So What Ideas Do You Have For Summer Professional Development?

http://www.finaletraining.com/PERPICH.pdf

http://www.mbda.org

http://www.ties.k12.mn.us/Professional_development_workshops.html

http://www.smartmusic.com/Educators/Clinics.aspx

So what ideas do you have for summer professional development?

There are several good ideas available in my neighborhood.  And if you don't live in Minnesota, we are not a bad place to visit when it isn't -40 degrees!

There is Finale training with Mavis Kallestad.  If you want to learn Finale or get better at it, Mavis does an excellent workshop.  The Perpich Center is the arts high school in Minnesota and I have always thought they do a nice job of hosting events for teachers too.  If you use SmartMusic, Finale is pretty handy for making your own accompaniments.  Pretty handy, as in the ONLY way to make your own SmartMusic accompaniments.

The Minnesota Band Directors Association is offering a Instrumental Teaching Symposium  in Moorhead. With J.W. Pepper offering a new music reading session in Fargo the same dates, this could be an interesting two for the price of one... August 4th and 5th.

There are a bunch of workshops at TIES.  Check their workshop schedule.  If you want to get introduced to a new computer program, these folks are great.  Lots of one day intro sessions on a number of different softwares.  I am thinking about some advanced Interactive White Board training.

The SmartMusic workshop in Rochester looks good too.  June 17th is coming up fast though.  Similar workshops are available through out the country.  Check the SmartMusic web site if you need something closer.  Although, if you need some medical work done, Mayo is not a bad place to go... maybe you could work that out. !-)

What is happening in your neighborhood?

End of Quarter SmartMusic Tip

www.smartmusic.com

Do you take late work?  Do you take SmartMusic assignments late?  I am not particularly worried if a kid wants to get an assignment in late, I'll take it.  The only real deadline is when they print the report cards.

Some points on an assignment is better than no points on an assignment,  Way better if you run the math on this.  A zero in the grade book is really hard to overcome. 

I think one of the signs that you may doing "busy work" assignments is the fact you don't really worry if a student hasn't completed it.  Or at least care enough to correct it late.

Anyway, SmartMusic has a feature on the grade book that makes things easier for those of us that take late work.  Instead of hunting around for recordings to evaluate, you can filter the grade book for ungraded work by going to the view window shades and selecting view and setting it to "ungraded" instead of "all." Kids that have it all turned in disappear off the this list and that cuts down the number of cells to work your way through.

This tip may also help at other times in the quarter.  A little bit of evaluating every day is made a lot easier if you can get last night's newly turned in work organized.

IWB and Score Study

I have always been looking for new ways to share and communicate what is in the score with my band students.  In the past this was usually accomplished with lots of descriptions about what is the main melody and what is background supporting that melody.

Great for the auditory learners.  What about the people that would benefit from some visual help?  Wouldn't it be great to do some score analysis with the kids looking over your shoulder?

The office copier here doubles as a scanner, so it really is no big deal to "Scan to PDF" the score for projection on my new IWB.  Throw in the ability to use a virtual highlighter on the score, the ability to zoom into a part to take a closer look and you have a winner.  You can even write in the counting without making a huge mess of  your original.  (I work with beginners, your group may be too advanced for the counting thing.)

Who knows, maybe you will be helping a future conductor learn the craft of score study...

Chad Criswell and Music Ed Magic; SmartMusic

http://www.musicedmagic.com/

Chad Criswell has a review up about SmartMusic 2010 at his site Music Ed Magic. If you don't know about Chad's site, it is really worth a look. Get on his e-mail list and you won't miss an update. He gives SmartMusic 2010 a good review.

I think SmartMusic 2010 is a solid upgrade as well. It is much easier to navigate around to what you need to do as a teacher and a student. I think SmartMusic is worth serious consideration now if you thought it was too hard to use before.

I would like offer a some of tips and encouragement. Take the time to show everyone how to use SmartMusic. Parents and students will need to know install, activate and set up a SmartMusic Grade Book account. There are movies on the SmartMusic site that show them how to do those three key activities.

Using SmartMusic without the Grade Book account is a lot of unnecessary work. It is also how you can set the parameters of the assignments you give. It comes with the educator account and is worth every penny if you work in a school.

There are lots of ways to set kids up with free e-mail accounts. I was surprised by how many of my students had one already. Talk with the people who run the technology in your district for advice and policy help. What you want to avoid is supplying a student access to an email account that the parents don't have access to as well. As a parent I am monitoring what my kids do on the net and a private kid e-mail account doesn't help me.

The really important e-mail address is the notification e-mail. That address is how parents can find out about assignments and other grade book items. The login e-mail can be non-functioning. That can be a big help with families with more than one kid and one e-mail address.

Family computers with internet access are more common than ever. SmartMusic is better than ever. SmartMusic will change how you teach. Maybe now is a good time to start using it.

Interesting Lists

http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/

http://mustech.net/

Every now and then I get a minute to read.  I love that time.  And I do mean minute.

If I only have a minute, I like to find lists on the internet.  You know the format, Top Ten Ways to...  I think what works for me is the brevity and the interesting connections these lists can make.  

If you are looking for music ed and teaching lists, I suggest you take a look at "So You Want To Teach?"  His top ten posts (a list!) are mostly thought-provoking lists.

I also like poking around in Dr. Pisano's MusTech.net site.  He also has an interesting list of 100 music ed blogs.  I haven't be able to get to all those sites, but I am working on it.

Got a minute? Read a list.

Music Ed Bloggers

http://mustech.net/100-me-bloggers#MElist

This link takes you to the 100 music ed blogger project.   I'm number 37.  This list is pretty amazing, so be sure and browse a few of the blogs there.

The list is almost full, so if you teach music and blog,  GET OVER THERE and let Dr. Joe know about your blog!