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Presenting at CSULB Today

5/6/2015

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I've been making some progress on my Master's Project, and tomorrow (today) I'll be presenting it at California State University Long Beach, even though I'm not done yet. To prepare, I made a PowerPoint! I also recorded some of the project in action using OfficeMix (free screen capturing!), edited, sped it up, and placed it at the end of the PowerPoint. From there I
  • Exported the entire file as a video. I did this so I could just leave it running while I watch visitors interact with the app directly on my devices.
  • Exported the slides as .PNG files. I used these to create a Sway, just in case a visitor wants to look at my presentation at a later time. I plan on making some QR codes of the link to the Sway.
Speaking of.....here it is
Oh, and I got my IRB approval today :-)
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StaffPad and My Classroom

4/8/2015

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Ready, Set, Office! Developing new Pedagogies with the Power of Microsoft Office - Part 2

4/2/2015

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In my last blog post I presented how I was able to create new resources to transform a regular music class routine (chair test) into a more meaningful activity for my students. Besides performing the required music excerpt for their test, they were also engaged in the analysis and evaluation of their peers as well. Not only does this support our school wide tier 2 academic vocabulary words, but also requires my students to listen and evaluate using musical tier 3 academic vocabulary concepts such as Tone, Pitch, Rhythm, etc.
Academic vocabulary (AV) is the vehicle for our school wide project. We measure its usage within our assignments to compare and hopefully find instances of positive deviance within our instructional practices. This has required me to get creative and develop new forms of assessment to measure my students use of AV in their academic writing. Whereas this kind of activity is common in the core subjects, it's not quite the typical activity found within the instrumental music class. My students have already completed one writing assessment this year, and I recently had to come up with a new assessment, different from the first, to measure my students' AV use.
My students recently completed another chair test, and I found myself looking at two sets of data points. The scores from their first chair test, and the scores from the recent chair test. The scores are based on a rubric I previously created, which accounts for the correct Pitch, Rhythm, Tone, Bowings, and Posture of their performance. The data is great for me to analyze, but what would my students think after seeing it too? I decided to find out. 
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Data on the Mega OneNote Whiteboard
Within the Excel file containing all my score data, I exported the numbers from both chair tests into two separate pivot tables. Using the pivot tables, I was able to average the rubric's category scores and show how my students' performed as a class and also as a section. 
After my pivot tables were set up, I turned the data into charts with a couple of mouse clicks. I formatted the chart to make it look nice and simple for my students. After the charts were done, I exported (copy/paste) them to a Word doc, typed up the assignment directions, and Voilà! A new writing assignment. My students had to compare both sets of scores and look for changes among the rubric categories. Then they had to analyze both chair test exercises and use them to explain the changes that occurred in their score averages. 
Seeing the differences in their scores was a pretty easy task, but explaining the changes by analyzing and citing specific challenges that each song presented…that was going to be a challenge for them >:-)
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The first chair test exercise
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The second chair test exercise
I gave them two days, and overall was pleased with the results of my students first attempt at this. Citing the data was not an issue, and most of them were able to dig a little deeper into the music and specifically identify and compare the technical challenges from both songs. Pretty cool. I love making my students think :-)

Below are some examples of what I received in their essays. Some are exactly what I'm looking for, and some are just fun to read :-) 

Scroll to the right --->
I've been collecting this data for years, and by using Excel's pivot tables I was able to create a meaningful writing assignment for my students. An assignment requiring the analysis of music and data, plus synthesizing and justifying their findings into a written essay.
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Ready, Set, Office! Developing new Pedagogy with the Power of Microsoft Office - Part 1

3/15/2015

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At my school site I'm involved with a group of teachers that are currently  looking for instructional positive deviances in our classrooms through research and data. We decided as a group to focus on building our students' use of academic vocabulary. Currently we're  analyzing the student use of vocab within our content areas, as well as focusing campus wide on 10 specific words. This has been a challenge for me. In the past my curriculum focused on building my students' reading skills of western music notation, not the English language. For me to participate effectively in the project, I was going to have to modify the activities of my music classroom. 
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Our school-wide 10 vocab words, displayed on a bulletin board in a hallway. Kudos to the teacher that put this up.
Thanks to our meetings, where I get to listen to my colleagues (ELA!) discuss their processes for teaching and assessing academic vocabulary, I've been able to brainstorm and implement some new activities into my curriculum. However, to implement I would need new materials and resources that I didn't have. Instead of spending hours scouring the internet for the right tool/resource for my ideas, I've been able to easily create what I need thanks to the power of Microsoft Office and my Surface Pro 3.

The Meetings

I had a conversation with my meeting facilitator the other day. She told me that even though it looks like I'm not paying attention and participating in the discussions sometimes, she can tell the wheels are turning inside my head. She's right. As I listen to my colleagues, I'm writing down my mental musings into OneNote. These notes, which are readily available on any device I'm using thanks to the cloud, is where the creative process starts. The best part! No paper is required! As a teacher, paper is EVERYWHERE. Flyers, handouts, meeting agendas, new instructional materials, student work, advertisements. Using OneNote, my notes NEVER get lost ;-)

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Meeting notes via OneNote & Surface & the Pen

Creating New Instructional Materials

Now that I have a plan, I need the materials to support that plan. Maybe it because I'm just particular, but if I'm going to use materials/resources to aid my new ideas, I'm going to make them myself. Using MS Office its Cake and Pie (piece of cake, easy as pie) ;-)

Listening Analysis Worksheet for Chair Tests

Chair tests are just plain fun….for the music teacher :-) For those unaware, in the music class we designate an exercise or musical passage to be used as an assessment test for the students. The students play the exercise/section one at a time in class. Based on the results of each students performance, they'll be seated in a particular order ie. first chair, second chair, third chair,…….last chair(!) within their instrument section. Its nerve-racking for the students, but great for me to experience (it also leads to great conversations about presentation skills, nerves, and overcoming them).  Anyways, I digress. Usually during a chair test, the other students just listen and wait for their turn. Well not anymore! Now, just like me, I want my students to listen, analyze, and give their own score for each student that plays. To do this, they would need a score sheet AND a rubric to score them with, which means I have to create one. Ready, Set, Office!

The Score Sheet

This one's pretty easy.
  • Download an Excel copy of the class roster from the LMS to get a list of names. 
  • Delete the extraneous stuff and tweak the file to include the score categories and a total score section.
  • Copy and paste into MS Publisher (included with Office)
  • Re-size if necessary and add some color.
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The scoring section of the form. The bottom section is used for another activity and is discussed in Part 2.

The Rubric

  • Create a table in MS Word. Mine was a 6 by 6.
  • As text is added to the table, resize the table to make it look nice. You can:
                    - Click and drag the edges of the table
                    - Highlight the table cells, and use the Layout and Design tabs at the top of MS Word
  • Add some color, and copy/paste into MS Publisher
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Creating my listening rubric in MS Word. Students use this as they listen to each other's chair test performances.

The Final Product

  • My Publisher file is composed of two separate pages. 
  • To add another page, Click Insert --> Page --> New page
  • I tweaked/re-sized the contents, make sure the colors will work, and added some other parts to it as well, such as name, period, etc.
  • The group members section of the form is used later for another activity.
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Both pages are finalize in MS Publisher and saved as one PDF document.
That's it! I save the file as a PDF so it's shareable and can easily print off of a thumb drive.

My students use the form now whenever they have chair tests. I use the original Excel file I created to enter their scores. Using the formula functionality within Excel, their scores are automatically added up to give me a final score. When the testing process is done, I can easily sort the data by Score and Instrument to see the new chair rankings. I also copy/paste the results onto my mega OneNote classroom whiteboard, so the students can visually see the rankings themselves. 
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A student scoring while they are listening
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Me scoring the kids onto my MS Excel sheet using a Surface Pro 3. The Surface allows me to roam around the room to get better viewing angles of their posture as they perform.
Chair tests can take a while for all the students to complete, especially when there are 40+ nervous children in one class. Having them complete the score sheet helps with classroom management, fulfills the listening, evaluating, and analysis standards of music education, using school-wide and classroom vocab words in context, and also sets my students up for the next activity associated with their chair tests.

Stay tuned for part 2 which describes the next step of measuring my students' use of academic vocabulary! In the meantime, leave a comment :-)


Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of a Surface Pro 1, however the fine folks at the Cerritos Microsoft Store have been kind enough to loan me a Pro 3 to use. It has been wonderful using it, and I thank them greatly!
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Teachable Moments with OneNote & Office Lens

2/15/2015

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My String Orchestra class didn't go exactly as planned this week, and it's all OneNote's fault. On Tuesday we were supposed to continue in our method book, working on playing in the key of F Major. We were going to get to the next page and play one of my favorite songs, Waltzing Matilda! Alas, it did not happen thanks to that cape-wearing purple program called OneNote, and her little sidekick Office Lens.

It started when a couple of my violins came into class, talking about their new roles in the school play. They play the "music kids" and have to perform a song on stage during the performance. They handed me a copy of the song, and a conversation started. "The song is way too easy" was heard, as well as "what are those letters on top of the notes?" 

Boom! That was it. That was all I needed. "Lesson's over kids, it's time for a teachable moment!"   <-- I didn't actually say that ;-)

My 8th graders received a heavy dose of music theory instruction last year from me, and what a better way to start off this year's new theory season than with:

1) A review of last year's theory instruction.
2) Opportunities for critical thinking and application.
3) The creation of a new assignment/project for my students.
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The song. It looks easy, so can we do more with it?
It took me less than 60 seconds to set it up. I pulled out my Lumia phone and snapped a picture of the song my violin student had in her hand using the Office Lens app. Two things then automatically happened behind the scenes. Office Lens saved that picture straight to my OneNote notebook on my Surface Pro 3, and it saved the picture as a PDF file into a designated folder in my OneDrive. Within 60 seconds of snapping the picture, I have the song plus some music staff paper up on my whiteboard-wall using OneNote. Then the magic started. 

I tackled the letters first, explaining how they represented Major and minor chords that went with the melody. I could tell some of my 8th graders were a little rusty, so we reviewed intervals and triads, which was fine since it helped with explaining the A7 chord. After that we tore up the song, analyzing every bit that the class time allowed. By the end of class, my OneNote page looked like this:
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Song analysis made easy :-)
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My classroom OneNote whiteboard
By the end of class, my two violin actors & the rest of the class received a new challenge from me. "If the original melody is to easy and boring for you to play, then write a harmony line to accompany it! Every bit of information needed to write one is already listed on the page." I offered extra credit for trying, and the coveted "Student of the Month" award for the best arrangement. My challenge was accepted :-)

The teachable moment was great. My 8th graders applied knowledge they had previously learned, I was able to introduce some new concepts, and my 7th graders were involved. This couldn't have happened without the help of my daily tech tools:

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Working on my Master's Project at Compania in South Gate
Surface Pro 3 - I love this machine! I project my screen onto my classroom wall by wirelessly connecting my Surface to the projector with its built-in Miracast functionality. This enables all my students to see my "whiteboard" aka computer screen. It also allows me to freely walk around my room with my Surface, enabling me to use my proximity for classroom management purposes, engagement with particular students, and to use my classroom piano for reference, all without losing immediate access to my whiteboard. Using the pen and OneNote as my classroom whiteboard, I have unlimited whiteboard space and can annotate on PDF documents and pictures. The best part is when I hand my Surface and its pen to students and give them tasks to complete. The "Wow!" factor sets in and my students are completely engaged. 
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Just another lesson using OneNote :-)
OneNote - ….is awesome because of how adaptable it is to various educational situations and settings.    In my classroom, it's my whiteboard, my overhead projector, my document camera, and my lesson planner, all nicely packed into one sleek program. I'm not limited by space constraints, I don’t need messy markers that always get lost, and I don't need to worry about poorly lit documents. OneNote has become the visual canvas of my classroom instruction. 
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Screenshot of Office Lens in action
Office Lens - OneNote's little sidekick is a must for OneNote users. It's ability to capture images and save immediately into OneNote is simple, easy, and quick. For example, I use it to capture and display student's classwork for reference, analysis, and immediate formative assessment. The process is fast and seamless, and is great for those "teachable moments." Office Lens' continued development has introduced some great features lately. Not only can I quickly save an image of something to OneNote, but Office Lens will also translate the image and save as a Word doc, PowerPoint slide, or PDF file. This is great if I want to save, edit and use a document I receive at a meeting or conference. 

This trio of software and hardware has changed my daily pedagogical routines. I'm able to present more material to my students quickly in an effortless manner. As a teacher, I experience the "teachable moments" every day I go to work. Now, using OneNote, Office Lens, and my Surface Pro 3, I can easily turn a teachable moment into a visual interactive lesson for my students. 
Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of a Surface Pro 1, however the fine folks at the Cerritos Microsoft Store have been kind enough to loan me a Pro 3 to use. It has been wonderful using it, and I thank them greatly!
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Cake & Pie & Sway

2/3/2015

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I've been using Sway more frequently as a go-to tool in my classroom. As my multimedia students create digital artifacts, aka "their assignments," I'm taking advantage of the opportunities to incorporate some school-wide goals.

Backstory: Some of the teachers at my school (me included) are currently involved in a research study. A byproduct of the study involves our school focusing on our students' use of academic vocabulary (hello CCSS!), in particular 10 words that the teacher/participants chose last spring. 

Me being the music teacher that I am, my pedagogy and lesson planning mindset isn't exactly focused on getting my students to write in the English language. However, because of my school's academic vocabulary focus, I've been on a quest this year to step outside my comfort zone, brainstorm, and create some authentic and meaningful writing activities for my students. 

Back to the multimedia kids. I've been doing my best to teach them (this is my second year), and they've been creating stuff for me using the programs we have access to in our computer lab. Lately, after assignments have been turned in,  the next task I ask of them is to critique each others work. This is for various reasons.

  • Our school-wide 10 academic vocabulary words include Analyze, Evaluate, and Critique.
  • They're writing(!) using tier 2 and tier 3 academic vocabulary.
  • They're typing! <--- 21st century digital skillz :-)
  • Blooming like crazy! "Analyze each others work applying the design concepts I've taught you. Tell me how they successfully applied the concepts, and what they can do to improve their final product." 

I'm keeping my multimedia class paper-free. We're saving trees, and also the printers in my classroom NEVER EVER WORK. So, after my students have turned in their assignments, I need a method to share their work with each other.  A tool that will let me easily put their work on display, and is easily accessible for them to get to. 

Enter Sway. 

Sway has been exactly what I need time and time again. It's still a beta, but it works, and its been working great so far. Using Sway I'm able to consolidate, organize, and present various mediums of media using the web as my canvas. A canvas that I can put out on the internet for anyone to see and interact with. It has all the typical features of uploading graphics, inputting text, and embedding YouTube videos, but lately they've been adding some seriously cool stuff. Take a look.
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My students recently had to create a picture that expressed this year's Education Celebration theme, "College and Career Ready, Set, Go." After they submitted their work, I was able to quickly create this Sway and share it with them, so they could complete their critiques. Cake and Pie. 

A couple things you'll notice about the Sway above this text. First, it's embedded into my blog post because Sway gives me the iframe to do so. You can even get it yourself if you hover your mouse over to the top right corner. Second, I embedded an active excel chart that displays the results of my students' voting. Think about that for a second....

My students vote for their favorite on the linked critique form. I created the form using the online Excel app in the Office Online suite. Using the same Excel file on my computer (thank you OneDrive!), I was able to  create some formulas to tally the results and show them visually with a quick chart. Here's the real treat, Sway & OneDrive not only allows me to embed the excel file, but I get to chose what part(s) of the excel file. For instance, my neat little voting results chart :-)

That is some serious awesomeness. All of this I was able to do with my Surface Pro 3 on loan from the Microsoft Store (Thank you MS!). This machine is an absolute dream. I'm using an i5 with 8 gigs of RAM, and it handles everything I throw at it. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, ZebraZapps.....running at the same time! 

I think I'm only scratching the #surface with the Sway/OneDrive collaboration too. Recently I gave Sway a real stress test, and although it took me some time, I was able to discover some very cool features, which I will talk about next time......

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How OneNote is changing my pedagogical instruction, Part 2

12/24/2014

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Over time, the information I've been required to post on my classroom whiteboard has evolved from a Learning Objective, to the Learning Objective + Classwork and Homework agenda, to a Learning Target (students will Know X and Understand Y by Doing Z) + the Classwork and Homework agenda. It's a lot of information. Don't get me wrong, it's totally appropriate and necessary for students' learning, but there's an issue. I teach five completely different classes, so  getting all that information on display for all the students is a challenge. I have a few options for displaying information on my un-centered, small, single whiteboard.

1) Write the learning targets and agendas for every class on the board. Drawbacks: Tiny writing, students can't see what I've written, no blank space on the board to use during instruction.

2) Only display one class at a time. Drawbacks: Some students still can't see, writing for every class is keeping me from supervising/managing my incoming and outgoing students during the passing period. Remember, I'm dealing with expensive instruments, cases, chairs, and music stands.

3) Install some more whiteboards in my room. Tried that, district took them down :-(

4) Give up and just not write it on the board.  <--Not an option!
OneNote is awesomeUsing OneNote to display my daily agenda
Over the years I would bounce around between option 1 and 2. Students from one side of the classroom would have to get out of their seat and walk over so they could copy down the agenda in their planner. One year I did install some cheap office-store whiteboards, but those eventually disappeared from my wall courtesy of the district maintenance crew. It wasn't until I discovered OneNote on my Surface Pro that I finally found a solution. At the time, I was connecting my Surface to my classroom projector to display instructional content, and began to use OneNote at school to take notes at my work meetings. OneNote's organizational structure (Notebooks -> Sections -> Pages) makes it incredibly easy to create and stay organized. I quickly figured out that within my "Work" notebook I could create and designate a section for each of my classes. Within each class section, I could create and use a page for each daily agenda and learning target of the day. Boom! Now instead of using my not-so-strategically-placed-in-the-classroom whiteboard, I just connect my Surface Pro to the strategically-placed classroom projector, open OneNote, go to the relevant class page, and viola! Now all my students can see the classwork, homework, and learning target for the day. Switching between each class agenda takes seconds, giving me back the time I need to monitor the students coming and going, setting up, and needing my assistance.

Creating a new agenda is super easy. OneNote automatically provides the date and time for when a page is created, which helps me keep track of the day and plan the information to be posted for my students. Just like in MS word, I'm able to create tables within OneNote's whitespace.  I use the table function to format my agenda info for easy reading and understanding. I never delete my agenda pages, and here's why. By scrolling through the previously created class pages, I'm able to quickly check the agendas from past school days. This helps me stay on top of what we're learning, what's been assigned, what I'm collecting, and what's due soon. Using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-A (select all), Ctrl-C (copy), and Ctrl-P (paste), I can quickly create a new daily agenda and learning target page with a consistent style and format in a matter of seconds. This new method and routine is much faster and easier than writing it in a lesson plan book, and then again on my semi-useful classroom whiteboard. I also don't have to worry about students being unable to read my handwriting as well ;-)

In my music room, my Surface Pro is continuously connected to my classroom projector wirelessly via its built-in Miracast wireless display connection. Now I can be standing at my classroom door with my Surface, not only monitoring my students, but also changing the agenda for my next class. Using OneNote makes the task fast and simple, and it keeps me organized(!).


But wait, there's more!
I now have a second classroom on the other side of campus where I teach my multimedia students. The room is a generic computer lab for teachers to sign up and use, so I don't personalize it or leave any equipment there. Does that stop me from using OneNote to show the daily agenda? Nope! All my OneNote notebooks are available for me online, so I can get to them from any internet connected device. The computer lab's projector is connected to a generic teacher workstation, which either mirrors or extends it display. Using the computer's web browser, all I have to do is:
1) Login to Office.com
2) Click on the OneNote icon
3) Open my Work notebook
4) Click on the class
5) Click on the page showing the daily agenda
6) Done!
PictureIn another classroom? Not a problem!
I can even make edits from my Surface Pro, which then immediately reflect on the projector screen. The edits are synced in real time to the cloud version of OneNote (the browser version I use to display the agenda in the computer class), and the edits take merely seconds to reflect on the teacher workstation.

OneNote is free to download, and can be installed on practically every device that you can connect to a projector.  Teacher workstation, check! iPad, check! iPhone, check! Windows phone, check! Android tablet/phone, check! Thanks to my Miracast dongle, I can even use my Nokia 1520 to wirelessly connect and display the agenda if I need to. Using OneNote combined with my Surface Pro solved an issue I've been dealing with for years. It's incredibly simple, and enabled me to be a much more effective and organized teacher for my students.
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