Technology and Choir

I am sitting right now at a technology conference. The conference is sponsored by Ball State University.  Because I work at a lab school under the umbrella of BSU, I am considered a BSU employee and was invited to the conference. I think that all of the people here are from the academic world, so there was really nothing that was directly about teaching music or directing music.  However, it is up to me to find a way to apply it.

Students today are tech wizards; they expect to use it wherever they are. Choir is no different.  However, singing is the foundational tenet of the class.  The class is a performance-based class.  Other than recording the class and having the students critique their performance, how can we incorporate technology?  Of course, students can always do research about the composers or the text of the song, but research of this type is really not something that I feel is helpful.

I have a big task: finding a way to incorporate technology that the students will enjoy and in which they actually want to participate.  I took some classes this summer on using Web 2.0 tools in education.  These tools help instructors make the classes more collaborative and a lot more fun for the kids. There are a bunch of things out there from which to choose; I just have to figure out which ones best suit my needs.  There's the problem -- I don't know which ones best suit my needs. The only thing I can do is try several of them and see what works.

The first one I want to try is a blog.  I am going to setup a private blog for my students.  Two or three times a week, I will ask them to share with me what they learned in class that day and what impact, if  any, it had on their singing.  I will also occasionally give them other types of prompts to which they will respond.  I also want to try using a wiki, which is similar to a Google doc.  I will give the students a subject to discuss, and they will discuss it on the wiki, where all the students will see all of the responses and be able to respond to them.  Those two things will be my collaborative tools.

With students being into social media right now, I'm going to plug into that interest by using both Facebook and Twitter.  I will set up a Facebook page for the choirs.  I will post concert dates, fundraising activities, and other items of public interest.  I will also Tweet with the students.

These are all great ideas, but they will only happen if I make them happen.  Will I be able to do it and still have time to do the music?  Who knows?  Check with me in two months, and I'll let you know.