Evaluation+of+Technology+Use+in+AP+Music+Theory+11-12

The following is an evaluation of my use of Technology in teaching AP Music Theory during the 2011-2012 school year. At the time of this writing, there are 6 weeks left in the year.

The tools that were available to me:
 * Interactive Whiteboard (SMARTboard)
 * Airliner (SMARTboard)
 * COW (Computers On Wheels) which contained 18 laptops for a class of 16 students
 * Wireless Networked Printer
 * Projector
 * Teacher's Laptop
 * I had access to an excellent sound system
 * Wireless Access Point*
 * Finale Notepad (Music Notation Software)

1st Semester:

At the beginning of the year, I made use of the classroom wiki every day. I had the students create their own pages on the site, they interacted with each other and with music in real time via the comment section, and I posted assignments using the template setting on the New Page window. The students got the laptops out of the COW on a near daily basis. I made use of Finale Notepad, a music notation program that allows students to compose music on their own. I constructed quizzes using an online service called Quizstar. I attempted to use the SMARTBoard but in the end, returned it to the library and got a large regular Whiteboard to serve as a projection screen. The problem I encountered with the SMARTBoard involved the level of detailed writing necessary to analyze and write music. Even with the finest calibration setting, the SMARTBoard would frequently be out of sync with the stylus I was using. I attempted to remedy this situation by using an Airliner (at a student's suggestion) and this helped somewhat, but I found it clunky and difficult to use. One has to hold it the whole time and even then, there were portions of the screen that it wouldn't reach. So the Airliner went back to the library as well. Here's an example of the classroom wiki in action: Also, I should point out that at the beginning, I was plagued with connectivity problems. There's an asterisk by the Wireless Access Point in the list above because it took forever for the district to properly install one so that the students were not huddled by the door of the band hall in order to get a halfway decent signal to the laptops. The quizstar quizzes were notoriously difficult because the computers kept losing connectivity, forcing the student to retake the quiz. It was not until the 3rd 6 weeks that a dedicated wireless access point was installed in the band hall. Since then, we've had no connection problems.

2nd Semester: 4th and 5th 6 weeks:

In the 2nd Semester, I made the decision to do more written work. In order to understand the reasons for this, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of what goes on in an AP Music Theory classroom. Music must be analyzed in such a way that was difficult even for Finale to accomplish. The level of work required to do simple superscripts for example would have made the exercise at hand much more difficult than it needed to be. The exercises on the AP exam are timed, so the students would ultimately NEED to be able to do these things by hand without the aid of computers. Therefore, I used the COW a lot less as the 2nd Semester wore on. We still use them and still utilize the wiki site, but the 4th and 5th 6 weeks were dominated by handwritten work.

6th 6 weeks:

My intention in the last 6 weeks (once we're past the AP exam) is to explore new ways to utilize technology again. I'm particularly interested in setting up interactive video sessions with music theory professionals. The idea being that these professionals could deliver an advanced lesson that they are particularly passionate about and the students would have the opportunity to interact with someone (other than their teacher) who really loves music theory. These video sessions would be skype driven sessions and would include some of the excellent sound equipment that already exists in the band hall.

Conclusions:

It will be difficult to gauge the degree to which all the technology aided in the students in the taking the exam. The reason for this is that the exam is only going to be attempted by 2 of my students due to financial considerations. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things I would change about next year if I'm given the opportunity to teach the class again. First, I would request a computer lab. The COW is a great idea, but I found that far too much class time is wasted getting the computers out, turning them on, logging in, waiting for startup to finish, logging on to the wiki site, and then giving the students enough time to properly shut them down, return them to the COW and make sure that they are all plugged in. All told, this process probably takes 8-10 minutes of total class time every day. That is simply an unacceptably high amount of wasted class time. Initially, I attempted to ameliorate this problem by having the students do some singing (which is required on the exam) while the computers started up. This proved a bridge too far however because the students couldn't just press a button and then focus on the singing. There a several intermediate steps that they have to be watching for, which means they're not focusing on the singing to the degree necessary in order to be successful. In fact, one of the reasons why I'm hopeful about doing more with technology in this last 6 weeks is because the librarian found a computer lab for us to use for the remainder of the semester.

Aside from the COW situation, much of what we did was successful. The kids indicated as much when I gave them a survey to complete at the semester specifically regarding the integration of technology into the classroom.