MusTech.Net!

Attending a music conference regularly is a must for any educator; it gives time for reflection, reinvention, relaxation, and… RECHARGING!   The PMEA convention held in Hershey PA, did just that for me and the thousands in attendance.  

While at PMEA, as always I had a chance to speak with numerous band directors, choir directors, general music education teachers, vendors, music experts, and technology experts.  There were a number of interesting conversations that I had this time around and I thought I would share them with you to see if you all had any opinions on what was purveyed to me by various folks:

1. Music education in the U.S. is predominantly performance oriented… This one has been going around a long time…are we still so focused on performances in America that we totally miss what making music is all about?   
2. Freeware music products take the food out of the mouths of people writing and supporting software for a living… This one came from a software vendor… to be honest it caught me by surprise.  While I can certainly understand the “cause and effect” that could be construed here in this context…is it a threat or a sales pitch?  What about the schools that can’t afford multi-hundred dollar software? 
3. A school principal told a band director that they were very frustrated and disappointed in the music program and was sabre-rattling about the destruction of the program AFTER giving, said band director, four straight years of GLOWING reviews and verbal approvals… What is this all about? 
4. How does an ensemble director deal with a district that will take students out of their classroom for any reason, any time, and it’s TOUGH LUCK for any time lost to the student’s music instruction.  This one strikes home to many of us.   Are we teachers? Does our class(es) matter? Is our discipline important?  Why not take them out of social studies, health, spelling…dare we say, math or reading?   While I’m sure that a student will most likely never be removed from a class for one of the three “R’s”, what does the action of removal from music really say about the, seemingly universal, underlying thoughts behind these actions?

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Hello all,

I have been beyond busy but wanted to write a quick update to let you know a few odds and ends:

• Mustech.net is being transferred to a VPS server. This is currently in process and will take another week to sort out all of the “problems” that are arising daily with the transfer, content, and network issues.
• I will be in Hershey, PA from 17th through the 20th (This month!). I will be working Grove City’s booth. Please stop buy and bring me a coffee! Let’s talk!
• I will be posting a number of new bloggers early next week and mailing out the post-36 Me Bloggers’ their Naxos Codes. The response has been great!
• I am upgrading to WordPress 2.5 as part of the upgrade, so you will see some very cool new stuff soon!
• I have plenty of cool technical and music education stuff to post very soon… please standby!
  • I just finished a session/presentation in Knox, PA to about 40 Music educators about the importance of knowing today’s technologies… very interesting responses, which I’ll share in an upcoming post.
  • I will hope to begin posting regularly again mid-next week!
  • I may podcast from Hershey, we’ll see.

Best regards,

Hear Ye!   Hear Ye!  Year Ye!   I have a number of announcements that have started to pile up and I’ve decided to condense them all into this Grand Announcement post:

TI:ME PA Conference at West Chester, Pa on April 5th, 2008:

If you are a PA person or live remotely close to West Chester, PA you will want to make it over to West Chester PA for the FIRST annual PA TI:ME conference.  A number of great presenters will be there, including ME Blogger Dr. Tom Rudolph and the keynote presentation will be given by our good Friend, and ALSO ME Blogger, Dr. James Frankel.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to make this VERY CLOSE TO ME and SEMINAL conference because I’m conducting the college Jazz Ensemble that very day, here, in Grove City.  

PMEA State Conference at Hershey, PA between April 16th and 19th, 2008:

If you live near Hershey, PA, and you love music and chocolate, you need to come to the PA state conference at Hershey.   Like last year, it will be held at the Hershey/Grand Lodge Convention Center located in downtown Hershey, PA.  

I will be hosting the Grove City College Music booth along with Dr. Edwin Arnold and other distinguished folks from Grove City.   Please feel free to stop by and chat, grab a pin, and learn about all the things that I’ve “got up my sleeve”!

Like any state conference there will be dozens of things to see, hear, and do.  You can find the full list here: http://pmea.net/conference.html   Again, good friend and colleague, Dr. Tom Rudolph will be performing a number of technology related clinics. 

If you are a ME blogger and are hosting something at the PA conference, please let us know!  If you are hosting something at the PA conference and not a ME Blogger, PLEASE JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN TODAY!  Seriously, where else can you get this kind of press so easily?
MusicEdTech & Barbara Freedman Will Present a LIVE broadcast featuring Grammy/Emmy/Clio Award Winner: Robin Batteau on April, 2, 2008 at 2:45 AM 10:45 AM EST:

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The trend in information and communication technology is very exciting at this point in time, especially if you’re in the forefront of what’s happening.  I signed up for a Ning account over a year ago, but did not do much with it.  At the time, I was becoming heavily involved with WordPress.  I knew the time would come though, when I revisited Ning as it has so much to offer.

ScreenShot:

Discussing things with future PMEA District 5 president Travis Weller , we began to formulate ideas as to how we could best build an interactive site that would allow the PMEA members a place to discuss and interact with each other in a semi-private setting.   After bouncing forth ideas, I suggest that we consider Ning as a possibility.   It may just be the “ticket”.

Ning will allow us to create a private community that will provide the opportunity for posting notes, discussing items in forums and provide an arena to share photos, videos and other types of media.    As of now, the only shortcomings that I see with it is that you can’t syndicate the “CURRENT ACTIVITY LOG” via RSS on a private NING page.   You also cannot have a public “face” to your private page from within NING, so an external web will still be required.  That being said it’s got about 90% of what we are looking for in an online social community platform and it’s FREE.

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