Interactivity #3: Technology Inventory For Music

I found this activity to be very practical. Music educators are constantly making inventories for the endless number of instruments and supplies needed for the music departments. Organization is crucial when holding responsibility for so many materials. Music educators are also asked very often what kinds of supplies they may need the next year. Creating an inventory such as the one we made for interactivity #3 is something that would be great to have in that situation. It can be a wish list of technologies you want for your future classroom. 

This was the most interesting group project that I have ever had to participate in.  have never used Google Doc before and did not really know what it was until we were assigned this group project. I am grateful that I had members in my group who were somewhat familiar with Google Doc. If it weren't for them I would have never been able to figure it out! The best part about Google Doc is that you can see everyone working at the same time. I found myself staring at the screen watching new things pop up every few minutes. The most difficult part about this project was just deciding how we were going to put all of our ideas together. I think the best choice for us was agreeing on a few different categories first, and then plug in our individual technologies. If we hadn't agreed on categories first, it would have taken a lot longer group each technology together.


This being a group activity, I learned about some interesting teaching materials from my other group members that I may have not found myself, especially for recording and music notation software. There is so much out there and it is hard to dig through what technologies are appropriate!

     I believe that the change of technology within the time periods presented in the video above can be evidence of changes in music education. The video presents a radio station that broadcasted music education programs. I did not know this existed until I saw this video. I am curious to what may have been broadcasted. Did they play recoding of actual student ensembles? I am curious to know how an elementary school band would have sounded like in the 1920's compared to an elementary school band today.
     I believe that what changed music education the most as a result from changes in technology was the competition with Russia. Priorities of American schools changed and art programs may have been pushed aside as physics classes and math courses were reinforced more strictly. I do however believe that music education was and other art programs were better embraced than they are today. The current priorities of American education have even less concerns for art programs.

You can express yourself in less than a second through social media, but it will never compare to the truest and oldest form of human expression. Music making.