Insert Trumpet Fanfare Here!
100 Music Education Bloggers by January of 2009
Mustech.net and the DigitalMusicEducator.wordpress.com have started a campaign to have 100 Music Educators blogging about music, education, and technology by January of 2009. We are inviting you to join our campaign and become an active blogger! This truly is the ground-floor of what IS the next wave of educational communication and thought/idea sharing for our fields (and every other one!).
There are a number of reasons that an educator will blog:
Starting your blog requires little more than a rudimentary knowledge of navigating the internet and basic word-processing skills. Creating a blog is so easy that you will be dumbfounded as to how easy it is and wondering why you didn’t use this extremely valuable informational outlet 5 years ago.
Personally, we cannot even begin to tell you the benefits that we’ve received by starting to blog over a year ago. We are some of the very first generation music educators to utilize this type of technology.Conversations about music education have not only been nationwide but have transcended the international boundary by dialogue with people from Canada, South America, England, Finland, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and many more. The insight gained from these other cultures about how they view and incorporate music into their schools and curriculum is EYE-OPENING!We have started a static page on mustech.net (https://mustech.net/100-me-bloggers) that is dedicated to helping you start, maintain, and have a successful blog and blog experience. This is gearing up now and will contain the active list of bloggers that are part of the ME blogger phenomenon.
Many articles, screencasts, tutorials, and helpful items will be available from that area as well as support from the mustech.net forums. We are promising you free help and to be YOUR DIGITAL MENTOR in this process as we know that you will become OUR and OTHERS DIGITAL MENTORS in many other music related areas.
We are currently recommending starting your blog by obtaining your own free site from http://wordpress.com or http://blogger.com. Signup at either site is both free and easy!
Do you want to be considered an ME Blogger (ME TOO!). Here are the basic rules:
- You must have (or have started) a blog site and not a simple website.
- You must agree to post 2 or more posts per month about a topic that is interesting to you, your students, the music audience as a whole, etc. that related to music education and/or music technology in the classroom environment. Literally, you can almost blog about anything related… the “world is your oyster!”
- You must agree to not “covet” your materials and share them with the world under a creative commons license (your pick!).
- You must actively participate in our “global conversation” about our field by joining in the conversation with others:
- Agreeing to comment on two others ME Bloggers posts per month
- Share your blog with others by linking to the other ME Bloggers in either your blogroll or a page of ME Bloggers
- Agreeing to answer legitimate quesions by ME Bloggers and others that post questions on your site in a timely manner.
- Let me know you exist! Comment after this post, or visit our contact page!
- When you become an ME blogger, post about our campaign as much as you want, tell your friends…we know this is going to be a long haul…let’s take the first step together!
At the “end of the day”, you really will see these requirements are “nothing at all”, I only post them as a guideline to encourage you all to blog and be successful bloggers. Look for a whole lot more posts about digital mentoring from Owen and I in the weeks and months to come…
We promise to help you as much as you need it! I’ve created a special forum here for the ME Bloggers. In order to use it and/or see it (and to protect the forum) you must subscribe to mustech.net here.
I hope you will join us and say, “ME TOO”! I look forward to hearing from you. We hope to have a very “sophisticated” cool looking logo for you to include on your web soon that you can post to proudly show you are a “ME BLOGGER”!
You can view the updated information and list of people currently considered to be here (to be posted by the end of the 2nd week of January).
Hey Joe-
Here’s to a great 2008 and hoping you’ll count me in as a one of your ME bloggers.
http://mystro2b.wordpress.com
-Ken
Ken,
Sure! You have such a great site and useful information! I’m still meaning to properly get you listed here. Things have been so hectic with the holidays and my teaching/clinic schedule. I’m actually typing this 1000+ miles from home now, in Florida…Which I can’t complain, because it’s almost 80 here and under 30 degrees at home!
Best regards,
Joe
This is a great idea! I will do all I can through the Music Tech for ME Podcast and blog to help promote this venture. You have also challenged me to post and comment more than I have in the past.
Blessings,
Keith Mason
Music Tech for ME
[…] is starting a campaign to get 100 music educators blogging by January of 2009. I urge you to check out his post about this campaign and consider starting your own blog […]
[…] if you are thinking about becoming a ME BLOGGER, don’t think anymore! Just Do It! We will help […]
Hi fellow music afficionados. Some time ago, I started a Ning Network called “…the music is free…”(http://musicisfree.ning.com) with the intent of organizing a community of practice around teachers who either use or want to use music in the classroom. Anyone interested in music and/or education is welcome to join up with us. Currently, I am co-hosting a free six week exploratory course titled “I Got Rhythm: Music in the Classroom” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/musicbridges/) in conjunction with TESOL’s EVO 08 (Electronic Village Online- 08)(http://evo08sessionscfp.pbwiki.com/). This class already has 72 international students on the second day of class and I expect a few more late joiners in the first week – you are not too late. I am submitting a request to include the Blog at “…the music is free…” Ning network site as one of your 100 Music Education Bloggers. I hope you will find that our international group has the sufficient skill and knowledge to join.
Thanks in advance,
Elderbob Brannan
PS. I think this is an awesome and wonderful task and we are going to continue to read your blog regardless whether you accept us or not.
Please include me in your 100 bloggers.
Your work is humbling Joe! I’m pleased to support a great project. I’ve found my loyalties divided in recent months between the various social networks and self-publishing sites I’m into, so my blog has taken 2nd place. I wonder if others have encountered this problem? I’m heavily into a few ning networks, I’m doing some reflection on a wiki, then there’s my professional musician blog and my elearning-for-music blog! Shooosh!
A new development in the UK is the need for all teachers to reflect on their professional development – it’s blogging dressed up for a a new professional standards initiative, so I hope more UK teachers will get the bug to blog.
Happy New Year Professor Joseph and to fellow music enthusiasts! This is such an awesome idea and you have my support.
[…] Joe Pisano at musictech.net is an incredibly proactive blogger! I’m most grateful for his dedicated work and humbled that he’s including me is his project to build a community of music education bloggers. He is a real community guy, not only publishing his own reflections but contributing to the conversations around the music education blog network – except that’s the current ‘hole’ – there is a surprisingly flimsy network of music education bloggers. In other areas of education you find substantial networks (see Classroom 2.0) but us musos are late (as usual). […]
Count me in.
http://stengel99.wordpress.com
I have always been amazed how open music educators are about freely sharing information and ideas. As tightly as we may cling to copyrights and intellectual property, we are also a community who are eager to share new insights and wisdom with one another. Can you think of a better way to do than than through a blog?
[…] have been blogging about teaching for a while. I came across a post by Joseph Pisano (the original post is here) where he is trying to get at least 100 Music Education Bloggers blogging about music education or […]
Rising to the challenge, I just started a blog as a birthday present to me.
Liz,
Thanks so much for joining our challenge! Welcome aboard. Make sure you read the post https://mustech.net/100-me-bloggers for great information to help you get started. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything.
I’ll be posting a new updated list some time next week and I’ll be sure you’re on it!
-J. Pisano
Hi Dr. Pisano! You already know that I exist! Add me to the list!
-AH
[…] I have the honour of being the 50th music education blogger at the MusTech.Net website. This is a great idea to encourage 100 music educators to start blogging by January 2009. If you are a music educator and don’t yet get involved in sharing practice and ideas over the airwaves then Blogging or commenting is a helpful way of reflecting, sharing and contributing to the development of the profession. I know from my experience that talking to others has been the BEST way to improve my teaching. More information and the complete list at MusTech.Net […]
I would like to be a part of your blogging community. My site is directed towards beginning music teachers from the perspective a 2nd year teacher.
My new blog/forum/etc site is hot off the server. I hope to feature the blogs of many of the folks on this list!
http://www.phonascus.net
Thanks!
TK
I would love to join the Me Blogger. Please sign me up! My site is called Creative kid music. It is a site for music educators, parents and students to share ideas and receive helpful tips elated to music.
Thanks!
Dan
Hey, this is such a great idea! it helps bring music educators the exposure that they desire as well as bring those who are interested in their own music education, the information that they need, at their finger-tips. Check out my site, if it fits with the list, I would be more than honored to be apart of this.
What’s the count now up to?
I’ve already been doing this without knowing this was out there.
Check mine out if you dare.
http://rizzrazz.vox.com/
Nice post. Music education is very important. Some music educators really know what they are doing. The thing is that there are many music blogs out there that give out iffy advice. Some of them are very good though.
I’m just starting out blogging, but I’d like to contribute. My site is about starting new band directing/music education jobs and my experiences in doing that this year. Please count me in.
Hey, I stumbled onto this looking for good resources for my new blog. I’d really like to join this charge. Please add me to your list!
Thanks,
Derek
Dr. Pisano,
After some teachers at my school used a wiki quite successfully to organize student work on a project, I have been thinking about whether wikis and blogs could be useful in a performance-class setting. The 100 ME Bloggers campaign was the push over the edge for me. Please take a look at my (neophyte) blog and consider it for inclusion in the list.
Thanks,
Cary
http://thirdstream.musiced.net/
I’ve been posting an online Player’s Journal for about seven years. I’d like to be added to the MEBloggers list.
http://www.frogstoryrecords.com/player_journal.html
By the way, your contact page seems to be broken. It says to use the secure AJAX-enabled form, but no form shows up.
Steve
Steve,
Thanks. I’ll be checking out your site soon. Also, thanks for pointing out the missing contact page bar… I upgraded the form last week and it must have crashed… I’ll fix it ASAP.
Steve, et.al…
Fixed the contact form… It’s up and running again! Thanks for the “heads up”!
Dr. Joe – since joining the Music Ed. Carnival my readership has gone up drastically. I have also made lots of contacts from folks all over the world and even did a podcast interview with Larry Marra at musicteachers911. I think it’s great that we are adopting this medium as a group – who would’ve thunk?!
Eugene,
I appreaciate all you are doing as well. Larry is a great guy… I think I still have to “get back” to him on a few items as well… Sorry, so long for the reply. I also just sent you an email… see if you received it.
Hello,
I wanted to request adding the Music Teacher’s Helper Blog to your ME Blogger list. The blog has been around for a couple years already and continues to go strong, with new articles being submitted weekly by several experienced music teachers.
Topics range from teaching tips, to studio mangement,
performing, practicing, promoting your studio, and more. There are hundreds of past articles available to search through as well.
Check it out at:
http://www.musicteachershelper.com/blog
While you’re there, be sure to look around the rest of the Music Teacher’s Helper website. Music Teacher’s Helper is a web application that helps private music teachers manage the business side of their studios: billing, scheduling, practice logging, lent items, invoicing, etc. and each teacher gets their own free website to showcase their studio.
The main website address is http://www.musicteachershelper.com for anyone who’s interested.
Thanks!
[…] list of 100 Music Education Bloggers (ME Bloggers–get it now?) for the year 2008! Mr. Pisano announced this idea in January of 2008, as an effort to help bring more Music Educators into the field of blogging and […]