At the IMEA conference this year, one of my friends will be receiving the “Mary Hoffman Award of Excellence.” Debbie Kanyo is a middle school teacher in Alton, Illinois, I met her at the conference years ago, she teaches in a school of need. Over the years she has managed to put in three MIDI labs with grant money and has inspired so many music teachers to teach technology.

So, those simple interactions you have at conferences can blossom into full friendships, like it has done so many times. The face-to-face contact is so important. As you attend conferences, take the time to meet and greet as many people as possible. You will be blessed with amazing life-long friends.

I will be presenting twice, the first presentation is on Friday “50 websites in 75 minutes.” It was extremely difficult to “edit down” my top 50 websites.

The second presentation is with Brenda Muench, (bring your own laptop)  ”Composing Online.” We had a blast collaborating online with our presentation.

So, next Wednesday night the yearly three-hour ride to Peoria will happen. I can’t wait!

iPad

• I got an iPad this summer and I tend to use it more than my laptop. I didn’t “create” a lot of videos or music, but once the school year begins, I see myself using it for meetings, conferences, getting information, and interacting with music.  I love the music apps and more recently got 14 iPod Touches in my music classroom. 21st century music here we are!

Music Personal Learning Network http://musicpln.org/pln-posts/landing/

• Thanks to Dr. Joseph M. Pisano for setting up this innovative networking site. We as music educators must connect and share. This has been an amazing social network, along with Monday night chat on twitter #musedchat.

Evernote http://www.evernote.com/

• I have had an account for a long time, but really didn’t see the need until I got an iPhone (to take pictures) and an iPad (to take notes of a meeting/conference) This has completely transformed my life. I sync all the files on my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad

OfficeHD for the iPad http://www.bytesquared.com/products/office/ipad/default.asp

• I can now edit and save on my Google Docs and iDisc. I have this only only my iPad. I use my Google Docs for collaboration, Evernote for Professional Notes, and iDisc for presentation files and email downloads from people/administration from school.

PreziDesktop 3 http://prezi.com/desktop/

• I have used Prezi before, but with PreziDesktop 3, I don’t have the lag time with the online version. I plan on using it for “Curriculum Nights” at my school in the fall. I will post the link once I am finished.

Bento for iPad/iPhone http://www.bentotrial.com/trial/default.aspx

itunes.apple.com/us/app/bento/id314638461?mt=8

• I am using Bento for the grading and for the final awards I give out at the end of the year. Filemaker 11 is fine, but I like the interface and creating my own forms. I know you can do this in Filemaker, but it seems that Bento is easier and cooler than Filemaker. Plus, it only costs $4.99, as the Filemaker app is around $50.

xmarks http://www.xmarks.com/

• I have been using this for the past year. ALL my bookmarks are on Diigo, then posted to Delicious. But, daily living I use bookmarks on the browser. Having identical bookmarks on ALL my browsers makes me so fast in finding things.

yolink http://www.yolink.com/yolink/

• I am hooked on this. It is an add-on extension on IE, Chrome, and Firefox, coming soon to Safari. It enhances your search and you can save link and information directly to your google account. You HAVE to check this out!

SweetSearch http://www.sweetsearch.com/

• This is a search engine for students and works great with yolink!! My students research skills are going to go off the charts.

Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/

• E-books are the new norm. Making them with calibre is amazing. (Plus, this is a free download!) You can then directly put it in your iBooks on your iPad.

The surprising truth about what motivates us

So, that’s what I have been doing this summer, using new links and software to being more efficient and creative. There really isn’t any new

I have to include a video, it’s just me! Here’s a great one, highly innovative, creative, and makes your think!

Let the new school year begin!

I love assemblies, performances, and showcasing student work. It validates the student and creates an environment of creativity. If we do away with these special times and only teach classes, we risk being just like an academic teacher. Thus, we are not servicing the arts as they were meant to be, an expression of feelings to OTHERS.  The arts ARE different from academics. In the real world, they are judged, not graded. By becoming “excellent” in your artsy world, it needs an audience, not a classroom of 24. That is why I have embraced the online world. My students can have a voice outside the classroom, more people online can view my students talent than within the classroom, which has been a blessing. It has created an underground community of creativity and excellence that is judged, not graded.

Here are some examples:

• The Uniquia Show Uniquia, is a seventh grade girl obsessed with making videos. She gives me a video almost daily. These are amazing and tell quite a story about her and her friends.

• Number 47, I had two eighth graders work on a wonderful Flash presentation, one with the visual, the other with the audio. Judge for yourself.

• Single Ladies Dance, Within my sixth grade music class, we reenacted a scene from “Glee,” it was a terrific bonding experience.

• Cmusicmaker, Every Sunday night I skype with a former student, who is attending a different school. He is composer and we have setup a website to showcase his compositions. We talk music theory and how music creates a mood for each of his works.

• Chordsville,  for three years a student composed, wrote, and directed a movie. All of the videos are posts, as well as process he did and how he conceived the story.

• Pixx, Another student loves Photoshop, even though I am a music teacher, he works on his own time and gives me wonderful pictures of creativity.

Often I am asked, “So what was your rubric for the project?” My retort is “If I had made a rubric on this, it would have placed a ceiling on their creativity.” Of course you have to let the student know what you want, but DON’T set the limit, students will only work to that level. Have NO limit and demand creativity and excellence, that will be judged.

The Fine Arts is a very small community and is the David within the school. The Goliath’s have all the power and many administrators, as well as fellow educators, have not performed or understand how important the arts are within the 21st century skills. We have to continue stress WE are different and will not become an “academic art,” by just teaching classes and having no additional assemblies or programs, But if that is not supported, then there is always the internet! What a great world we live in!

A Mural at Sunset Ridge School

There is not a day that goes by that I get twitter/plurk followers looking for royalty-free music or asking me if I have any original music for others to use.  Since I teach fourth through eighth grade music and all my students create and compose I am a bit perplexed. My students compose so much material I can barely get it posted! Click here for interesting student files. So why are so many people looking for original music, when their students can easily compose?

Now, first, of course I have GarageBand with its wonderful loops and simple interface. Students can easily drop and drag in the loops or create their own. Students quickly understand how to layer and create moods. As they progress through the composition process, they begin to score movies and eventually use standard notation using Sibelius. Yes, every student, regardless of his or her music background composes, from the non-musician to the “seven  years of piano” student.

So, how do I teach composition? Do I show them the simple form of ABA or chord structures? I DO NOT. I let them fly through their compositions; I let them make mistakes and let them create. Basically, I get out of their way and let them compose. We learn a lot through mistakes and let the ear take over. As the students compose more and more, I find they put “too much” into their compositions, so delete! When I get a page of all quarter notes, I quickly ask the student to pick a number one to four, if they select three, then every third beat all the measures is deleted. In GarageBand, I have them delete loops and leave a lot of white spaces. This is quite different from anything else they experience in school that deletes works wonders!

Yes, some students are taught theory, but only on a “need to know.” The early composers want to create without rules. It is so cool, that students have their own basic rules and their individual “voice” comes through. Once they realize that it is so much fun to compose/create all they want to do is compose/create.

So, here is my charge to music teachers across the land, get out of the way and let your students compose, let the ear lead. You are a musician, tell them to delete, then copy and paste. Forget about ABA form and I, IV, V chords.

A well-balanced music program MUST have composition part of its curriculum, if not the center. Both performance and composition are important, but more students will go on and compose/create than perform, so composing MUST be a central part of every music curriculum.

Finally, if you do have a little “Mozart” in your midst (which I have many) the Vermont MIDI Project for $150 (12 compositions) offers a password-protected website that you can post compositions and professional composers can comment and help your “Mozart” compose on a professional level.

If you would like to see and hear some compositions or podcasts here are some links. You might need to download scorch to view (it’s a free plugin) Enjoy!

Composition Page on www.carolbroos.com

Student Files on musictechie.pbworks.com, my presentation wiki – all files link back to www.carolbroos.com

Go Cats!

As part of the Golden Apple Award, I attended Northwestern University for spring quarter starting from March 30-June 7, 2009. Here is my reflection of the “once in a lifetime” experience.

My composition class with Dr. Maud Hickey was nothing but incredible. It made me see the beginning stages of how we compose to the most complex composition process. I had an extremely classical experience as a child and up through college, so it was not until I started teaching and attended the Vermont MIDI Project’s summer workshop that I became interested in improvisation and composing. I am completely hooked. I created a website with my compositions I created on sabbatical. Thank you Maud for creating a class of improvisation and creating music.

My second class was a graduate music curriculum class with Dr. Janet Barrett. Her knowledge and passion with curriculum motivated me to create and post my entire music curriculum online. She gave of her time to listen and give me excellent feedback on my many papers and thoughts, thanks so much! Her resources and depth of knowledge was a highlight of the sabbatical. So many people have asked me to put in writing what I do and the resources I use. To have someone who is the leader in the field show me how to do this was fabulous. http://beatechie.pbworks.com/

My voice lessons with Dr. Bob Heitzinger on Mondays at 1:30 gave me focus again. This is how I got started in music and by having private lessons again made me feel like a kid again. For the entire nine weeks I was always thinking of when I was going to practice and what. Those musicians out there understand this, for your practice time takes over your life. I love this feeling. He is an excellent teacher and I am studying with him this summer as well.

The Thursday afternoon seminar series with all of us, created a bond that will never leave me. Penny Lundquist, a 1986 Fellow lead the group through TED talks and 21st century skills.  Our discussions and presentations from each of us was a representative of the ardor each one of us brings to the classroom.  If I could say one word that describes the Golden Apple Class of 2008 is PASSION. In addition, we created a wiki for others to use that best reflects our fervor to learn and share. http://goldenapple.pbworks.com/

On a personal note, my maternal grandmother graduated from Northwestern University in 1923. The Music Administration Building used to be a dorm many years ago, and yes, the same dorm my grandmother lived in! The staircases have a short rise, since the women all wore dresses and this allowed them to “glide” up the stairs quickly and gracefully. This connection ninety years later is amazing; I even composed a song for “Doris.”

Finally, since I am an Ohio State graduate, I couldn’t push myself to get any “gear,” my friends in Ohio would disown me, so that was the only negative thing I have to say. I couldn’t wear any of MY college t-shirts to class. Just putting the Northwestern logo on this site was all I could do.

I want to thank the Golden Apple Foundation for the incredible experience that has recharged and energized me to create, learn and experience. If you would like any information about the Foundation, please visit www.goldenapple.org

The websites and wiki’s I created

My compositions
http://web.me.com/carolbroos/mycompositions/Welcome.html
Music curriculum
http://beatechie.pbworks.com/
Golden Apple Class of 2008 wiki
http://goldenapple.pbworks.com/

Carol - Band uniform in HS

I love to compose. When I was younger, in high school and college, the emphasis was on how well you could play the written notes. No improvisation, no creativity, no innovative music making. Actually, I remember my first composition in college. I was so scared, that all I did was copy Charles Ives. I got a B- on the final composition.

Jump ahead twenty–odd years, I found myself in Vermont. I was taking classes on how to “teach” students to compose online. Little did I know that I was going to have to compose the entire week myself!  I sat in front of the computer for first day; I had ONE note on the page. I saw how fast others were working and felt completely overwhelmed. I can’t do this. Then the breakthrough came, I started to improvise. I started to just let my fingers play and discover.

What happened that summer liberated me as a musician and a composer. I know that my compositions sound childlike, extremely basic, but they come from me. No stealing from Charles Ives, not coping themes from others. They are all about me and now I teach composition. I now let my students play and discover, letting their “voice” come out, letting them improvise.

During my sabbatical at Northwestern, I finally had the time to experiment and compose. This has been my gift to myself. I hope you enjoy these compositions. I created a website that has all the compositions on it for people to comment about. I can’t wait to show my students.  However, I have one that I really like and here is just the audio, if you like it please go to my website and comment on it.

Click here for website.

He really connected to the students musically. As you know, a junior high audience can be quite judgmental, but with Cody, they were spellbound. After singing a few songs, he really wanted to “talk” to the students about his struggle of performing and his experiences at Sunset Ridge. He was on the basketball, volleyball, and soccer teams, along with playing trumpet in the Band. In Student Council he was the DJ for three years starting in sixth grade. He was consistently making  movies for all his classes, as well as home videos. However, he worked mostly behind the scenes for the shows and started the Stage Crew at SRS. During his tenure at SRS, a new light board, special effects, and the development of the technological side of performance was created under his leadership. He never stopped taking piano, although he admits he “hated piano, hated the teacher, hated practicing,” but, thankful that his father insisted that he continue throughout his entire junior high. He never stopped taking lessons and that was the ticket his career.

Finally, his message was concerning passion and his love to sing was inspiring. He didn’t sing solos much in junior high because it wasn’t considered “cool.”  He stressed the importance that you should encourage others who have a passion, instead of bringing them down. A huge “amen,” was shouted out as he completed his talk. He also felt that ALL of his experiences helped him with his life, knowing how to direct movies as well as lighting and sound, created leadership and knowledge that he would not otherwise have. He can now communicate with other “techies,” since he knows their language.

Thank you Cody Fry for making a difference, there were many students who were truly touched by both your music and your message. Character counts.

It goes back to Randy Pausch’s Lecture of a Lifetime. “Find the best in everybody: no matter how long you have to wait for them to show it.” This transformed everyone. We just finished burning the DVD’s – all one hundred copies. We ran out, and now on a second run. There is even a website. www.chordsville.com

Character is what you do when nobody is looking. I was looking, and it changed how I look at all the individuals.

http://del.icio.us/

Get your bookmarks organized and all in one place. You know how that goes, you bookmark on one computer and use a different browser, and you still have to google where to go. I have put my bookmark link on this site. Check it out