MusTech.Net!

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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Sorry I haven’t been posting lately… I’ve been overwhelmed with local responsibilities both educational and civic related (I’m a borough councilman).     Hopefully, the craziness will slow down soon!

Here are a couple of things to note:  If you haven’t signed up for the latest Blog Carnival, you are now down to mere hours…  The next edition will be posted by Nancy Flanagin tomorrow @ Teacher in a Strange Land.  The next blog carnival will be hosted by Travis J. Weller.  

Travis also has a great “circle post” posted about saving middle-school music… give it a try!http://tjweller.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/where-theres-smoke-theres-fireand-hey-is-that-my-middle-school-band-room/

Here is the link to the Music Education Carnival:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_4443.html

Also, the New List ofME Bloggerswill be up tomorrow!  If you’re riding on the fence or haven’t gotten back to me….Now’s The Time!

In related music education/technology news… Here are a few of crazy, literally, establishment shaking announcements that are both hot and current:

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As many of you know that follow me and my WordPress exploits, I can honestly say that I have not found any website/blogging platform that is easier to use and yet offers, nearly, endless flexibility for creation and implementation.  I have recently finished the framework and template for a wonderful non-profit music honorary known as Phi Beta Mu, the Nu Chapter (PBM-Nu).  Phi Beta Mu is the International Bandmasters’ Honary and I’m proud to be an inducted member of the organization.

Anyone who has “mad computer skills” can relate to my plight… I’m constantly asked to perform magic with regard to anything electronic, whether computers, telephones, televisions, websites, building wiring, and just about everything and everything related.   So and thus… I found my leading the “team” to create a website for PBM-Nu.

In my quest for everyone to develop these “mad technological skills”,  I may be often found pontificating to my college students the benefits of learning how to become faster typers.   Let me type you a picture…

I’m in class telling my students the obvious: We are in a computer dominated world…You are the generation that is expected to utilize these technologies from before graduation throughout the end of your careers…The importance of gaining speed in your typing/keyboarding skills cannot be underestimated…Mr. Internet is your friend…Really the proxy DOES work…etc.

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The countdown continues…  We are now officially up to 76 Music Education Bloggers!  There are only 4 months to go in this campaign and we are already over 75% of our target goal of 100 Music education bloggers.   I am very pleased with the progress of this campaign and personally, have been working, as much as I can and very hard with this ambitious undertaking.   For every blog that I realease as a “ME Blogger” there are 5 that are SPAM, not related, totally whacky, or simply not what we’re looking for as an official ME blog. 

ME Bloggers take note: In preparation for the publiciity and articles that I am going to be writing and hope to be publishing via “snail” methods after the official end of the campaign, I am going to be going back through and checking to see if all the ME Bloggers are remaining true to our campaign pledges!  Nothing fancy, but I don’t want to have  ME blogger listed that is not active or currently inactive as we approach January 1st, of 2009…the deadline.  What do I mean by this?

Here’s what I mean:  As a ME blogger, we pledged to “post regularly” about a topic that is “interesting to you, your students, the music audience as whole, etc. -that is related to music education and/or music technology in a classroom environment… Along those lines, we’re not expecting everyone to blog everyday, every week, or even every couple of weeks, but we need ME Bloggers that are actively blogging as often as they can and regurarly…

We agreed not to “covet” all of our materials and share many of them, freely with the world…This is part of the “Global conversation” that I keep sharing with you all…  Don’t forget to comment and get in on others conversations!!!   If you’re a ME Blogger make sure you take advantage of the Carnival that Joel and I started just so we can continue to “get the word” out about Music and Education!  Amy Burns just finished a great carnival, if you missed it -check it out at her site and see what the fuss is all about!

You can find out all of the 100 Music Education Blogger Information, ideas, goals, et. here:
http://mustech.net/100-me-bloggers  Check it out today and join or re-energize yourself!

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