Music Sites of Interest

A colleague of mine spent the summer revamping his music curriculum to infuse as much technology as possible and found some great sites.

http://www.smartmusic.com/default.aspx: I wish this site was around when I was learning to play. I had to find a tape of my piece and play along with it. This site does that searching for you. It even tells you what you did wrong and it also logs your practicing. There is a subscription fee.

http://www.pandora.com/: This site creates radio stations for you based on your preferences. You can listen to it from your computer or cell phone. The site is free.

Faculty Morale Turn-Around

Throughout last year, the morale among the faculty of my school was extremely low. They all felt like no one listened to anything they requested. Even I felt like I sounded like a broken record. Administration did listen to one request the faculty had been making for years. That request was for more technology training. In my increased job role, I took it upon myself to tell my administration that I would lead technology training for the faculty. I began polling them verbally to figure out what kinds of things they wanted to learn. My math department chair came up with a great idea. She told me I aught to make a list of different technology applications I would be willing to teach so that people would have some idea of what they wanted to learn. I have a lot of respect for her as a teacher so I took her advice and created the handout. The next question was how do I distribute it? Do I put it in the mailboxes? Especially at the beginning of the year, they are getting so many papers. Would mine get lost in the shuffle? I figured I would risk it. I distributed 80 copies but I wasn't optimistic. I figured I would get 4 or 5 back from my good friends on the faculty. I was pleasantly surprised. I received responses from teachers, department chairs, administrators, and staff. People also commented about what a great idea this was! And the hits just keep on coming!!!