Module 3 Reflection

This week's assignments didn't even feel like work because they were so fun and engaging! I started this week off with the discussion because it is something I've become so passionate about.

Last year, I really started to think about what interests me enough to want to do some research on it. In my district, we are facing the problem of a steady decline in our enrollment and definitely in our band, orchestra, and choir programs. I started to think, "what can we do to get kids involved in music?" The other 80% is a site that I've looked at prior to this course. I was really interested to read what successful schools are doing to retain music students, but in a non-traditional music classroom. Technology seemed to be the front-runner in successful music programs. Why wouldn't it? As I'm learning, there are so many music technology programs/apps/websites that appeal to students and adults of all ages. I would love to incorporate more music technology into my classes (especially my 5th grade classes where the students usually dislike everything). However, funding is an issue. So I'm looking at creative ways to bring technology into my classroom without spending a ton of money!

While I'm still not "loving" twitter, I was pleasantly surprised of the following notification:

I didn't even realize that they saw I had talked about something they had posted. 

This week's project sent me to a new website called Soundtrap. It's very much like garageband, but dare I say "easier to use"? I felt that I had a lot less issues when creating this masterpiece compared to all of my times struggling with garageband (please note, this is coming from an avid Apple user). I'm also a sucker for anything cloud-based because working at 3 schools usually results in me forgetting something, like a flashdrive with my entire life stored on it. 

I wrote a pretty lengthy reflection on Soundtrap, but overall I was very happy with the program. I still am having a hard time getting over how easy it was to use and share. The only issue that I might have in the future is making it accessible for all of my 650 elementary student. If I were working with high school students, I know that most of them have an email address and would be able to create a free account, but it's rare to find an elementary student with an email address (at least in my district). I'm hoping that there's an educational package where I could have a master login and students would be able to access their projects through me.