Past and Present Reflections

      I am consider to be a digital immigrant of technology.  My first experiences with computer technology was in the mid to late 1980's. My high school was using TRS-80 computers for my computer math class. I remember the floppy disks that were huge and fragile, and the computer monitor was boxy and huge.  I also took a computer word processing class in high school that used WordStar before there was Microsoft Word. Instead of using a laser inkjet printer, I had to use a Dot Matrix to print my finished assignments.  Before smartphones with unlimited data plans, call waiting and three way calling was the best phone technology a teenage girl could have access to on any land-line phone service plan. Youtube was not available for video and audio recording or sharing, but the use of a cassette and cassette recorder was the best way to create audio performances.  I would make audio cassette recording of me singing, playing the piano, or make recordings my dad and his friends playing bluegrass music on Saturday nights. My recordings would help me to practice, critique, and to create musical projects to share with my friends and family.

     In the present, I use technology everyday in my personal life, however, I wished I could use more in my music classes. The use of my classroom computer and having internet access is a necessity for my teaching.  I enjoy showing Youtube videos of  concert and marching bands, choir and orchestra performances for my students. I use educational singalong, Youtube videos to help teach musical concepts. However, I feel like that I can benefit from increasing my technology, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) to help better my own learning and my students learning.

 As a music educator at an elementary school, I feel alone and sometimes isolated because I am the only music educator in my building. Compared to when I was a choral director at a middle school, I was able to connect with the band and orchestra directors on a daily basis. However, after reading "Your Personal Learning Network: Professional Development On Demand", by William I. Bauer (2010), he describes multiple ways to share, collaborate, and learn from other music educators globally though the use of the internet.
      One way to have connections to other music educator and resources was the use of  Personal Learning Networks (PLN). PLN's can be used as resources for professional development that  can  be accessed by an educator's specific areas of interest.  Bauer discusses the uses of different tools to develop technology assisted PLN's, and how educators can adapt these tools.  Some tools that Bauer describes are the following Blogs, Podcasts,Wikis,Twitter. These tools are familiar to me, however I never knew how they can play a vital roll for professional develoment.   The use of  Really Simple Syndication (RSS),   how one can subscribe to it that it will  notify the subscriber when something new is published is new information to me.

     The knowledge on how a Feedly account is used amazed me. I like the idea of being able to have access to all my favorite web news sites and/or other information resources at one place instead of accessing the information through multiple sites.  After reading about how RSS it  is used, and having set up a Feedly account, I have been sharing this information with my family and friends who are digital immigrants. As a result of sharing this information, my family members are setting up their own Feedly accounts.
 Never the less, having the ability to professional development resources, and  the ability to communicate with other music educators globally, gives music educators a sense of connection instead of isolation.

I am looking forward in developing my (TPACK) in this course. Furthermore, I am looking forward to creating a learning, collaborating, and sharing community with my classmates.