TME Week 9
It was such a privilege to attend this week's seminar under the guidance of Camilla Corbett, a recent graduate of the SCM and NSW Government department Music Teacher. Camilla gave us an engaging and very useful rundown and examples of applications Google Classroom to create interactive and exciting resources for her students to use in the music classroom.
What captured me most about Camilla's use of Google classroom was that it's used as a platform the enable both notation readers and students who do not read notation to equally participate in music making through collaboration as well as the opportunity to work independently on tasks such as composing and in particular, listening. I was very much inspired by the seamless 'marriage' between technology and pedagogy to create a popular music learning approach for students from about term 3 year 7 through to year 10 and beyond.
Always have a base level
Level 1 and beyond...
Camilla mentioned several times that the resources she created such as tutorial videos for popular songs such as Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day (featuring guitar, bass, drums, vocals and keyboard tutorials) is the base level. Beyond this, extension activities can include challenging students who are confident in playing the guitar for example, to learn the drum part or the vocal part.
BYOD and Google Classroom
Many schools within Sydney have already implemented a BYOD device program while some schools offer programs such as device hire or keeping the devices consistent such as a MacBook only program. Camilla's school uses Chromebooks which can be purchased for around $400. At my prac school for example, students had the opportunity to bring a device of their choice such as a MacBook, PC or tablet however this at times presented challenges within the classroom context; for example some programs only worked on Mac/PC and could not be downloaded on a tablet while apps worked well on tablets but didn't have an equivalent web source. An important point that Camilla made was to ensure that the device, whatever it may be, is durable and clearly labelled! Personally, I feel that BYOD is successful when the teacher understands the strengths and limitations of student's devices to plan lessons that can appropriately integrate technology, an aspect of the music classroom which most students are very much familiar with and comfortable in using.
Camilla gave us the opportunity to create our own short Google page using Google sites, which is what she uses to create her pages on Google classroom. I think it is a brilliant source to be using, especially as it's easily accessible by both students and teachers and enables resources to be neatly compiled in one place. It also allows students to work at their own pace and moves teachers away from the 'teacher-centered' classroom to the 'student-centered' environment. I was very much impressed and excited about the opportunities that platform such as google classroom gives to teachers and students when used effectively to create engaging and music-centred lessons!
