Google at School

I know a very little bit about cloud computing. So I am hoping for some help here.

If Google offers mail, documents (word processing, spreadsheet), web pages, blogging tools, collaboration tools for free, why would anyone try to do these things in house?

I can see keeping sensitive data a little more secure by using server space that you pay to have secure. But how much of student work is really that sensitive?

I can see an advantage to someone else running the servers that hold the student work, run e-mail, host web pages... the price is right.

Has up-time been a problem? I have only heard of one time that G-Mail went down for maybe two hours. Is there more that I am not hearing about? I think that would be an amazing record for anyone and I am very amazed when I think of the number of users.

I know our IT staff is about one download away from being very seriously overworked. Is this something that would help us farm some things out?

SmartMusic Tip and an Interesting Motivator

Not all assignments need to have a point value.

My kids can get confused over deadlines. They are young. They also can use the help with their practice that SmartMusic provides. They are also inexperienced.

So when I look into next quarter and see a pretty hard assignment coming up (along with the concert and a bazillion other things), I get a little conflicted. Do I send an assignment early for next quarter? (and hope they don't try to turn it in before it is really ready... Mr. Whaley, it was the end of the quarter! I had to turn it in.) Do I tell them to use the new search features and practice this piece for next quarter? (and hope they can actually find the right one.) Hmmm.

My compromise solution is the "practice opportunity" that is worth zero points in the grade book. Turn it in if you want. The real one comes out next quarter. I do tell them why I am sending it with no points attached and tell them that practice now, will save a lot of sweat later.

Believe it or not, I get "thank yous" from motivated students.

I also get students who do turn in the assignment that has no points attached to it. Interesting. I think I need to talk to a couple of students about why they sent it in after reading up on intrinsic motivation. I do get to work with some neat kids.

Maybe my classes are too short...

The SmartMusic in General Music project slogs on.

So far it has taken two days to get everyone registered for most of my classes. There is a lot of information to populate into the program. Most of it is pretty important.

I wish there were a way for a teacher to put his/her kids into the SmartMusic Impact/Grade Book and be able to just tell the student what his login and password are.

By importing a spreadsheet. That would be nice.

If you are going to use SmartMusic strictly as a testing environment at school, leave lots of class time to enroll for class.

If you have it going out the door and into kids homes with parents helping to set the whole thing up, you will be saving valuable class time.

BASIC SmartMusic Troubleshooting.

http://smartmusic.custhelp.com/app/

It was a busy day for SmartMusic in my room yesterday. We are "Enrolling for Class" my general music classes and doing assignments before and after school. Really busy.

So at the end of the day, when one of my saxes was not seeing her red and green note feedback, I was mildly surprised. We really hadn't had a problem all day. But that must have been close to 40 people logging in.

Switching mics and restarting the program really didn't help.

Not to panic. I'll just go to the support site (http://smartmusic.custhelp.com/app/) and get a little help from the knowledge base. It is easily searched. Most of the clues I got from there though involved Windows. We run Macs in the practice rooms. Hmmm.

Still not going to panic. What is the first thing they will ask if I call? "Have you tried restarting the computer?" I am pretty sure that tech support people everywhere wake up in the middle of the night saying that. I'm pretty sure they have to get a tattoo with that on it someplace as well.

Make sure the USB mic adapter is plugged in ok and and do the restart. Sure enough, it works.

Always try the easy stuff before you call or panic.

SmartMusic, Microphones (and Macs)

https://www.smartmusic.com/Store/Microphone.aspx

SmartMusic needs a microphone.

I know that your computer has a mic built into it someplace, but the built in is probably not going to give the results that you want. It is way to close to a fairly noisy device! Have you listened to your computer?

The SmartMusic mics are a pretty good bargain. The mic cord length is generous and they get closer to your sound and farther away from the noise. It will boost your SmartMusic results by just doing that.

Mac users. That thing that LOOKS like a mic-in jack on the side of your computer is a line-in jack. There is a difference and it doesn't work to put the SmartMusic mic right into it. You need some other way to plug in.

You have a couple of choices.

The Griffin iMic is a pretty slick audio interface for a USB port. It features and in and an out and line/mic level switch. Plug your SmartMusic mic in and set the level to mic and you should be good to go. From what I have seen in the practice rooms, the downside to this gizmo is that kids fiddle with the switch and try to get it to work with the wrong setting. I'm not sure if that is kids doing basic trouble shooting or a prank on the next user.

The cheaper choice is the new SmartMusic USB mic. You only get the audio in and there is no line/mic setting. Could not be simpler. The downside I see to going this way is if you use your Mac for more than SmartMusic, it may be nice to have that level switch.

Well you can decide. iMic or SMUSB mic. No really wrong answer, but use a mic.

Google Wave Invites

http://lifehacker.com/5381219/google-waves-best-use-cases

http://wavety.com/do-you-want-google-wave-invitation/

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/

The scarcity of Google Wave invitations is creating a buzz. I'd love a crack at trying out the Wave.

Lifehacker has some good ideas for use already posted.

Wavety.com is hoping your writing for them will get you an invite. Really?

I've tried the official method, but haven't heard anything.

Put in for an invite. I wish you good luck. In the mean time, WOW! has this got the internet talking. I would like an invite, but I guess Google doesn't need my help testing it.

SmartMusic 2010 for General Music

I am going to be doing some singing tests with my general music class. Normally, this would have been a huge time sink. Stand at the piano and do your test.

I'm not so sure that the kids were able to do their best. I know I was distracted managing the class AND listening to the tests. Can't imagine what it was like for the kids. The documentation piece was a little thin as well.

I will be trying SmartMusic this time. The series we are using doesn't have built-in SmartMusic support, but it does have audio files on CD. Those can be ripped and used with SmartMusic. That is probably good enough, but I think I will be spending a little time with Finale 2010 and writing it out. Set the kids up with SmartMusic Gradebook account and we are ready to use our files on the practice room computers.

Able to do their singing in private, I am expecting my middle schoolers to do a better job. I'll let you know here!