Midnight Music Community Member Spotlight
This member spotlight features Judith Bell from Christchurch, New Zealand.
What do you teach and where?
I am responsible for music at Chisnallwood Intermediate School (NZ year 7 and 8) in Christchurch, New Zealand. I mainly teach extra curricular music such as jazz, orchestra, rock and other ensembles as well as theory, computer music, and sound tech.
Name one favourite technology tool or resource that you’ve used in your music teaching
The Line 6 Relay G10 Digital Wireless Guitar System. Great to have the flexibility to walk and play bass (or anything with a jack output) anywhere in the room.
Briefly describe one tech success you and/or your students have had during a lesson
My most recent success is using Bee-Bots in theory class to help teach intervals, triads and other chords. This was with 11 and 12 year old students, many whom have had experience with Bee-Bots (but the others learnt fast) and who are part of our music theory club.
What’s your next music tech goal?
To both write and find more lesson plans which our classroom teachers can easily use with their students and which cover key strands in the music curriculum using great free online tools with chrome books.
Secondly to turn some of my lessons into tidy, shareable music lesson plans [Ed note: Judith has started to contribute some of her lesson plans to the Midnight Music Community – one called The Patatap challenge using the free interactive Papatap website – music scratch lessons and music sorting networks].
Thirdly to up-skill in video editing (spend time getting acquainted with the software)
Fourth: get all the broken leads at school repaired, recycle old unused gear and generally tidy up.
Tell us why you decided to join the Midnight Music Community. What’s your favorite thing about it?
To be part of a community of teachers all with the same goals and challenges in music technology so we can support each other. And because Katie is awesome. [Ed note: Aww – thanks Judith!!]
What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing when it comes to music technology in education?
Keeping everything up to date and relevant and also having time to prepare well.
If you could give one piece of advice to a brand new music teacher regarding the use of technology in music education what would it be?
Always test and try every aspect of every lesson involving technology on the actual school computers or devices prior to using the lesson with students including saving and exporting.
Need help with technology? Join the other teachers inside the Midnight Music Community
We’d love to have you join us inside the Midnight Music Community where you can find personalised help and step-by-step instructions for using technology in your music teaching. There are online courses, lesson plans, tips and tutorials – all designed especially for music teachers.
Learn more about the Midnight Music Community here.