OneNote Overview

Good teachers are prepared, organized, creative, resourceful and collaborative. OneNote, from Microsoft, encompasses all of those traits into one structured app. From the planning/creating lessons stage, to the presentation of the lesson to students, to the distribution of assignments, to communication with parents, to reflecting on how the knowledge was received; OneNote offers it all with an easy learning curve. Teachers can download this software and have access to numerous technology tools to implement their lessons in a variety of ways. Videos, audio clips, articles and
drawing tools are all available with a click of a button. Everything for a lesson is conveniently in one place, with organized tabs and the ability to share/edit information with students and colleagues through the OneNote class notebook.

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One example of how OneNote would be an excellent software choice for a music educator, is to implement it as a beneficial resource for a substitute (especially one without a music background), if the music educator is absent for any length of time. The music educator would lose little instruction time, even in his absence, if he created the lesson using OneNote. He could make an audio file of his voice lecturing or giving instructions, maybe insert a YouTube video, add rehearsal tracks, maybe an interactive assignment, and provide additional work under the Homework Tab which could be graded from the comforts of home. Skype is also available through OneNote, so interacting with another ensemble or another director for immediate feedback is available.

Communication, Organization, and PD

A music educator is one of the most visible teachers in a community and needs to be highly organized and great with communication and public relations. With today's technology world, there are a number of programs and apps that allow a teacher to be very effective when scheduling events, contacting parents, and sharing information with the public.

One way a music educator can stay organized is by creating a calendar. Ensemble directors are typically responsible for scheduling performances almost a year in advance and then need to share this information with parents, administrators, and the community. A director can easily create a year-long calendar on Microsoft Word, or can even do so using a Google Calendar. These calendars can then be printed and distributed or even shared via Google Docs, Dropbox, Evernote, or even uploaded to a website or social media apps like Facebook. This will allow both educators and students and their families to be aware of what is happening well in advanced, and keep them organized throughout the year.

A music educator is also responsible for organizing instruments, uniforms, and music, and setting up trips and budgets. Creating and maintaining databases through Google Docs or Mircrosoft Excel, is extremely important for teachers to know what they have, what condition it is in, and what they need in the future. Nowadays, music programs can invest in program like Charms Office Assistant which is a fantastic management, communication, assessment, and financial system that brings all aspects of the job into one program.

As Bauer (2014) states, "the ability to communicate clearly is one of the most important qualities of effective music educators" (p. 170) Purchasing Charms is beneficial but it is extremely expensive for small music programs. Social media apps and websites have made it easy for to spread information to most parents and students, but it does not reach every family. A music educator can create an email list, use an all-call system through their school, or even set up a text message system such as Celly. It is important to have a multitude of methods to reach families in order to run successful programs and classrooms. It is also important to share what your students are doing through newspaper articles, adding performances to YouTube, and even sharing successes in district newsletters.

Being organized is very important for a music educator and his music program, but it is also important to take part in professional development that is relevant to the needs of the educator. Technology such as personal learning networks (PLN), blogs, and online degree programs have been highly educational and useful, but have not always been the most beneficial to my particular needs. I have experienced that my most beneficial professional development happens with "informal experiences such as conversations" (Bauer, 2014, p. 175) with my mentors and administrators. Almost daily, I will call or email more experienced band directors in my area. If needed, I will use these opportunities ask questions about concerns I am having with my own program or will share my thoughts about concerns they have. I will also invite highly successful educators to come rehearse my students so that I can learn and grow with my students. Regardless of how a teacher develops professionally, it is essential for them to do so to stay informed of new approaches for child development and pedagogy. Bauer (2014) states, "the best way to develop one's TPACK utilize it" (p. 185). Regardless of what method they use, they should use these methods daily and continue to seek new ways to use technology for quality student learning.

Listening to Music

Music is a part of everyone's life, but they may not realize the extent of its importance. Bauer (2014) says for centuries, music has been used "as a part of ceremonies, for entertainment, as a means of relaxation, and for pure enjoyment" (p. 105). Many people enjoy listening to music, but they may not comprehend the difference between hearing or listening to music. Listening to music requires deeper attention and understanding than hearing a song playing in the background. Music listeners focus on the details, but must be able to comprehend what is happening in the music before determining if they prefer it or not.  Due to this reasoning, it is the goal of educators to teach students to be "lifelong music listeners" (Bauer, 2014, p. 109).

Music invokes a variety of responses to humans. For most of the students in my school, they are able to determine whether they like or dislike a song they hear, but their quick response is always based on whether they do, or do not, prefer the genre of it. What they fail to do, is to listen with an analytical ear to details such as dynamics, lyrics, tempo, tonality, and rhythm before making their final determination. As a music appreciation teacher, band, and choir director, I have found it very important for students to experience multiple genres and forms of music.

Students will always have particular songs and genres that they prefer and connect to over others. Though this is the case, I have experienced that the more they understand about music the more they appreciate all forms and genres. When I ask a student to use music terminology to discuss what he likes/dislikes about a song and/or what the song makes him feel, he is encouraged to listen and to make a deeper connection. Regardless of his immediate reaction, he is encouraged to listen to a new song multiple times to see whether he will gain or lose a preference for it. It is also important for him, and all students, to appreciate and understand a wide variety of music so they can respect the musical preferences of their peers. When a student immediately talks negatively upon an initial hearing of a song he is unfamiliar with, he is disrespecting his peers. As a an adolescent, this is difficult to understand.

New digital technologies such as iPads, iPhones, Spotify, iHeartRadio, etc., has made it extremely easy to introduce new music to a group of students. Students and teachers can now randomly search for a wide variety of music with just a couple clicks on a screen. With a couple more presses of a button, they can immediately share what they found via Twitter, Facebook, or Spotify, and can even digitally download the song to a playlist. It is our job as music educators to make students aware of what is out their, teach them to be lifelong learners through listening, and to appreciate all forms and genres of music, whether they prefer it or not.

Assessments in the Classroom

Assessments are an important aspect of what educators do to measure a students growth throughout the duration of a class. The most common assessments that all educators are familiar with are formative assessments and summative assessments. Bauer (2014) says that formative assessment "involves both formal and informal procedures that provide information for the teacher and feedback to the student during the learning process" (p. 133). For example, if a section of students play a particular part of the music, and then immediate feedback is provided, informal assessment is taking place. Summative assessments, however, "summarizes learning at a particular point in time, typically at the end of a project, unit, semester, or entire class (Bauer, 2014, p. 133) Concerts, performances, and/or performance exams at the end of each semester are excellent forms of summative assessment for band and choir teachers. It is very important for educators to use authentic assessments, which requires the performance of a task rather a response on a paper, because it provides evidence of a students understanding for a musical task and/or learning outcome.

In recent years, technology has helped teachers make assessments more reliable and convenient to grade. Word processors such as Microsoft Word, and now Google Docs and Forms, have provided educators the opportunity to easily create rubrics for grading performance-based tests. The best part about these technologies is that they can easily be adjusted and altered for improvement for future years of use. Google Forms and Docs can also easily be shared to large groups of people and can be used to either survey or assess students. This allows students to complete tests from home, school, or anywhere they may have internet access. Other technologies such as metronome and tuner apps, Audacity, Floobaroo, Webquest, and many more open source software are available. Most of which are easy to use and extremely beneficial to both educators and students.

The most important part of assessing students for educators is that they use a reliable rubric. Rubrics use a rating scale and provides expectations and descriptions of the various levels of achievement. The descriptions make assessment more reliable and consistent, but as Bauer (2014) mentions, "they also provide valuable feedback to students on why they were rated on a certain level" (p. 138). Students can use this information as they are producing their product as self-assessment and can decide what needs to be done to reach desired achievement levels. High quality rubrics that are detailed, specific, and reliable will help to keep educators consistent and will eliminate many questions about fairness by students and parents.

It has been my experience that rubrics are incredibly beneficial to both my students and me. Though it is intentional, it is was very easy to grade students using bias instead of grading the quality of the work. Without a rubric, it was also easy for me to accidentally grade students differently between multiple grading sessions because my demeanor changed or I  forgot how detailed I was, or was not being. This was not fair to my students and they realized the inconsistencies and started asking a lot of questions about their performance and why someone did better than them. The introduction of rubrics has solved most of these issues and the students have worked harder to achieve the level of performance they were accepting of.