Interactivity #5

We’ll call her Mrs. Smith. She teaches music in Peekskill, New York. I contacted Mrs. Smith through a mutual friend in the area, and she agreed to talk with me about her district. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Smith has heard little about NETS, so I sent her a link to iste.org and began my interview.

I started by asking Mrs. Smith about the use of technology in her own classroom. Did she know if her school met any of the NETS standards without realizing it? Surprisingly, she had. Several years ago, her school began a program using Garage Band – a computer program by Apple which allows users to record, mix, and compose their own music using existing sound samples, MIDI interfaces, or live recording. Although she did not teach that particular class herself,  she was familiar enough with it to elaborate.

Students at her school are offered the chance to use Garage Band as a “general music” class as an optional replacement for traditional performance classes such as choir or band. The students begin by learning the basics of sound mixing, using the sound samples provided with the software. They are taught to copy, paste, loop, master, mix, and equalize each of the tracks within the interface. Over the course of the class, the students also learn how to input new sounds into the computer through a MIDI interface, as well as basic recording techniques for live musicians. Their final project is to create a 3 minute audio recording using looped samples, MIDI input, and a recorded vocal track – either sung or spoken.

When I asked Mrs. Smith about the rest of the school, she had no idea. As a “special area” teacher, she explained that there was a disconnect between her department and the rest of the school. In part, this was based on pull-out lessons, and the stress this put on other core subject teachers in math and English.

It’s not surprising to me that NETS is an unfamiliar area for music teachers. Technology has only recently become affordable enough to become useful in the subject area. Prior to the availability of inexpensive technology like digital recording, classes like this would be unthinkable. Hardware alone would take up an entire room, not to mention the expense.  The fact that music technology has finally progressed enough to exist on a home computer is what allows these standards to even be approached today.

It’s hard to imagine, given the current social trends, that technology would not be considered an important tool, even in music education. And the speed at which technology progresses strongly implies that there should be little trouble bringing up these standards with administrators. In fact, I would assume that by the time I graduate and get a teaching job, schools should have at least started to address the NETS-S and NETS-T standards. This is only speculation though.

To be honest, as interesting it was to speak with a teacher about this, I think it would have been far more interesting to interview an administrator. I would assume they would have a far better understanding on how their school was functioning under this standards over several departments.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvCJC2ZFtwqqdG5uaHZtNW0wSnJqdFBsLW5IQ3MyaVE&pli=1#gid=0