Admittedly, prior to this year I have not placed as much emphasis on incorporating technology in my class as I probably should. However, this year I am at a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) school. We encourage our students to bring their electronic devices to school and we find ways to incorporate them into the curriculum. That being said, this year I have used YouTube a great deal. Two ways that I use it is for modeling and for evaluations. We recently went to large group performance evaluations where we were adjudicated in several areas including sight singing. When I began to introduce the concept to them, I realized that they did not understand basic differences between concepts like pitch, intonation and blend. In order to demonstrate this I would find choirs that were modeling both good and bad examples of each. Afterwards, we discussed the differences between the good and bad examples. One clip used in particular was one of Rosie O'Donell singing the national anthem. Of course they understood that it was a bad performance but we then discussed that her tone was the main issue. Next, we defined tone. This took us on a journey to discovery that culminated in the students evaluating other choirs using the judges score sheets in all categories.
The specific musical content addressed is rhythmic sight-reading in simple meter using whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, dotted notes and rests. The music standards that could be addressed through this software are:
National Music Standard:
#5. Reading and notating music.
Georgia Performance Standards:
M6GM.3 – Reading and notating music
#5. Reading and notating music.
Georgia Performance Standards:
M6GM.3 – Reading and notating music
a. Recognize standard notation symbols for pitch, rhythm, dynamics, tempo, articulation, and expression.
b. Read whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, dotted notes and rests in simple meters.
The learning approaches utilized are not appropriate for the indicated developmental level of the targeted students, but are appropriate for my suggested grade levels. Instructions and feedback (text, audio) within the program are clear. The only item that may cause confusion if not addressed prior to using the software is the guide used for correctly playing the rhythms. In this application, a yellow dot moves with the correct answer while the students playing is indicated by the red dot. This is the only method of feedback given to the students. The program’s interface is of good quality. Is it not cluttered and is user-friendly. One item that is very distracting to is the broken English and typos that periodically appear. I am not sure if the software was translated from an original version whose instructions were in another language or not but having these errors present make me hesitate using the application in the classroom. The fonts are large enough to be easily read and the quality of graphics and audio used is good. The interface does serve to motivate the user. The application is a practice program structure. It is free-ware software. The sequence of material is good. The free version goes to level 10, while the upgraded version goes up to level 20. The pace of instruction is good. Additionally, students can alter the pace by slowing or increasing the tempo of the metronome. The quality of interaction is good. The motivation for students is good. Perhaps an idea that would increase motivation is creating a point system for correct examples.
The learning approaches utilized are not appropriate for the indicated developmental level of the targeted students, but are appropriate for my suggested grade levels. Instructions and feedback (text, audio) within the program are clear. The only item that may cause confusion if not addressed prior to using the software is the guide used for correctly playing the rhythms. In this application, a yellow dot moves with the correct answer while the students playing is indicated by the red dot. This is the only method of feedback given to the students. The program’s interface is of good quality. Is it not cluttered and is user-friendly. One item that is very distracting to is the broken English and typos that periodically appear. I am not sure if the software was translated from an original version whose instructions were in another language or not but having these errors present make me hesitate using the application in the classroom. The fonts are large enough to be easily read and the quality of graphics and audio used is good. The interface does serve to motivate the user. The application is a practice program structure. It is free-ware software. The sequence of material is good. The free version goes to level 10, while the upgraded version goes up to level 20. The pace of instruction is good. Additionally, students can alter the pace by slowing or increasing the tempo of the metronome. The quality of interaction is good. The motivation for students is good. Perhaps an idea that would increase motivation is creating a point system for correct examples.
Lastly, through the social bookmarking assignment I can across a most useful site for building sight reading skills. The is website, https://sightreadingfactory.com. The purpose of the resource is to have provide practice sight reading in and outside of the music classroom. This resource covers sight reading and acts as a practice type of software (different versions are available as software). I plan on using this site for instructional use in the classroom and for outside practice for students seeking extra help.
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