Teaching with Technology

Where can music educators go to get ideas and inspiration that will help them become more current and effective professionals? I started with the question for my knowledge building assignment. For the last two weeks, I spent quite some time searching for a journal that I will be reading for the spring semester. I found a couple of online journals that are specifically devoted to music education via GMU library system, and decided to choose ‘The Journal of Research in Music Education’. JRME was trouble-free to access from GMU library system compared to other journals I was debating with, and it was not complicated to locate articles with the term, ‘technology in music’.
The Journal of Research in Music Education is not primarily technology-oriented, but does include some studies in which technology is used in the methodology or as the subject of a teaching/learning study. JRME is published by The National Association of Music Education (MENC, or known as Music Teachers National Conference), which has had a long association with the research community in schools and in colleges and universities. The members of MENC include musicians, music educators, researchers, and research advocates with an interest in music education research application. Christopher Johnson, a music professor, says, “Research is crucial to any profession, not only because it provides verifiable data to continue to support and better practices, but because it is the research if a profession that defines it as a profession.” JRME features articles such as ‘Honing 21st Century Skills in a Digital World’, ‘The Application of Information Science Technology to Music Education Materials’, and ‘Non-music Majors’ Cognitive and Affective Responses to Performance and Programmatic Music Videos’. Those titles were intriguing enough to cut my eyes, as one of my research interests is in teaching method for non-musicians.
Some people say that developing technologically literate students is significant in our expanding Internet age. Students (and teachers, too) invariably ride the cutting edge of Internet tools, blogs, podcasts, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, yet they often do not have the same outlook for its academic use. I believe that teachers must be prepared to deal with the “constantly changing, unpredictable terrain of the digital world” for our millennium learners. I was raised in an environment where I had to find answers in books and dictionaries, not in Google search. Now the answers can be found just a short Google search away, we, the teachers, will need to be sensitive and conscious finding methods to use technology as our effective teaching tool. People interpret the term, technology, differently. Teachers and students have different understanding and aspect for the term, especially, when it is used in academic setting. I hope The Journal of Research in Music Education not only can build my knowledge in technology in music education, but also help me find practical ways to apply technology in my actual teaching.