MusTech.Net!

Well, it’s been long and hard but we’re seeing light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.  I can’ t believe how many music educators are now blogging.   When I first started this campaign in January, you could barely find a music education blogger using Google, now they’re everywhere  -which is a very good thing!

There are so many good things that are coming from the ME bloggers, the global conversations that have been started are so good for moving forward the discussion about what we do and how we do it.   Personally, I’ve learned quite a bit, not only from the posts of the Music Education Bloggers, but from the process itself. 

The blogging process allows avenues for expression that may be hard for people to access in any other way.  In particular, writing or blogging, allows times fore reflection, introspection, and in particular, clarity of thought about a particular idea, condundrum, or thought.

I’ve always written about blogging as a means to share knowledge with the your peers, students, or even the world.   This type of action is readily apparent after reading hundreds of blog posts by music educators about what they do best.  In addition, I’ve read from the ME Bloggers many posts where the idea of digital mentoring and helping guide others and not only seen, but the process is clearly visible.  As ME Bloggers we are putting forth “good” information onto the web to begin to fill the very visible “gaps” of knowledge about our subject on the web AND clarify and add to the knowledge base that is all ready there.   We’re begining to “cut through the junk” that was and continues to be found when searhing for related subject matter about our field.

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The Music Education Blog Carnival has been a huge success on many levels.  It has crated a “buzz” about becoming a blogger among music educators; it provides a semi-peer reviewed venue for posting great and useful music related posts, and also provides this information to the world free of charge.  It’s a “win, win” for all parties involved.

Joel and I started the Music EducationCarnival with these intentions in mind.  Now that the carnival is currently in its 5th edition, we are getting some of the particulars figured out.  There is a “landing page”, as it were, for the Music Education Carnival that can be found in the tabs above at mustech.net or by going to this URL: http://mustech.net/muscarn .  It’s easy to remember.  Check out the cool graphic I made for the carnival too!

A number of dedicated music education experts are wanting to host the site (and have) and we are already “booked” until February of 2009!

November 1st will be hosted by Travis J. Weller at Composing Like Mad.
December 1st will be hosted by Eugene Cantera at Discover, Learn, Play.
January 1st will be hosted by Chris Foley at Colloborative Piano

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As you know we’ve been quite successful with the Music Education Blog Carnival.  If you’ve missed the first two carnivals you can find the totally USEFUL Music Education articles posted at the Carnival Here:

1st Music Education Carnival Edition:
July, 2008 at http://soyouwanttoteach.com

2nd Music Education Carnival Edition:
August, 2008 at http://mustech.net

3rd UPCOMING Music Education Carnival Edition:
September, 2008 at http://amymburns.musiced.net

Dust off an old interesting post or create a new one, either way submit them to the Carnival Here.  We’re really making an impact with these carnivals and we are off to a great start, let’s keep up the momentum and it’s great fun!

I’m already getting in gear for band camp.  We start on August 14th.  It’s going to be a great year… I know this already because we’re taking the marching band and the jazz ensemble to Disney World!   The kids are pretty excited about it…  

It’s also time to think about re-tooling your blog and getting some of your ideas up.  Why not jump start your blog with a couple of posts before you head back to school to get into the “swing of things” AND submit one to the Music Education Blog Carnival!  The August blog carnival is almost ready to be posted and you still have a few days to get your submissions into me and Joel…so take advantage of them! 

Submit your Music Education Blog Carnival entry to:

Here’s the link for your blog post submittal for the carnival:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_4443.html

I don’t have complete access to the back-end at the blog carnival site and will be working with Joel to see if we can have the site give more feedback to you when you submit your entries.  All entries will be considered and most will be posted provided they meet the music education topic criteria for the carnival. Stay Tuned!