Three Key Takeaways from "Connected Educators" Course

There are many things that were brought to the table during this class that have helped shape the way I can utilize social media to communicate and share with other educators and students. Here are some of the top takeaways for me. 

1: SOCIAL BOOKMARKING 

I really enjoyed the topic of social bookmarking for so many reasons. So often, I have felt the need and desire to share and curate content for various topics. While I feel I have a lot to offer, there is so much I would like to learn from others. Curating various social bookmarking topics will be a phenomenal way for me to organize topics from various educators to create a shared location for all of us to contribute to. 

For instance, let's say I want to create a document to show drummers how to play a variety of styles of Latin jazz. I could ask jazz educators, drummers especially, to help me find a number of recordings, written out beats, music samples and other resources for the various styles of Latin jazz including Samba, bossa nova, baiao, salsa, merengue, etc. By providing these resources, I can improve my teaching by having accurate info to share with my students, but also help educators around the world be able to give a more accurate education on this often confusing topic. I learned so much about this concept during the assignment in Module 2, Assignment 2. In the article "What Does It Mean to Curate" by Chelsea Emelie Kelly, the idea of curating as described by Mel Buchanan was really helpful for me. Buchanan explains "What we mean when we say “curating” on the internet is more like being a really top-notch editor. That is, someone who is good at picking things out of the endless internet ether and organizing them into something else. What we mean when we say “curating” in an art museum is a lot more than just being a top-notch editor. But both meanings can exist and live happily together." 

There are so many opportunities to do things like this and I can't wait to jump in and start using this tool. 

2: VIRTUAL OBSERVATIONS 

Something I never really thought about was the possibility of being able to access archives of great presentations that have been put together over time and posted for our viewing at later times.  Often, I feel disappointed that I have missed a presentation or an opportunity.  I never really considered the idea that I have not even been made aware of 99.9% of the presentations that go on and how many of them may be available to check out well after the time the initial presentations were scheduled for.  Finding the archive of presentations at nafme.org was eye-opening and I'm really excited to explore everything that they have to offer there and in many other places.  Module 5, Assignment 1 turned out to be one of my favorite assignments because it forced me to seek out things like this and allowed me to stumble upon something I may have never known existed!

3:  BLOGGING

Perhaps the most exciting thing that came from this class is my newfound excitement for music education blogging.  Module 3, Assignment 3 asked us to create a tool for our learner reflection portfolio.  In doing this, my creative juices started flowing and by the time the night was over, I had created a blog post that has been viewed so far by 142 people!  I shared it to various music education websites as well as my own personal pages and I have received feedback about how helpful the information is.  You can view this blog HERE.  Tsisana Palmer says in her article: "9 Reasons Why Teachers Should Blog" that is is important to blog so that you can "Reflect on your own learning and teaching by engaging in the best thinking activity – writing!"  This is my biggest motivation in blogging, as it really makes me thing hard about how I do things, why I do them and how I can make them better.  The reflection on my own teaching is huge and I am looking forward to expanding my network so I can share more and also find more from others.

Learner Reflection Portfolio (Assignment for Module 3 of Connected Educators Course)

During Module 3 of the Connected Educators course, I have become more and more interested in the idea of blogging as a means to creating a home base for materials/curriculum/ideas that will help other teachers in their classroom and also organize my thoughts and processes.  Before writing this post, I decided to put up my first blog post about teaching the basics of beginner jazz improvisation.  I spent a significant amount of time going through materials I already had, organizing them and putting the finishing touches on some things I've been meaning to finish/change for awhile now.  This will directly affect my students because they will obviously benefit from the updates that were made (some of which I have been meaning to make for months or years!)  But even more importantly, I took the opportunity to create some new tools - new play-along recordings, some small JPGs of music materials that were converted from PDFs and cut down to show musical concepts, and other things, that will become useful in my Google Classroom for the kids, my website and also potential social media posts.  I have also taken this first blog post and submitted it to various music educator Facebook pages.  (1 of which denied the post, because it was "self-promoting" and self-promotion blogs posts can only be posted on Thursdays..  I find that annoying, but I guess there is a reason.  I am only annoyed because I didn't write it to be self promoting, i wrote it and shared it to help the 60,000 music teachers in that Facebook group!)  I learned through this that it seems as though some of these avenues of sharing have rules and guidelines that need to be carefully followed.  I know now that I will wait for Thursdays to post in that group, anything related to this new blog.  

In a more roundabout and also very specific way, this module and my newfound interest in music education material blogging will be really beneficial for a small but important group of people - future music teachers!  Through the years, I have had student teachers, college student observers and also high school students who had plans of going into music education in college who would hugely benefit from materials like this.  Additionally, these organized and detailed explanations could become great resources for my current Middle & High School students who want to dive deeper into the material and would like to see all of the materials organized in one place. 

I have blogged about random things before such as pizza reviews and my personal weight loss journey.  In the back of my mind, I know that I enjoy writing.  I never thought about doing something like this for the benefit of my fellow music educators.  When I was writing the post, I felt pretty excited about the possibility of sharing something with others and making their lives just a little bit easier so they would not have to reinvent the wheel and they could potentially just use my materials.  For some, I hope that the materials and information posted will motivate them to take a chance and try something new in their own classes.  Even if one person uses it, that's probably at least 20 students who will benefit from it!  The possibilities are endless when we are willing to share and help each other. 

Bb Blues Improvisation Worksheet (Part 1)

I always feel like the reason many people stay away from teaching jazz improvisation is because they feel like they don't know enough about it.  I can understand that.  In this post, I'm going to give you some tools you can use with the youngest and most inexperienced students as well as the ones who may be seemingly be more advanced, but still could use a refresher on the basics.  And for the teacher - you do not need any experience in jazz to be able to use these tools!  Working on the activities on this sheet will open your students up to tons of options in the beginning of their improvisation journeys. 

The program below is a very systematic approach to improvisation that is based on trying to take away the mystery about how to do it.  I find it to be a sort of "mathematical" approach that some people may believe to be too rooted in playing "right notes" and not enough about the emotion and story-telling of improvisation.  This approach is designed for large group improvisation where you have many students and not a ton of time.  It's designed to simplify the beginnings and give some definition to students who are scared to take the risk.  I have found that using this approach, I have had exactly ZERO students refuse to at least try to improvise on a daily basis, whenever they are asked to.    

By the way - so I don't bury the materials at the bottom, CLICK HERE to access the folder that includes the documents to hand out to your kids.  It includes parts for C, Bb, Eb, F, Bass Clef, Alto Clef, Piano and Guitar.  Also, the original document was provided in Bb but has also been transposed into F in case you want to explore a 2nd key.