Technology in the Classroom: Painful or Pertinent?

Integrating more technology into my lessons is, if I’m being honest with myself, something that truly causes me to panic. Although I am only 26 years old and the use of advanced technology is considered “normal” for people my age, the though of utilizing it in my classroom is something I have never considered.  I am very aware that there are fabulous resources available that could benefit my students, but because of the way I was taught how to play an instrument, and because of my “old fashioned” personality, I tend to stray away from implementing new ideas when teaching. The bottom line is, I just don’t feel like I have enough time to use technology, nor do I feel like I have enough training on new technologies that have become available since I was in school.

Being an elementary school instrumental music teacher in my school district means traveling. If you’re lucky, or have been in the district for many years, you will only have 1-2 schools that you visit during the week. However, as I’ve only been teaching in this district for three years, I have the privilege of teaching at four different schools; three elementary schools and one middle school. I love the diversity of the cultures, students, and staff that I work with, however when I have deadlines to meet and concerts to prepare for, but I’m only seeing the students for 45 minutes to an hour a week, I don’t feel as if it is worth it to use smart boards, software programs, or special music apps during class time. The other major concern I have is that I teach in primarily low economic areas in all title I schools. The schools do have technology budgeted for the building, however, with the lack of monetary resources, the budgets tend to go to the math, science, or reading departments, rather than the “special” departments. When there is money budgeted for instrumental music, I feel as if I should be spending it on new music, instrument repairs, and supplies rather than new technologies that I don’t see as necessary.

Bauer (2014), discusses everyone’s level of technology use as being digital natives, digital immigrants, or digital novices. Although I rarely use any technology in my classroom, aside from my laptop where I regularly use Microsoft Office programs, I still believe I am at digital immigrant. When I was growing up, the Internet did not exist, or if it did, it was not commonly used. I never had high-speed cable internet until I was in high school and certainly did not have a cell phone until I was 17 years old when I started driving (for safety purposes only). Now, I do have an iphone, an ipad, a MacBook Pro, and can effectively navigate the Internet with ease. I believe I would be able to “speak” technology with an “accent”, as Bauer states, meaning I could hold a conversation about certain technologies, but not be able to really use them to the best of my abilities while at school.

The types of technologies that interest me most are any apps that could assist in teaching instrumental music. Also getting to know more about smart boards and how I can integrate them into my lessons. The article, Learning Your Personal Network, highlighted podcasts and wikis as great sources for new ideas. Listening to or watching other teachers is probably my most effective way of learning new techniques. I did some of my best teaching after observing other teachers in action, so these tools may be very valuable to improving my lessons.

            Aside from all my worries, after reading the second chapter in Music Learning Today, I felt a bit better about my “tech struggle”. The beginning of this chapter outlined the basics of computers, and I was pleasantly surprised that I already knew about most of the components within a computer. Further more, the chapter also discussed peripheral devices such as monitors, scanners, printers, speakers, and headphones. I am well aware that these are just the basics and the material will get more complicated as the text progresses, however, having an understanding of the basics makes it easier to expand on the topic. Any small victory, in my opinion, can be seen as a positive, especially when I am so nervous at the overall topic of this course.

            It is my hope that this course can act as the professional development that is lacking at my schools. The professional development we receive now is mainly about testing, and usually pertains to subjects other than the creative and performing arts. In fact, during most professional developments I am asked to simply “join another content area” to assist them in their professional learning. As I stated earlier, I am anxious about integrating technology into my classroom, however I am very interested to learn about all the new tools available to enrich the students’ learning.