The Joy of Being Back with Kids!

As we look toward next year, I am continuing in my district role, and I'm grateful for that. I enjoy my job (mostly), and I like being able to affect change on the system. But my heart will always be the heart of a teacher. One of my colleagues recently told me, "You still are a teacher, you just teach teachers." It's true, but there's nothing quite like being with kids all day, and I miss it!

That's why, when the opportunity came up for me to run a week-long music camp for some friends' kids this summer, I jumped at the chance! The majority of my time in the classroom was with 5th-8th graders, but this was with 3-8 year olds. Still, it was a golden opportunity for me to feed my teaching heart and have some musical fun with these kids, so I jumped at it!

We had a great time. From music games to musical books to drawing how music makes us feel to exploring different instruments to making our own instruments, the week was a blast! I forgot how much planning it takes to really create good lessons - especially with younger kids - but it was worth it.

As much as anything, this brought me confidence (I can still hop in front of kids and teach music!), but it also back to the day-to-day grind of teaching. Planning, lugging materials around, management...it was a good reminder of everything our teachers do every day. I'm grateful for these opportunities to keep myself grounded, and I fully believe it gives me more understanding and makes me a better leader.

I had fun teaching. They had fun learning. We all enjoyed the music. What more can you ask for?

Our crew on "Make Your Own Instrument" Day!

Educational leaders: I challenge you to take opportunities to get in front of kids and TEACH! It is more than worth it for everyone involved!

Colorado Music Educators Association Conference (CMEA) 2020!

I'm just returning home from CMEA 2020, full of good food and good memories (but running low on sleep)! I think this is the most I have ever enjoyed the conference. Why? Mostly, it comes down to purpose - I knew why I was there, I knew what I wanted to get out of it, and that helped guide me toward a great conference experience!

Here's the thing about being in my position - most of the sessions are designed for current music teachers. I struggled a little bit last year trying to figure out what to go to - should I go to the things I am interested in (which mostly align to my strengths)? Or places where I need to learn and grow? It's awesome if a session has "strategies that can be implemented in your class on Monday," but without a class of my own, what was I supposed to do with these tips?

This year, I made it simple. I wanted to go where the teachers in my district were going. My purpose in being at the conference was not to take in a ton of great learning for myself (although that is always a benefit), but to allow me to better support my teachers. Obviously if they were presenting or performing, I was in that room, but beyond that, if one wanted to go learn how to start a mariachi group, I wanted to be right there beside her, hearing the same things so I could be a thought partner as she starts out! Knowing we just implemented full-day kindergarten in my district, which doubled the number of minutes of music, I wanted to be in the kindergarten session to get ideas for how to engage our youngest learners for an extended amount of time. And if a teacher wanted to talk for a bit in the lobby, outside of a session, that is where I wanted to be.

It ended up being a great balance! I still went to a couple of sessions that I just wanted to experience personally, but they were ones that didn't conflict with anything that I felt really compelled to be at with the teachers in my district. And, after going to sessions with teachers, we were able to have some great instructional conversations because we had a common base to start with!

All in all, this clarity of purpose helped me evaluate and prioritize my schedule and not feel guilty about choosing one thing over another. It made me wonder - should I be thinking about this for any (large) conference I attend? How much better would my professional learning be if I invested a little bit of thought ahead of time about what I wanted to get out of it?

It was great to see people from all walks of my musical life. It was great to learn a lot. But, most of all, it was great to build relationships, appreciate the talent in our district, and see how excited everyone was about offering the best possible instruction to their students! I may be tired, but a little bit of purpose goes a long way in making this an extremely successful conference!

Back to My Musical Roots

I still love teaching.

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me into her classroom to teach a mini-lesson about music, STEM, the physics of sound, etc. The audience was a group of rising 3rd graders. Of course, I said yes! We had a blast, and they were super engaged, so we ended up going much longer than originally anticipated. I wanted to share some of the more interactive activities we did below for my fellow musical friends - these could work well with any age, from preschool up through elementary school, or as a part of an accessible lesson for students with special needs.

Feel the Music

After playing and providing a little bit of an intro, talking about how the strings vibrate to make sound, I invited the students up to feel the vibrations while I played. Watching their faces was precious as they truly "felt" the music! Many of them also commented on how it tickled their hands :-).

*Note: This works best on cello or some larger bass instrument - I have also done it with trombone!

Learn a song!

The next step for these students was to learn a bit of a song! I used the Cabbage Song, one of my traditional beginning songs. The melody is four lines with a standard bass line, so after practicing with solfege hand symbols, I called four students over to the cello and assigned them each one line (4 notes - easy enough to memorize). They each practiced individually, and then we put it all together with me playing violin them playing the bass line, and the rest of the class doing hand symbols for the bass line!

*This, obviously, will only work with kids who are a bit older - it's probably too much for preschoolers to handle. I was a bit worried at first about taking care of the cello while it was on the ground, but they were super respectful and did great!

Play your own song!

The last interactive activity I did with the students was call them up, one at a time (if they wanted to play), and had them choose a song they wanted to try. The songs ranged anywhere from "Twinkle, Twinkle" to movie music from Moana! I taught them the very basics of how to hold the instrument (hand on the shoulder, hold the bow on the frog), and had them move the bow back and forth on one string while I did fingerings for them. This always results in a lot of laughter, because it is hard to keep the bow on one string and keep a good sound, so we get lots of *interesting* sounds! My fingering isn't always 100% accurate from this angle, either :-). Nevertheless, it is fun for the students to get the chance to "play" something that they want to play and also provides a great opportunity to talk about how hard work can pay off!

Finale

Of course, beyond these interactive moments, I played violin, talked about low and high (bigger and smaller instruments), demonstrated tuning (looser/tighter), etc. It was a great day with a great group of kiddos!

On a personal note, it was such a relief to realize that I can still go into a classroom and command the attention of a group of kids. That might sound silly, but now that I don't teach every day, I sometimes feel a little rusty! I never want to be too far removed from the day-to-day reality of teaching, and this was a great way for me to jump in with my favorite subject and just be with kids. I look forward to more opportunities like this over the course of the year! 

From an Administrator to my Music Teachers

It's February! I don't know about everyone else, but this time of year was always stressful for me as a music teacher - kids were signing up for classes, and the number of students signed up for my class determined my FTE for the next year (I was never guaranteed a full-time job). That is stressful!

Now, I'm on the other side as the one who assigns FTE. And while I can't take all of the stress and anxiety away, here is what I would say to my teacher self and anyone else in this situation:

1. Do your thing, and do it well.

While this is the time of year that retention is at the front of everyone's mind, you are really working all year to give your kids a great experience so they will want to return! Don't feel like you have to change it up or track students down or do a silly little promotion - your best strategy is to make your class awesome all year long, because that is what they will think of when choosing classes for next year!

2. Don't make it a competition.

This is so hard! There are only so many kids, and elective teachers are usually "fighting" to get them in class. The worst thing you can do is to turn it into a competition and set yourself against any other teacher. Through collaboratively building each other up, we can all have strong programs! I've seen schools where that is the culture, and it works - everything thrives! I'm not sure how that works out, numerically, but it does!

3. Advocate for yourself!

Share your ideas, thoughts, and dreams with your administrators! There is no one who knows your schedule, strengths, and talents better than yourself, and you often can a creative solution to get more classes (or divide them in different ways) better than anyone else can. Don't be afraid to ask!

4. Realize you don't see the big picture.

There are approximately one thousand factors I am balancing when allocating FTE. Okay, not quite that many, but it is very complicated! There are things that administrators can't share, especially about HR issues, and ultimately, it's their job to figure it out. Please see #3 and advocate for yourself, but don't cross the line to thinking you know everything and pestering admins.

5. Don't take it personally.

This is one of the most challenging ones for me. When kids didn't sign up for my class, I wanted to take it personally (what did I do wrong?). When I didn't get as much FTE as I thought I should, I wondered why. Now, being on the other side, I can see that sometimes circumstances are such that it just doesn't work out. I know I will probably have to let good people go at some point, and that's hard. Meanwhile, in my own professional life, I am in an interim position, and I may or may not get to stay where I am - I'm gaining a deeper understanding of the fact that it may not have anything to do with me, and everything to do with the other factors around me.

6. Give yourself extra grace.

True confession: I was stressed last night. So I gave myself permission to go to the store and buy a candy bar to eat while I listened to an audiobook to chill out a bit (side note: there's something ironic about listening to Brene Brown talk about different habits to numb our emotions in Dare to Lead while munching on a candy bar after a hard day...). My healthiest coping mechanism? Not at all. And then, this morning, I've hardly done anything. And that's okay. Don't beat yourself up, and realize that you might need a little extra space in your life to deal with the extra stress.

And finally...7. I'm on your side.

As an administrator, I want all of my teachers to be successful. Period. End of story. I also have to make hard decisions that affect your lives, and don't underestimate the emotional toll it takes on me to process through these decisions. Even when the results aren't what you wish, know that I am committed to supporting you through it all and hoping that next year, we will be able to get that extra class or better schedule!

Happy February :-)!

CMEA Conference

This week, I had the opportunity to attend CMEA (the state music education conference). It was such an interesting experience - I haven't been to CMEA for years, and in the meantime, I've attended several ed tech conferences. This gave me such a different perspective than I have ever had before, and reflecting on that has been fascinating to me! One of the things that made me smile was how floored attendees were to have an app with the schedule/program on it (this was the first year with an app in addition to printed programs).

Here are a couple of my observations and takeaways.

It's a high-quality conference...

This conference featured great variety in the sessions and well-prepared speakers. There were not a lot of sessions that I attended that were "duds". I enjoyed the presentations and picked up a lot of ideas! Beyond the sessions, everything else (venue, equipment, etc) just had the feeling of being organized and well-done.

...but still a lot of sit-n-get.

While the sessions I went to were well-done and engaging, they were still primarily presented in lecture style. There was a lot of "sage on the stage" and not a lot of participant interaction. This could have just been the sessions I attended (I wasn't in as many general music sessions), but it was a bit disappointing to me. We still have a long way to go until we teach in a way that encourages the best retention (hint: it's not by talking at someone for an hour). One possible factor was the tech limitation of having no wifi in many of the rooms.

It was wonderful being in my new role...

By far, my favorite part about this conference was getting the chance to spend time with the teachers in my district! Normally, our conversations happen during a 5-minute passing period or when there is a specific need ("Do you have _____?"). It was so refreshing to be able to hang out, talk, share, and just spend time together without the pressure of needing to get something done! I was able to have so many one-on-one conversations as well, about various things that are going on throughout the district Lots of people apologized for grabbing me at the conference to talk "regular work", but I actually enjoyed it! It gave me the chance to really hear how things are going. And THAT helps me do my job so much better!

...but also a bit hard to figure out my place.

Let's be honest, this is a conference for teachers. Which is great! And it meant that there weren't many sessions designed for administrators. I felt really torn between going to sessions that piqued my interested and those that I felt like I "should" go to. I found that even though I loved the sessions with lots of takeaways, most of them weren't that applicable to me since I am not teaching kids! This continues to be a bit of an identity shift for me - I'm not a teacher (by position) anymore.


Although I have attended in the past, I enjoyed CMEA this year more than ever before. It is a great place for connections, old and new, and I was blessed to see friends and teachers from high school, college, and beyond! I'm grateful for the opportunity to attend and spend time with a wonderful group of music educators, and look forward to seeing how this all gets applied to create better experiences for KIDS!

Adventures Abound: A New Job!

I'm excited that I can officially announce my new position - Interim Director of Fine & Performing Arts for my district! Basically, this means that I am overseeing music, art, & theatre programming for 57 schools. It's a big job, but it's an exciting one as well!

Week #1

In my first week, I have really fluctuated between complete Impostor Syndrome (what am I doing here?!?) and confidence that I can, in fact, get the job done. All part for the course in a transition, I think! I'm still in the time where doing a "simple" task takes 5x as long, because I have to learn how to do it first. Throw in the fact that this position has been vacant since the beginning of the school year (although the previous director has stayed engaged in a few things to tide us over), and there is quite a backlog of work to be done. Slowly but surely, I'm trying to tackle the mountain.

Focus on What's Important

While it's easy to be overwhelmed by the tasks that need to be done, I'm also very cognizant of the fact that there are some "important, non-urgent" things that I need to make time for:

• Proactively communicating with stakeholders
• Going to schools to see what is actually happening
• Advertising & sharing the great things going on in the arts programs
• Connecting with my team in Instructional Services & Equity
• Making sure I refresh and have some semblance of work/life balance
  

Background

As I have started this week, I have been amazed at how different experiences have prepared me well for this job:

• My years as a music teacher taught me what it is like to live day-to-day in the arts world! This gives me a huge amount of empathy for the teachers I am leading.
• My time as a summer school leader, and summer camp director before that prepared me for being the one who leads, makes decisions, & sets the vision for a group of people, as well as dealing with the day-to-day realities of carrying out that vision.
• My time as an ed tech specialist showed me how important it is to work things on a systems level, rather than solving each individual school or classroom on its own. This district perspective is extremely important!

Who knew, when I was doing all of those things, that they would lead me to where I am now?

What's Happening?

One of my first big goals was to send an anonymous survey out to teachers, asking the following questions:

• What, in your opinion, are some of the greatest successes of your program?
• What are some of the greatest challenges you are facing?
• What kind of support do you hope for from the district level?
• Anything else you want me to know?

This will help me determine what I need to focus on from my teachers' point of view. The responses so far have been incredibly helpful!

I also had the chance to get out and visit a few classes last week, which was so refreshing and fun! It helps me feel more connected to what is really happening in the district.

We are CREATORS at Lafayette - drawing & painting sea creatures! Kids explained how, wherever you colored with the crayon, the paint won't stick. #artsed #bvsd pic.twitter.com/zM5YgaPXDj

— Aubrey Yeh (@Ms_A_Yeh) September 27, 2018

Amazing #musiced and #artsed work going on in #bvsd! Celebrating #dotday! We love our Dragons who are on FIRE! pic.twitter.com/OY6H8ffWxo

— Aubrey Yeh (@Ms_A_Yeh) September 27, 2018

Loved seeing the integrated nature of this artwork at Meadowlark today! Thanks for hosting us, @MLPK8Principal ! #bvsd #artsed pic.twitter.com/7mT0wRnaSS

— Aubrey Yeh (@Ms_A_Yeh) September 27, 2018

What's Next?

Thank you to everyone for continuing to follow my journey - it is an adventure, to be sure! I may be in a new role, but my passion and heart for kids & education is still the same, and I look forward to sharing new perspectives!

Feeding Yourself - Musically

I've been thinking a lot recently about a topic I am terrible at - self-care. There are the typical things we talk about, like getting enough sleep, exercising, and being careful about how much work you bring home. I have recently been discovering another important element to add to my routine - a creative outlet through music!

Here's what it looks like:
1. Find a friend who plays an instrument.
2. Find some duet music. Old classics (Suzuki!), imslp.org, any music you might have at school, etc - it doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to cost money.
3. Find a time and play! (Summer is a great time)

It's just that simple. And it is SO refreshing and energizing to play for fun. Why do we struggle to make time for it? I'm finding that I need this even more now that I am not teaching music in the schools anymore - I have to keep music in my life!

I'm grateful for my violin buddies - a friend from church and a fellow music teacher - who get together and play with me. We have dreams of adding a fourth person and using our music teacher skills to play viola & cello for a string quartet, which opens up the repertoire quite a bit. Video cred goes to my friend's roommate who makes us nervous by pulling out her phone when we are playing :-).

Yes, we are doubling parts on the Bach Double.
Playing for fun = no rules, just enjoying ourselves!

Find a musical friend & keep yourself inspired today!

Passing the Torch

It's been a year since I taught orchestra in schools as my full-time job. While I am happy to be where I'm at, I've also struggled with missing being in the classroom. One of the coolest things, though, has been watching a friend really pick up the torch of mashing music + technology together. It is a joy to watch!

Robots + Composition

A few weeks ago, I received this text:

"I assume you've played with the Edison robots? I think it would be really neat to do a composition project with them where the objects/surfaces around it trigger the different notes/phrases...I programmed mine to play the next phrase of Twinkle when it changed to a different surface when driving."

Prior to this, I hadn't heard about these particular robots, but wow, mind blown! I think that coding any robot to respond to outside stimuli differently is an authentic way to mix composition & computer science in a music class. This would make a great #HourofCode project someday!

Video Perspective

A few summers ago, I recorded lots, and I mean LOTS of instructional videos to help my 5th & 6th graders learn their songs. I found that it had several benefits - it helped my students learn their music, but also how to practice, because I talked them through the tricky spots in the video. It also really gave them a multi-sensory way to learn, by listening, looking at my fingers in the video, and looking at their music. Finally, it was a great way for parents to know what their kids were learning and how to help them or for kids to catch up after being absent. It is so common to get an email that says, "I don't know how to help my kid in music," and this game me a great resource to point them to! I even sent them occupational therapist at my school, who was working with one of my students, and she came back knowing how to hold the cello & play our first few songs, making it much easier for her to help this student!

Disclaimer: I totally stole copied this idea from another orchestra teacher in the district...good ideas just get passed around!

My friend shared that she wanted to make her own set of videos this summer, but instead of setting up the camera in front of her, she was going to take it from a forehead mount, showing the exact perspective of the students. This way, they don't have to see what it looks like from the outside and try to make their fingers match that from their angle. How come I never thought of that?!? It shows such a great focus on thinking about the user first, and what their needs are.  I was blown away!

Individualized, Self-Paced Learning

Orchestra Karate has been around for awhile, and is actually something the two of us implemented when we team-taught together. Once again, my friend is finding ways to expand ideas to make them even better! She shared that instead of just doing our "regular" songs for Orchestra Karate, she had made two extra packets - a holiday packet & a challenge packet - that students could work on & earn belts for. This is such a great way to combat the fact that the beginning class has students moving at a variety of paces, and allows all students to be challenged at their own level!

Spreadsheets

Okay, this last one is just because I'm a nerd and I love organizing my life with spreadsheets. I love finding others who do the same! She was telling me how she had one spreadsheet per school, but IMPORTRANGEd them all into one master spreadsheet, had different tabs to sort by different reasons (like who had district instruments, etc), and used conditional formatting to mark who had turned paperwork in. She also talked about using autoCrat to create nametags (to hang on stands) from these spreadsheets, rather than our usual practice of having students write their own nametags, which often results in small, light handwriting that is impossible to read from the podium :-). These little hacks make life so much easier, and I love seeing others use them in a way that works for them!

Passing the Torch

When I decided to move into this district position, one of the hard things was feeling like I was just scratching the surface of what could be done in a music classroom, and I didn't have time to explore everything I wanted to! These interactions with my friend have been incredibly encouraging in remembering that I am not the only one who is exploring. As obvious (and self-centered) as that sounds, it has been so cool to see her not only embrace new ideas, but take them even further to create the best educational environment for kids!

My recommendation? Find "your people" and keep building on each others' ideas. Continue to push further and deeper. Collaborate & share. Together, we can create amazing educational environments for students!

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?

String Camp & The Unexpected

This past week, I had the pleasure of accompanying almost 100 middle school students to String Camp, an overnight field trip in the beautiful mountains of Colorado. It was a great trip! However, driving down the mountain, I realized that it was not what I had expected.

I had expected to be hit with a pang of missing music, of missing teaching.
I had expected to be overjoyed to be jumping back into my old "music teacher" world again.
I had expected to savor and treasure those little "kid moments" - the little comments and thoughts that aren't really that important, but mean so much.

But that didn't happen. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and really engaged while I was up there! But, if I'm 100% honest, I missed focusing on my ed tech work. It was the first time that I was in a "music" situation and felt more like an ed tech specialist than a music teacher. Not because I didn't like it, not because I didn't feel confident, but mostly because I am excited about the work I am doing now!

There's a kind of a sort of cost

There's a couple of things get lost

There are bridges you cross

You didn't know you crossed

Until you've crossed

~"Thank Goodness" from Wicked (the musical)

I've blogged about my transition from teaching to being in ed tech - the ups and the downs - but somehow, this felt like a big step. I know that I will always be a music teacher, but I am in a different place now. And I have mixed feelings about that! Primarily, I'm happy to (finally) be so content in my job, but it is tinged with a feeling of loss.

As I continue to cross bridges, I hope that I will always be able to look back with fond memories and look ahead with excitement to the future!

*These are the full lyrics that have been running through my mind -
the section above is just an excerpt*

That's why I couldn't be happier

No, I couldn't be happier

Though it is, I admit

The tiniest bit

Unlike I anticipated

But I couldn't be happier

Simply couldn't be happier

Well—not "simply":

Cause getting your dreams

It's strange, but it seems

A little—well—complicated

There's a kind of a sort of cost

There's a couple of things get lost

There are bridges you cross

You didn't know you crossed

Until you've crossed

And if that joy, that thrill

Doesn't thrill you like you think it will

Still—

With this perfect finale

The cheers and the ballyhoo

Who?

Wouldn't be happier?

So I couldn't be happier

Because happy is what happens

When all your dreams come true

Well, isn't it?

Happy is what happens

When all your dreams come true!

Reflections of a Former Music Teacher

This is my first year not in the classroom, teaching music. And while I don't like calling myself a "former" music teacher (I still teach it in different ways), I do have some reflections (more personal than instructional) that have come out of not being immersed in it all day, every day this year!

1. I miss teaching, but I also just really miss MUSIC. I miss those magical moments where everyone hits the downbeat together or the whole section finally plays an F-natural (with no stray F-sharps in there) or where the crescendo builds and you can feel the energy and excitement travel throughout the group. And even that moment where a beginner figures out how to play "Hot Cross Buns" for the first time and they are beaming with pride, because they can play a song! There is something so special and unique about the music classroom.

2. Concert season makes me miss it even more. No matter how exhausting and stressful it is preparing for a concert, it's also exciting and fun! To see hundreds of students getting dressed up and sharing their gift with hundreds more in the audience, to know how big of a deal it is to them...that's a gratifying feeling. I have missed that nervous excitement and energy, especially as December has come around.

3. While I am not teaching in the classroom, I have actually been playing more myself this year. Whether it's playing piano at home or playing violin on worship team at church or sitting in with a blues band for our IT holiday party (blues fiddle?), I've enjoyed the challenge to stretch my own musicianship and get back into performing a bit. I never felt like I had the energy to do this when I was teaching, but now, I am craving it!

Music teachers: You have an amazing job. 

I know it's exhausting, and I know the never-ending stream of emails.sounds.repairs.budgets.questions.grading.planning.equipment.concerts.traveling.sound equipment can get to you. Not to mention the feeling that some people, whether it's administrators, fellow teachers, or parents, don't take your class seriously because "it's just music". Let me tell you...it's not "just" music, it's magic. It's special. Enjoy it!

[And know that I'm cheering you on as you finish up the last of these concerts!]

One Year Ago

One year ago, I went to my first ever educational technology conference.
One year ago, a friend asked me if I was presenting there.
One year ago, what my mind was screaming was, "NO WAY, there's no way I have enough expertise or anything to share at an ed tech conference like this!"
One year ago, what I said was, "No - I might present at a music conference sometime about how to incorporate technology into a music classroom; that's more where I see myself sharing."

This year, I am going to my second educational technology conference.
This year, I am presenting/co-presenting four sessions.
This year, I'm a bit nervous, but excited to share and learn with everyone who comes to my sessions.
This year, I am recruiting others to share & present too!

What's changed? I haven't become an expert in the past year. Sure, I've learned some things and grown, but it's not like "what I know" is drastically different.
What's changed? I see myself not just as a music teacher who is interested in tech, but as an ed tech leader.
What's changed? More than anything, it's my mindset and my willingness to share in this community of learners.
What's changed? I am growing in confidence as my #oneword of LEAD is really playing out in my life this year.

Here's to a great 2017 Colorado #edtechteam Summit!

#EdCampLongmont 2017

There's nothing like showing up on a Saturday morning with a large group of educators who just want to collaborate and learn and "talk shop" with each other! Welcome to #edcamp!

It's hard to synthesize all of the learning & thought-provoking conversations that occurred throughout the day, so I'll just share a snippet from each session here:

1. Sometimes, kids need more structure. It is easier for us, as adults, to discriminate what information is important, switch gears, and make the appropriate connections...but students don't always follow our same train of thought! Being clear about this can help our kiddos know what is expected of them and then they can focus on the learning. This is so important for me to keep in mind because I tend to be pretty flexible, and I need to remember to accommodate a variety of learning styles.
Challenge: How can we create structure & clear expectations while facilitating a classroom that is student-led & honoring students' desire to learn in their own individual ways?

2. What are the different purposes for social media (personal, professional, academic, etc) - do students think about using their accounts in all of these different ways?
Deep thoughts & possible conversation with students: Who are YOU as a person and how do you convey that online? Do you have more than one account on a given social media platform? Why or why not? What are the pros & cons of having one account or multiple accounts? How does that affect the way you communicate? What about who your audience is? Does that change the way you portray yourself online? What are the similarities and differences to how you portray yourself online and in real life?

3. I'm still trying to up my game on Schoology. I never used it in my classroom, and while I am getting better, I continue to do a lot of playing around to find what I need. It was great to hear about tips & tricks (& also frustrations) from other teachers!
Question for the masses: What is your best tip or trick on Schoology?

4. Honestly, I just took some time to reflect and catch up. There was nothing on the session board that was calling to me, and it was nice to synthesize all of the information from the morning. It's okay to slow down too!
Challenge: How do you build in time for reflection?

5. Although I am an ed tech specialist now, there is still a big part of me that is a music teacher. This last session felt like coming home. We reflected on how easy it is to feel alone when you teach certain subjects, the challenges of finding relevant PD, and dreamed about organizing a music edcamp for ourselves and our colleagues.
Music teachers: What kind of PD do you find most relevant?

In addition, it is always super fun to see old friends, make new friends, and be around people who are so excited about education!

So...when's the next #edcamp?