site to site, I hope that we continue trying new things, even if new ideas won’t work everywhere. Just as we expect students to process learning concepts differently, we should also expect success in one place and challenge in another even when dealing with the same new technology. We have a wide-ranging technology comfort-zone, and a key factor moving forward will be finding out what we know and building from there.

Tech in the ENO Classroom

I am a career teacher at Edmond North High School, now in my fourteenth year teaching orchestra and most recently a member of the technology committee. The growth of technology and its role in our teaching has greatly advance over the course of a decade, as one would hope. In my specific classroom, I have access to a classroom computer and two office computers, as well as strong wireless internet throughout the music facility. While students do not regularly use these computers, it is a convenience for me and the orchestra assistant to have two workstations in the office since we each spend over an hour a day simply working on administrative tasks of the orchestra, often simultaneously. The separate workstation in the classroom is necessary as it is located nearly thirty feet from the office computers. On the classroom computer, we utilize Powerpoint to scroll the daily lesson and announcements, as well as numerous websites including GoNoodle for physical stretches, Progressive Sight Singing, and Youtube, to name a few resources. Youtube is often used to show students examples of some of the highest quality orchestral performances in history. It is a truly invaluable resource.

The classroom has a ceiling mounted projector that casts an over a 12-foot image for our large classes to see. Due to its inaccessibility of height and large size, there is also a LightRaise SMART projector that turns any smooth surface into an interactive whiteboard. Ours is mounted over a whiteboard and is linked to the overhead projection and computer monitor through a four-way splitter. For use with the classroom projector is an AverVision document camera that I use to project images of method books and exercises, or to show large groups a change in bowings or other patterns in the sheet music. Also used with the computer and SMART board is a Slate, sometime called a Sled, that I use through Bluetooth to scroll through the Progressive Sight Singing examples without being tethered to the workstation.

An exception in our technology that few other classrooms have would be our pro-audio system that is connected to three ceiling-hung stereo condenser microphones. These allow for one-touch high quality recording. The stereo has Bluetooth connectivity that allows playback of numerous music tuning and rhythm apps through an orchestra-purchased iPad. Two favorite apps are Tonal Energy, a multi-function tuner, drone generator, recorder, and metronome, and Drumbeats Plus, which plays numerous backbeats and pop rhythms that add variety to our traditional warm-ups.

The only remaining need that I see at the moment is some sort of reflective device, like Apple TV, that would allow for display of iPad or other smart devices to our projector. However, the cost in frustration I have had with this technology’s reliability does not yet outweigh its benefits. Ultimately, the best technology for teaching stringed instruments is what the students hold in their hands each day: their stringed instruments, perfected for over 400 years!