Musical Assessment and Professional Productivity with Technology

The course work this week covered several ways in which technology can assist music teachers while assessing learning. By far the best resource acquired from this week was the ability to use Flubaroo to grade quizzes made with Google Forms. Using Google Forms to track data from assessments or responses from surveys is very helpful, but the Flubaroo add-on makes the overall grading process extremely easy. Flubaroo is also helpful for students since instructors can send an email with feedback as soon as the assessments are graded.  The ability to provide timely feedback is very important and is even part of the criteria listed by The Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning organization (Bauer, 2014).  

This week also included work on the WebQuest designs. The WebQuest project was good for me because it proved (to myself) that I am capable of using technology, capable of thinking outside the box to make fun and beneficial learning opportunities for my students, and lastly, that this kind of learning can happen in a high school band setting. The need for teachers, especially band directors, to get away from teacher led classrooms is very high. The traditional band setting places a director on a podium with a baton and tells them to lead the group. While my classroom has many opportunities for class discussions and student input, it will be interesting to see how different learning will occur when they complete the WebQuest.  

Bauer, W. (2014). Technology Fundamentals. In Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. Oxford University Press.