Every year I attend the Texas Music Educators Convention in San Antonio, Texas. It is a wonderful opportunnity to refresh myself, gather new ideas, try new things, hear great music, and generally have a great time. I am not sure how many times this has been at convention, but the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) http://www.ti-me.org/index.html?jointime.html is often there and will offer clinics. I always try to attend them to pick up any new information that I can use. It is hard sometimes to find things that are adaptable to my classroom but I always look. I never took much interest in joining TI:ME but after this class I have a different perspective on membership. I think this would be a very helpful organization to further my knowledge of using technology in the music classroom. There is within this website a blog section with valuable information. Under another section I can access a number of member created blogs and podcasts. Suddenly I am in this new world. As a digital immigrant trying to shed my "accent", this will help me enter and assimilate in to the world of digital natives.
http://amymburns.musiced.net/
This is one of the blogs that I found from the TI:ME site. She has some great suggestions and even better a link that takes me to a page of 100 Music Education Blogs. It doesn't get much better than that! I can't imagine not being able to find an answer to a question or a new idea to use.
I must agree that the best way to become more familiar with using technology in the classroom is to keep at it and involve my students in discovering it along with me. I think we can have quite a bit of fun creating stories, virtual field trips and the like. Music is a creative field. I must move forward to let my students show their creativity. It is no longer an option to claim there is "no time" to do an activity that involves technology. In good conscience, I must make the time. I do not have to eliminate something I already do, I merely need to do it in a new way. One that lets my students explore their creativity. One that opens their minds to new ideas, new ways to do things, new worlds. First sharing their ideas in our class, with the school and then beyond. Once they begin to explore the world close to home, they will see the greater world open up before them. Their understanding of those who live with them will be better and their world will improve around them. The possibilities are now endless for them to enter this exciting new world.
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