Week 12 - Jazzing it up! SAMR Model

This week, Brad Fuller talked about jazzing up our lessons, especially through the use of technology.

We were introduced to the SAMR model, (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition), and basically this model is about how can we as teachers enhance our lessons through the use of technology. It was very interesting because now as we are in a world that has constant advancements in technology, when our generation become teachers, there is no doubt that technology will be used daily in every lesson, thus it is vital that we know how to use technology and use it in a way that we’ll be beneficial for our students.

Another thing Brad showed us was the features of Canvas as a teacher and recommended us that we begin to get used to such websites like Canvas or Google Classroom so that we can organise our material and develop them over time so in the long future, all of our material is efficiently stored and easily accessible for both the teacher and student. This was really eye opening and motivating for me as this tool will be with me till the day I retire, I can even pass it on to other teachers.

Why doesn’t a school have a bunch of bass guitars? Or why don’t they have enough ukuleles for every student to play? A discussion begun based around how a school may not have the resources that you would need. What should we do about it? It was brought up that we can modify our material so that music can be played on other instruments. But why? Why not just get a bunch of guitars and enough ukuleles for every student? Ask! Demonstrate that you are passionate about your work!

This week’s class was very impactful on my view on the music classroom. Contradicting to my own experiences as a student, music class should be fun! Technology is rapidly advancing and the music class would benefit extremely from using such technology. Hence, music should be multimedia – activities that use different resources to give the opportunity for students to be as creative as they wish!!

Thanks Brad! :)

Reflection of the unit

When I first entered this class in week 1, I was honestly a bit unsure if I would enjoy this unit. Being a classically trained pianist, all of this technology was very new and scary. Lol I only heard about Ableton a couple weeks ago. Now on the other end, I think this unit is such an important class that every person studying to become a music teacher must take!! Technology is becoming more prominent in the music classroom so it is necessary for teachers to learn how to use all kinds of technology.

I had so much fun learning about different opportunities we can give our students to learn about music through technology. Transforming the classroom through technology will definitely make students more eager to participate in activities. Through technology, music becomes more fun, as explored in week 12 with Brad Fuller – why have students do paperwork to learn about music? Students should learn about music through playing or creating music! Project based learning.

I feel extremely grateful to able to take this course (thanks to all teachers that shared their expertise over the semester :D) and I am very excited to see such talented people sharing their skills with future students!

Presentation night!

On the 16th of June, we all presented our projects! Everyone’s presentations were all so amazing and I learnt sooo much about different kinds of technology that can be used to create music. There were live performances, websites, demonstrations, videos and maths, so cool. Reflecting on my own school experiences, it is such a shame that we did not use a lot of technology – close to nothing really :( So, tonight really made me so excited for a new generation of teachers who are exceptionally advanced in technology.

Reflecting on my own presentation, I was so nervousssssss - I completely forgot how to use the software so to the first few people who came by, IM SORRY :( Thankfully I figured out why nothing was working before James came to interview us AAAAA

At our table, we had a poster where I think some were drawn to its bright yellow colour ahahaha. On the poster, we had images of the software logos (which was so good when chatting to people because it visually showed them the two different softwares), Solaria (the character vocal bank we used for the vocals) and a QR code that sends you to a link tree that has our music videos (for the free and paid versions of our song), blogs (for more information about our project as well as our progress) unit outline (a summary of how we would use both softwares in an education setting) and links to the software websites (so if anyone wants to explore on their own, they can easily access them!). But we were able to show people the software that both Josephine and I used for this project – both how to use them and how we used them to create our song.

Here is the link the QR code goes to

https://linktr.ee/jolotech?utm_source=qr_code

Ooo, I highly recommend reading Josephine's blog to learn about vocal synthesis and Synth V! (her blog is also in the link above :D) It is a very interesting read about the history of vocal synthesis, cool cool!

Reading her blog post about presentation night was a very interesting read. I recall the moments that Thomas Fienberg shared his perspective on music making. NOTE: I commented on Josephine's blog post "Presentation Night - A Retrospective," sharing my thoughts on what Thomas Fienberg shared.

I will shortly upload a clip of our interview during the night once it becomes available :)

Big thanks to everyone who organised tonight!! Really enjoyed the event