Natalie Dessay's Debut 1993

Twitter as an Educational Tool for 1.27.12

Yesterday in class, we discussed how Twitter can be used as an educational tool. I have never had a Twitter account before, because I never saw a need. I've been asking around as to why people use Twitter, and I haven't found a reason yet that makes me want to use it. I know that in class we discussed educational uses such as #musedchat, but even looking at that, I'm not sure that those conversations are enough to convince me that a Twitter account will be useful. I have no way of knowing how skilled those teachers are that post with that tag, so I'm a little nervous about taking thieir advice in my classroom. Maybe with more of an exploration of the meduim on my part, my mind will change, but I don't plan to use Twitter in my classroom. I think that the blog would be a much more useful tool, especially because, as a teacher, I would be able to moniter what was posted more closely. I'm still trying to be open minded, but so far, I don't see enough educational value in it yet to use it.  

Composer Profile

I just discovered Ola Gjeilo this year when we sang one of his pieces, entitled "Förklaring" in choir. I fell in love with the understated, gentle musical language that he used, contrasted with the romantic, powerful text, which we sang in Swedish.

In researching further, I doscovered that not only does Gjeilo write for choir, but he also enjoys writing for wind symphony and piano as well. He was born in Norway, but came to New York City in 2001 to study at the famous Juilliard School of Music for his Master's Degree, which he earned in 2006. He is now a full time composer in New York City.

I have attached a link to the video page of his website - while Förklaring is not there, there are a number of his other pieces to enjoy!

http://olagjeilo.com/videos/

Blogging About Blogging for 1.21.12

In class today, we discussed how blogging is now being used for educational purposes in classrooms, as well as for recreation. Professor Riley showed us an example using his wife's classroom page, and I must say, I was surprised. I will be the first to admit that I am not the most technologically adept (which is a little unusual for my generation) and I never understood why anyone would want to have a page to post about their lives. I never would have thought that blogging about class projects would have been so interesting for the students. It was absolutely great to read about how enthusiastic all of the students were about their projects, and how excited they were to share what they had learned with others! I think that in my own classroom, especially if I end up teaching middle school, that blogging would be a great way to share videos of different musicians, recordings of songs we're working on in class, as well as general classroom information. I think it would also be a great place for kids to come and share their own musical tastes so that I could get a sense of their musical personalities. I also liked that all of the comments and posts could be approved by the teacher, because I think keeping the site as a safe, positive learning environment would be so important! If I end up teaching middle school, this would be a great learning tool, and I am excited about using it in my classroom!