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Click on the link above to see my girls at the Mini Olympics display at the London’s Children’s Museum. The video was shot using the video camera above.

Hello all,

Keeping up with the regular blog entries has proved much more challenging then I had anticipated. Congratulations to everday people that keep their blogs up to date…

I have been testing the MINO FLIPVIDEO unit.  I can see great potential for this product in schools and of course the music classroom. EDUCATIONAL COMMENTS:

This camera is very easy to use. No tape, no cards, no cables or wires, amd it can hold up to an hour of footage. The flipvideo takes regular double A batteries. I have had it for a week recorded about 15 or 20 minutes worth of video and the batteries and still holding out well. You can easily dump the video onto your computer with the built in usb adapter and it is easy as dragging and dropping from a jumpdrive. Think of how handy this camera could be for Playing Assessment, performance feedback, concert reviews, etc…

Here is a link to an advertisement for the flip video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw1-CAdBinM

Have a great day!

Mr. Techradio

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Hello all,

This post comes rather late at night the day before the BIG FIRST DAY back to school tomorrow. I will be showing the blog to my students in Gr. 7 and 8 tomorrow. I hope to post helpful things for students as well as teachers.

I just finished a Sprint Distance Triathlon on August 30th, 2008 ( Sprints are a little shorter distance then Olympic Distance Triathlons).  I finished the race in a time 1:53:06. I was 221 out of 579 competitors.  My time was almost 3 minutes faster then last year.  ( hey…a least I am not slowing down.)

My technology drop for this post comes in the form of youtube videos. I think I was able to shave the 2:00 plus minutes off my tri based on transitions. I watched a few videos about Triathlon transitions. I then went out in the parking lot near my home and practiced what I saw in the video and it worked…

There are all kind of self help videos on youtube for Instrumental music as well.

Good day,

It has been several days since the last post. After four days of serious cramming for my Summer Institute Professional developments sessions, I took a few days off to work on back to school projects and home improvements projects as well. It is amazing how much of the Summer break we teachers need to get all this stuff in order. The are also roofers busily banging away installing new shingles.  I think things will actually slow down for me once school gets back into the swing.

In general, It shouldn’t be a surprise but the more I planning  and organization that gets done in the Summer the better year I seem to carve out for myself. In my case, this involves my wife and her planning sessions as well. She has a new grade this year and we all know how much planning that involves.

Here are the links to the software downloads.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Hammerhead: This is a piece of free software that students can use to create soundtrack drum beat patterns. You can use Audacity to capture the beat patterns. You need to adjust Audacity so that is set up to record Audioconvertor ( e.g., change the set from microphone to another choice.)

http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/download.shtml

1. You will need to start the Hammerhead rhythm by pressing ‘play’

2. Toggle back ( hold down the ‘alt’ button and hit the ‘tab’ key to cycle through your open software applications. If you didn’t know this it is a very cool windows skill)

3. Hit the ‘record’ button in Audacity to capture the desired length of your beat pattern.

Today’s podcast is a sample of the question and answer format we will be using when I am facilitating a workshop for teachers on creating their own podcasts tomorrow. Teachers will be asked to answer three questions using short three sentences answers. This is a great way to create content for podcast.

We will be looking at the types of students wish to be able to teach, who their favourite ” pop/rock star” is and why, and how they might introduce their first podcast….

The following are my answers.

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Music Applications for the iphone

This is a discussion about the upcoming PODCASTING workshop I will be presenting for the Thames Valley District School Board’s Summer Institute sessions for teachers.

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Technology in the Music Classroom # 1

For those of you that are already Music Educators and Musicians, it may have been a while, but I am sure your can remember how many hours “you” (the music geeks) use to spend locked in a bedroom, basement, and/or a rehearsal studio where you would practice, and practice, and practice some more. Think of today’s kids (the computer geeks) locked in their bedrooms and basements, they are diverging in a million different directions with all kinds of computer based technology projects on the go, designing web pages, blogs, pod casts, web casts, youtube videos, and playing thousands of hours video games.

… Surely, a great music program could help stimulate some of that limited practice ‘time” by merging Instrumental practice with computer technology.

If I were to achieve my goal in setting up this particular blog it would be to encourage my colleagues to provide and facilitate more opportunities to use Computer Technology to support the development and education of our future great Musicians.

• Install Active Whiteboard into Music Classrooms.
• Incorporate Data projectors and Big screens in Band Rehearsal and Music classrooms
• Utilize powerful Desktop or Laptop computers connected to Data projectors on Big Screens with Powerful Sound systems.
• Expose students to Computer tools for musicians ( research, performance assessment, notation software, recording software, and publishing software.)

Yes, This will require budget and planning… so what? An investment in technology has been proven in many school districts to attract more students into their programs by providing differentiated instruction. More Students usually equals more money.

I would like to be able to inspire some music teachers to allow more technology in their Music Programs. Technology can be employed to help assist students with Practice and Rehearsal software, Notation Software, Audio Recording software, online data bases, tutorial based software. It is very simple the computers do not need to replace the Instruments, this technology will simply provide opportunities to enhance listening and performance skills.

I plan to include links to great information and free stuff. This is part of my job as Tech Coordinator. I am always thinking about what my students and my own kids need to have a solid music education in the 21st century.

Cheers,

Mr. Tech