Crazy piano technology

The world is becoming smaller and smaller everyday with technology becoming more and more advanced.  Dr Yui an MSU piano professor talks about the New Yamaha Disklavier a revolutionary piano in the music educational world.  This piano seems like a regular acoustic instrument until you plug it into a computer.  Once plugged in the piano acts as a controller and receiver in from a digital standpoint.  Think of a player piano the receives information then plays itself reading the information on a floppy disc, CD or what have you.  Well the disklavier works like but instead of playing through a floppy disc it plays through a usb connection of some kind.  Now lets your a music educator and you are going teach in another country for two weeks.  You want to still be able to teach your students that way they are not missing out on lessons with your personally.  If your school and the other school you will be visiting has the Disklavier you can still give s lessons even when your not there.  Once two pianos are linked up your student an play a piece and you can see the notes the are playing on the piano your are sitting in front of while also watching a real time video.  This means you can see their hands and the exact keys they are playing exactly as they are playing them.  Imagine using this type of technology with other instruments aside from piano and how education could become this worlds wide 24/7 way of live in the world of music education. The possibilities are limitless with this innovative technology and I can wait till one day all schools have some kind of similar set up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJCHoGQ573U

Technology and Pedagogy

The lesson plan for my spread sheet really caught my interest because in the music education world even in the world today there are very little musical lesson the involve any sort of African American history.  The lesson plan is about the Underground Railroad and the songs the runaway slaves would sing during their journey.  This lesson plan is also a cross curricular so it this creates helps music teachers fill the reading and writing portion of their assessment in order to satisfy the needs of the administration.  Not to mention that is using two on the most influential pieces of educational technology the TV and the CD/Cassette player.   There were a few gaps within this lesson plan for example there is does not mention anything specific music making in the objective and the "what will students do" portion of the lesson plan.  However I would assume that a music teacher would do something as simple as having students sings and play the melody of some of the songs just to get a feel of how the music sounded in person.  But that was the main gap.  In defense of the lesson's gaps, the standards I used are not from the performance section of the music standards so I can't harp of the lack of music making in the lesson plan.  The TV and cassette player are so essential in achieving the goals listed within the standards.  Simply because in order to fully understand what the slaves went through one must see documented evidence of such happens along with reading.  In terms of the songs one must hear the music to fully experience the music understanding they are trying to achieve as well as have a personal connecting to the learning materials.  What would better support eh goals and standards would be to watch a video of an authentic performance of these songs with a written music score in hand.  Link to Spreadsheet

Music Ed technology for Dummies

Its amazing to think about what can come of music education when you incorporate technology.  For one I think about this new push in education surrounded by assessment.  Assessment is something that is hard to deal with in music for example, it is hard to explain or even show someone how a student has improved musically if they themselves do not understand music.  A student may not be playing harder pieces or even sounding good on their instrument yet tuns of improvement may be happens.  Think about a person that holds a pencil incorrectly, you may correct them but their hand writing may still be super sloppy.  You improved a part of their overall approach to writing but one may not see it right away.  So how can you show the administration that your students are improving.  Well there are programs  that a teacher can give students to take home that will show how a student is improving though its limited.  For example lets say at the beginning of the year you have the student play a piece and this program reads along as the student play and marks what notes they played right and which ones they played wrong.  At the end of the year they play the piece and again and it would clearly show results and others who don understand music will see some concrete assessment that they can understand.  From a musician standpoint we know that right notes does not always equal improvement because there is more to music then right notes.  However this is a huge step in the right direction and can really help those music educators that have administrators and Principles breathing down the neck fro results.  I'm sure in the future this programs will asses other aspects of musical understanding but at least now we as music teachers can prove are students are learning to those who feel we just sing songs and let students run wild.

HIstory of Technology in Music Education

                                This is where our students think musical understanding comes its no wonder the only chord progression they know is I-IV-vii- V....http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qjAlhaOjmwE/TjbY2wyiuDI/AAAAAAAAK1Y/Vq8UeBJF8WY/s1600/mtv.jpg