I don’t know how it’s possible that I’ve been using Padlet for so long and never wrote a blog post about it! I know I’ve mentioned it in other posts, like Engaging Students During Rehearsal With Technology and Apps for Beginning Band and Orchestra, and it was also featured in my book Empowering Ensembles With…
This article about engaging students during rehearsals was originally published in The Woman Conductor Journal, February 2023 issue. If you are looking to engage students during rehearsals, technology might be the answer! There are several tech tools you can use to enhance musicianship and get students more deeply involved in the music-making process. Tech Tools to Build…
Happy New Year! What a year it’s been 😊 Personally, this year was full of adventures: some amazing travels, moved across the country, and started a PhD program at Arizona State University! At times, the blog had to take a backseat, but it’s been fun to publish new posts and revise the old favorites when…
Updated December 2022 This post has gotten a much-needed update! It’s no secret; I am a fan of technology in education. In my last two teaching positions, all students had school-issued iPads. I enjoyed using the iPads with my band students and have found several apps that work well in this setting. While I would…
This will be a short and sweet suggestion to try in the next few weeks, or later this school year. I hope you’ll give it a try! For many people, it’s almost concert time. As we’re preparing for the big performance, we analyze the music, listen to recordings, and make those final musical decisions to…
This blog post is going to take a slightly different angle. Instead of looking at tech tools you can use with your students, we’re going to talk about the tech many of us use every day: Gmail! While email is a fantastic innovation, for many people it’s also more time-consuming than we would like. So…
We’ve hit the time of year where many of us have settled into routines and (probably) feel pretty comfortable with what we’re doing. This is often when we ask, how can I make rehearsal more interesting? How can I ensure the students are engaged? How can I mix things up? While there is comfort in…
By 2022, most adults have probably watched a how-to video at some point in their lives. Maybe it involved cooking techniques, home repair, or even craft projects. It’s also very likely that students have watched this type of video as well. In fact, there were many days when students would come to class, proud to…
This was post was originally published in July 2021, but has been updated now in September 2022. As the new school year is about to start, remember how important it is to include students in the creative process. Even though my project was completed during hybrid learning, the concepts can definitely transfer now that we’re…
For many music teachers, the creativity standards are the most elusive and sometimes challenging to incorporate. When the National Core Arts Standards were released in 2014, there was a noticeable change in the format and language included in the standards. What were nine simple statements turned into a multi-page document with numerous subsections. The difference…