Technology for Music Teaching & Learning has offered invaluable ways to implement technology into my classroom. However, offering technological methods for continued professional development is what I will find most valuable. Every year I attend the Massachusetts Music Educators Association (MMEA) All-State Music Conference. It is a professional development weekend (Thursday through Saturday) for educators, and is connected to the All-State Music Festival for high school students. Other than this weekend, there are not many other professional development opportunities that would be as valuable for me.
Attending these one hour sessions at the professional conferences is always valuable, but developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) I believe is the most beneficial of all. I find it interesting that prior to this class, I had developed a kind of PLN through Facebook. I have liked many professional groups on Facebook (e.g. National Association for Music Education) and now am receiving posts on my news feed of the newest developments from these groups. I am interested in developing my PLN, and joining “communities of practice” through Google, Facebook, and any other forms of social media (Bauer, 2014, p. 176). There are so many benefits to having a PLN, including the ability to search for anything that you need to know. When I started teaching my History of Rock and Roll class I was absolutely lost on where to start developing my curriculum. I was lucky to have colleagues in the History department at Westport High School that sent me to the Education page of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This website led me to endless lesson plans that I was able to use as I developed my curriculum. I have to admit I am confused about the concept of “real simple syndication” (RSS) (Bauer, 2014, p. 175). I am unsure how RSS enables notifications for my PLN. I plan on doing some research on how this concept works and plan on using this technology to help me develop more ideas for my classroom.
Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) has become a necessity for all teachers. How educators teach in the 21st century will never be the same now that technology is a part our everyday life. I found the results of Bauer’s TPACK study interesting as far as the levels of competence that music teachers thought were important. I have to agree with the order of competencies that music teachers should have. However, I would have thought that knowledge of technology would have been higher on the list of necessary competencies. I wonder if this study would look any different if someone were to repeat it in 20 years? The way that technology has developed over the last 20 years I would hypothesize that these levels would change at least slightly if this study were to be repeated in another 20 years.
Hi Samuel,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. Like you, I have found that there are many benefits to being in a PLN, especially as a specials teacher where we are often the only teachers teaching in our content area. I have found it especially helpful to include these feeds in my personal social media. By subscribing to music educator groups on Facebook (like the example you shared) updates are constantly popping up without me having to search for them.
To answer the points that you asked at the end of your post I personally believe that TPACK will be just as important in 20 years as it is today and that the importance of the different components within it will hold steady. Technology is constantly changing and as a teacher it is and will always be important to stay "in the loop". If we look at previous generations we can see how teachers adapted to new technology at the time such as projectors, televisions, computers etc. I would imagine that in 20 years students will interact with technology differently than students do today as its role changes in daily life. In the future, we may be thinking about how cumbersome and unintuitive technology was back in 2016. How crazy to think about!
Hi Samuel,
ReplyDeleteI also live in Massachusetts and attend the Massachusetts Music Educators Association (MMEA) Conference regularly but feel the same way as you. There is very little done by our district to guide teachers to attend workshops that are relevant to their interests but yet they require professional development. For instance, I would love to learn more about music production because that is what I mostly teach. Berklee College offers some courses but they are very expensive and at an undergraduate level. I wish there was an online program like this one we are studying now with the main focus on music production and music technology. Please, let me know if you know any affordable courses that focus on music technology.
Best of luck!
Elton