Music + Tech

I am a music teacher. I am an educational technology specialist. But how do those two mix?

Recently, I have become more and more excited about how my background gives me a unique perspective into how to integrate educational technology into the music classroom. The more I got into it, though, the more frustrated I became. Here's what I heard the most about:

• SmartMusic
• Finale/Sibelius/Noteflight/Flat.io
• GarageBand
• Practice/playing test videos
• Electronic practice logs

Now, don't get me wrong, I think all of those can have a place in the classroom, and I used many of them myself. But we are only talking about the tools. This usually means that we are only talking about substitution - substituting a paper-and-pencil task with an electronic version. What are students doing differently that they couldn't do before? What are they learning? That's the conversation I'm really interested in having!

• How are we teaching our students to be creative with the tools at our disposal?
• How are we helping our students collaborate, both inside and outside the class, using these tools?
• How are we ensuring our students are becoming critical thinkers, rather than just relying on machines to think for them?
• How are we teaching our students to communicate, through words and/or music and/or visuals, in a way that tells a powerful story?
• How are we, as educators, taking advantage of the globally connected world that we live in to reach out, learn, and grow ourselves as professionals?

These are the questions worth asking.

These are the conversations we should be having in professional development sessions.

These are the things that will truly change our classrooms.

To anyone who works with music and technology, I'm begging you to make it about more than just the tools. We're aiming for a mindset change & instructional shift, not just a change in what tools we use. Let's not sell our classes short when they can be about so much more!

And, really, can't this apply to any content area? The deeper we go, the more our students will benefit. I want to keep designing professional development that challenges the notion that ed tech specialists just want to see you using technology in the classroom. It's so much bigger than that.

How do you move beyond just substituting tools in your classroom?