Sharing Music Tech Classroom Ideas Part 1: Australia

Curriculum Ideas by Australian Educators

There are a number of real-live, “in the trenches” music teachers around the world who are willing to spend a little time to share what they do in the classroom: both the good, and the not-so-good. Reading about their experiences allows us all to pick up new ideas for the classroom as well as learn from their mistakes.

Because there are rather a lot of excellent links to share, I’ve decided to post two articles: the first will showcase some Australian educators and the second will showcase educators in other parts of the world.

James Humberstone

James is a close friend who lives and works in Sydney. He is a composer, teacher, lecturer and author of the first authorised Sibelius courseware book Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials (Avid Learning Series)

James shares a generous amount of lesson plans, original music, and music resources on his two websites: Composer Home and Having Nothing To Say and Saying It.

I would encourage you to have a close look at the vast array of information on his sites. Here are a few highlights:

1. GarageBand

A collection of GarageBand resources including how-to videos, film scoring and jingle-writing units of work and more.

2. Sibelius

A collection of Sibelius resources, including a link to his Learn Sibelius in 1 Hour videos.

3. Original Compositions

James’s original compositions that you can use with your own students for performance or composition and analysis tasks.

4. Film Scoring

James’s own in-depth report on a film scoring unit he did with some senior students in 2011.

5. Avid Scorch for iPad

Ideas for using the Avid Scorch iPad app in the Classroom.

Samuel Wright

Another New South Wales educator, Samuel has a plethora of projects and articles about using music technology in the classroom on his website. Samuel frequently shares the resources he has made – for free. Two examples:

1. Reason PBL Course

A complete project-based learning course using Reason software. The course comes with files and other supporting material and it’s beautifully presented thanks to his talented wife Laura Wright.

2. Left-Hand Finger Exercises for Guitarists

An interactive app that contains a series of left-hand finger exercises for guitarists titled FROGS (“For.Really.Outstanding.Guitar.Skills”). Samuel writes about the creation of the app in his post Hyped About Frogs and you can try the app out by visiting this link (it will work in your internet browser, or on an iPad).

Gabrielle Deschamps

Gabrielle – a music educator in Queensland – took up blogging after attending last year’s mtec2011 conference, and she writes about her classroom experiences using music technology. Gabrielle’s posts include:

1. Musical Analysis

Teaching senior students how to write a musical analysis.

2. Music Notation

Strategies for teaching students to read music notation.

NSW Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre

In January, Steve Wilkins wrote to inform me of some new online resources he has created in his role as Learning Designer 5-12, Learning Services. Steve has put together some interactive guide for using music technology in the classroom.

The guides include:

1. Finale Notepad +

Tools4U: Finale Notepad

2. MuseScore +

Tools4U: MuseScore

3. Guitar Riffs

UCreate A Rock Riff

Others?

Have you come across other Australian music educators sharing their use of technology in the classroom?

8 Comments

  1. Samuel March 5, 2012 at 8:00 pm - Reply

    Thanks for the mention Katie!
    The other resources are fantastic – any music teacher who hasn’t visited James’ or Gabrielle’s blog should do so now!

    • Katie March 5, 2012 at 8:25 pm - Reply

      Anytime! You know I think you do great work 🙂

  2. Gabrielle Deschamps March 7, 2012 at 9:41 am - Reply

    Hi Katie. Thanks so much for including me here.

    And thankyou to Samuel as well.

    🙂

  3. Wayne Splettstoeszer March 8, 2012 at 2:59 pm - Reply

    Thank you for sharing! I love reading your updates.

    Torrington High School
    Torrington, CT 06790 USA

    • Katie March 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm - Reply

      Thanks Wayne! I’ve also been a long-time fan of your music tech program at Torrington HS. You might find yourself a part of my follow-up article to this one 🙂

  4. James Humberstone March 8, 2012 at 7:02 pm - Reply

    Thanks Katie! A lot of my ideas originated with YOU tho, I have to mention that!

    Cheers,
    James

  5. […] that looks at music teachers who are sharing their teaching experiences and curriculum online. Part 1 covered Australian music teachers and part 2, middle and high school teachers from the USA. In this final part, we’ll look at […]

  6. […] large section on engaging lesson plans that encourage creativity. Pat Toben Richard McCready 1. 2. Sharing Music Tech Classroom Ideas Part 1: Australia | Midnight Music. Curriculum Ideas by Australian Educators There are a number of real-live, “in the trenches” […]

Leave A Comment

You might also like...

Introducing

The Midnight Music Community

An online community where music tech professional development, lesson ideas, and accountability come together.
Ultimate Free Music Tech Resource Guide Guide 2023/24

Download Now for FREE...

The Ultimate Music Tech Resources Guide for 2023-2024

Claim your copy of our annual guide to free music technology resources, designed especially for music teachers. Discover interactive music websites, software, productivity tools, and assessment resources you can use in your music classroom for free.

Follow Me on Social Media

PRIVACY POLICY

This is the Privacy Policy for the Midnight Music website located at www.midnightmusic.com (“Site”).

The Site is operated by Midnight Music Pty Ltd ABN 87 619 652 603 (“Midnight Music” or “Company” or “we” or “us”).

Midnight Music understands the importance of protecting your personal information and undertakes to adhere to this privacy policy at all times to ensure your personal information is effectively safeguarded.

Information you provide to us

The Site provides various places for users to provide information. We collect information that users provide by filling out forms on the Site, communicating with us via contact forms, responding to surveys, search queries on our search feature, providing comments or other feedback, providing information when ordering a product or service via the Site, and other circumstances where collecting personal information is reasonable and permitted by the Laws of the State of Victoria, Australia.

We use information you provide to us to deliver the requested product and/or service, to improve our overall performance, and to provide you with offers, promotions, and information.

Information we collect through automatic data collection technology

As you navigate through the Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies including Google Analytics to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This will generally include information about your location, your traffic pattern through our Site, and any communications between your computer and our Site. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.

The information we collect automatically is used for statistical data and will not include personal information. We use this data to improve our Site and our service offerings. To the extent that you voluntarily provide personal information to us, our systems will associate the automatically collected information with your personal information.

Use of cookies and pixels

Similar to other commercial websites, our Site utilises a standard technology called “cookies” and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

The Company reserves the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. The Company reserves the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.​

How we manage personal information

Midnight Music undertakes to take all commercially reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information collected by us is accurate, up-to-date, complete and stored securely. When your personal information is no longer required for the purposes which Midnight Music uses personal information, all commercially reasonable steps will be undertaken to securely destroy that information.

How your personal information will be used

We use personal information for purposes of presenting our Site and its contents to you, providing you with information, providing you with offers for products and services, providing you with information about your subscriptions and products, carrying out any contract between you and the Company, administering our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.
From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to make you offers to purchase products and services provided by third parties in exchange for a commission to be paid to us by such third parties. Should you opt to take part in such promotions, the third parties will receive your information.

Disclosure of your information

Midnight Music considers personal information we collect about you to be confidential and will not disclose such information to third parties except in the following circumstances:

  • Where you have consented to your personal information being provided to a third party;
  • Where Midnight Music is required by law to disclose your information; and
  • Gaining access to your personal information held by Midnight Music

Except in circumstances where access to your personal information may be denied by the Privacy Act or other Law of the State of Victoria, Australia, your personal information will be provided to you upon request.

Visitors’ General Data Protection Regulation rights

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These include the following:

  • We will retain the any information you choose to provide to us until: (a) you ask us to delete the information; (b) we decide to cease using our existing data providers; or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.
  • You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
  • You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
  • To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Contact us

Should you have any queries in relation to the above or require further information regarding the Privacy Policy please contact us:

Midnight Music Pty Ltd
PO Box 219
Glen Waverley
Victoria 3150
AUSTRALIA

Email address: support@midnightmusic.com