Well, we're into week 4 at VanderCook. Week 4 is when things start getting, well, interesting around here. This morning's Instructional Design class was a perfect example of this. All of the students were incredibly slap happy, and our poor instructor just about lost his mind. Yeah, we took advantage of his ADD as well. Highly entertaining for all around!
Besides everyone becoming completely loopy, week 4 is when people start to crack under pressure. The homework load greatly increases, and doesn't let up until the end of week 6. The second concert is this week, which just adds to the fun, especially when everyone is trying frantically to get their work done at the same time.
For students who are graduating (myself included), portfolios are due this week. Comp exams (for those of us who didn't want to make a portfolio) are this week. Papers are being revised and edited at a frantic pace so that they'll be ready to turn in one last time. Posters are being made (or printed digitally) and prepared for Poster Night.
So, in general, things are getting very interesting and VERY intense around here! The only thing more entertaining (well, at least for the professors and the casual observer) is week 5. That's when the nervous twitch begins...
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Fun with Audacity!
Last week, in class, we learned a few new tips and tricks about Audacity. I have worked with Audacity, however I don't use it as much anymore as there was so much that I could do in GarageBand just as well.
I'm starting to see differently, now. I learned how to reverse a track, which will be a lot of fun to do with my 7th grade students as we study Rock & Roll music in class...hello Beatles! I also learned how to remove the vocals from a track (well, mostly), which will help when I need to remove certain words from a song for our dance line group, or when they need a karaoke-type track for the variety show, and you can't find one on iTunes (it HAS happened before). If you'd like to know how to do this, let me know and I'll try to make a tutorial for it. I have a feeling I'll be doing this anyways for some of the teachers at my school...that way THEY know how to do it and I don't have to do everyone's work!
I love having all sorts of new tools and tricks at my disposal!
I'm starting to see differently, now. I learned how to reverse a track, which will be a lot of fun to do with my 7th grade students as we study Rock & Roll music in class...hello Beatles! I also learned how to remove the vocals from a track (well, mostly), which will help when I need to remove certain words from a song for our dance line group, or when they need a karaoke-type track for the variety show, and you can't find one on iTunes (it HAS happened before). If you'd like to know how to do this, let me know and I'll try to make a tutorial for it. I have a feeling I'll be doing this anyways for some of the teachers at my school...that way THEY know how to do it and I don't have to do everyone's work!
I love having all sorts of new tools and tricks at my disposal!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The coolest invention ever made! (Ok, maybe not the coolEST, but pretty awesome!)
I introduce guitar to my 7th grade students, and continue into 8th grade with an advanced class. One of the problems that I have run into is the problem of guitar picks. I've had so many guitar picks either grow legs and walk away or they simply vanish into thin air...have you ever had this happen? I've tried so many different systems to keep them, from making a little holder to labeling each of them, to simply banning picks completely unless they bring their own in. Still, they vanished. It's hard to narrow down who helped the pick escape the classroom when up to 3 or 4 kids are using that guitar/pick on a given day.
On plurk, a friend of mine shared a link that made me so excited for this fall. It's called a Pick Punch. You can either buy sheeting from them in various colors, OR you can use items such as old, used up gift cards, credit cards, club cards, etc. So, instead of me purchasing picks over and over again, I think I'm going to buy a Pick Punch and start saving up old gift cards (and ask teachers, students and family/friends to do the same). Gift cards have so many designs.
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20110702/diy-guitar-pick-punch/
http://www.pickpunch.com/
On plurk, a friend of mine shared a link that made me so excited for this fall. It's called a Pick Punch. You can either buy sheeting from them in various colors, OR you can use items such as old, used up gift cards, credit cards, club cards, etc. So, instead of me purchasing picks over and over again, I think I'm going to buy a Pick Punch and start saving up old gift cards (and ask teachers, students and family/friends to do the same). Gift cards have so many designs.
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20110702/diy-guitar-pick-punch/
http://www.pickpunch.com/
2 down, 4 to go!
Friday marked the end of the second week of grad school. I have four more weeks to go before I am official a "Master of Music Education." Ok, maybe not that EXACT title, but it sounds cool! I know my husband will be VERY happy when this is over...I've been slightly neglectful of him lately. It's a good thing he's pretty self-sufficient and can take care of himself (mostly).
Friday also marked the day that I turned in my Master's Project. I will admit, there were a few moments when I wondered if I would EVER get this project finished! I had an additional moment of "WHAT" when, at about 12:30 in the morning, I seem to have lost my project. After a few moments of freaking out, I was able to recover a backed up copy (minus about an hour's worth of revisions). PHEW! I have no idea what I had done, but, being 12:30 in the morning, I didn't have my head on enough to realize that I had saved it in about 10 places. That, and when I looked at that original, messed up 12:30 am copy last night...it looked fine. Maybe my brain was over-tired...or the mere thought of having to start over just put me in a whole new place of panic.
So, here's my life in the next 4 weeks.
Week 3: not much specifically. Mostly homework. And studying. And making a poster.
Week 4: Keep making a poster. Comp Exam! YIKES!
Week 5: Turn in final copy of Master's Project. Present project during Poster Night. This is also the dreaded week 5 where everyone goes bonkers from the stress. It's not a rumor, it's true. I've experienced it.
Week 6: BREATHE. I graduate at the end of this! I'm a Master of Music Ed!
Friday also marked the day that I turned in my Master's Project. I will admit, there were a few moments when I wondered if I would EVER get this project finished! I had an additional moment of "WHAT" when, at about 12:30 in the morning, I seem to have lost my project. After a few moments of freaking out, I was able to recover a backed up copy (minus about an hour's worth of revisions). PHEW! I have no idea what I had done, but, being 12:30 in the morning, I didn't have my head on enough to realize that I had saved it in about 10 places. That, and when I looked at that original, messed up 12:30 am copy last night...it looked fine. Maybe my brain was over-tired...or the mere thought of having to start over just put me in a whole new place of panic.
So, here's my life in the next 4 weeks.
Week 3: not much specifically. Mostly homework. And studying. And making a poster.
Week 4: Keep making a poster. Comp Exam! YIKES!
Week 5: Turn in final copy of Master's Project. Present project during Poster Night. This is also the dreaded week 5 where everyone goes bonkers from the stress. It's not a rumor, it's true. I've experienced it.
Week 6: BREATHE. I graduate at the end of this! I'm a Master of Music Ed!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Test, test, test
This is not an emergency. This is just a test.
I'm trying to see if I followed all of the directions and settings correctly to post my blog directly to Facebook and Twitter. We shall see!
I'm trying to see if I followed all of the directions and settings correctly to post my blog directly to Facebook and Twitter. We shall see!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Who I Am
I'm hoping to get back into blogging again, and thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce myself to the blogging world.
My name is Jennifer Kolze, and I am a music teacher and musician.
I teach 3rd-8th Grade General and Vocal Music for a small school district in the western suburbs of Chicago. My students sing, play recorders, guitars, and percussion instruments, learn about music around the world, compose their own music, and explore their own musical interests and tastes. They are exposed to tools such as GarageBand, Audacity, NoteFlight, MuseScore, SmartMusic, and much more.
Music has always been an important part of my life. I have been singing as long as I can remember. I've been playing clarinet since I was 9 years old, and have added many other instruments to that list since then. I currently play in a community band and am hoping to get back into singing in a community choir. I love to surround myself with music, whether it's creating my own or just listening to music while I'm working around the house or in the garden.
I am currently a graduate student at VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, IL. This is my final summer of residency (yay!). One of the classes I am taking is called Instructional Design (I'm actually in class RIGHT NOW!), and am hoping to share a lot of new tips, tricks, and tools that I learn in here and can use with my incredible students!
My name is Jennifer Kolze, and I am a music teacher and musician.
I teach 3rd-8th Grade General and Vocal Music for a small school district in the western suburbs of Chicago. My students sing, play recorders, guitars, and percussion instruments, learn about music around the world, compose their own music, and explore their own musical interests and tastes. They are exposed to tools such as GarageBand, Audacity, NoteFlight, MuseScore, SmartMusic, and much more.
Music has always been an important part of my life. I have been singing as long as I can remember. I've been playing clarinet since I was 9 years old, and have added many other instruments to that list since then. I currently play in a community band and am hoping to get back into singing in a community choir. I love to surround myself with music, whether it's creating my own or just listening to music while I'm working around the house or in the garden.
I am currently a graduate student at VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, IL. This is my final summer of residency (yay!). One of the classes I am taking is called Instructional Design (I'm actually in class RIGHT NOW!), and am hoping to share a lot of new tips, tricks, and tools that I learn in here and can use with my incredible students!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Back Home
Every year, during the last week of January, a special thing occurs. All around the state, hundreds of music teachers take a day or two off of work and meet up in Peoria, IL for a special event...
called IMEA.
This year marks my fourth consecutive year attending the conference. It's always a fun time, because you're in a building full of people who UNDERSTAND YOU. They understand your passion for solfege and the excitement that comes when your 4th grade clarinet player finally crosses the break...and they know what that means. They understand the struggles you face of scheduling and trying to cram way too many lessons in the day because you want to see all of your students. They get it...because they live it. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm in an amazing district where music is greatly valued and appreciated...but it's still nice to be able to speak the language of music with others without having someone looking at you like you're from another planet.
It's also nice being able to reconnect with friends that you don't get to see face-to-face very often. We spend so much time texting, emailing, reading each other's blogs, writing on each other's facebook walls, responding to plurks or tweets that we almost feel like we know each other...but it's wonderful to actually TALK to the person across from the table and see what they actually look like in 3-D. Each year, I'm amazed at how many more people I have to "find" that I've reconnected with somehow/somewhere.
And then, of course, there are the sessons and the exhibit halls. Sessions talking about integration, teaching across the curriculum, sight-singing, inclusion for special needs children, using technology in the classroom, helping the middle school boy through the changing voice (a JOYOUS time for all middle school choir directors!), and everything else under the sun. The exhibits are full of shiny new instruments, music waiting to be played or sung, new books to help remind us of what we intrinsically know as educators and some things we have never thought of.
And every year I come home exhausted, yet excited and full of new ideas that I can hardly wait to show my kids. I come home with more catalogs than I know what to do with. And of course I come home with bags of "gourmet lollipops" for my kids to try to earn as a special reward. This year, I also came home with one of these: http://www.wengercorp.com/Teach/footNOTES.html. It's a rug...a very large rug. And I won it in a drawing that the Wenger peeps hold every year. My friend Steve almost always wins a stand...but I came home with a rug that I have to somehow get into my car so I can take it to school tomorrow morning and show my kids.
So tomorrow I return to life and school, hopefully with some new tips and tricks up my sleeve and a new energy and focus for the remainder of the school year. I'm also more energized to get back to work blogging and putting myself out there to connect with other music educators, as well as getting to work to build my website that I've been dreaming about and planning for who-knows-how-long. I want to do my part to contribute to my profession...there are some pretty big shoes out there to fill.
Life is good.
called IMEA.
This year marks my fourth consecutive year attending the conference. It's always a fun time, because you're in a building full of people who UNDERSTAND YOU. They understand your passion for solfege and the excitement that comes when your 4th grade clarinet player finally crosses the break...and they know what that means. They understand the struggles you face of scheduling and trying to cram way too many lessons in the day because you want to see all of your students. They get it...because they live it. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm in an amazing district where music is greatly valued and appreciated...but it's still nice to be able to speak the language of music with others without having someone looking at you like you're from another planet.
It's also nice being able to reconnect with friends that you don't get to see face-to-face very often. We spend so much time texting, emailing, reading each other's blogs, writing on each other's facebook walls, responding to plurks or tweets that we almost feel like we know each other...but it's wonderful to actually TALK to the person across from the table and see what they actually look like in 3-D. Each year, I'm amazed at how many more people I have to "find" that I've reconnected with somehow/somewhere.
And then, of course, there are the sessons and the exhibit halls. Sessions talking about integration, teaching across the curriculum, sight-singing, inclusion for special needs children, using technology in the classroom, helping the middle school boy through the changing voice (a JOYOUS time for all middle school choir directors!), and everything else under the sun. The exhibits are full of shiny new instruments, music waiting to be played or sung, new books to help remind us of what we intrinsically know as educators and some things we have never thought of.
And every year I come home exhausted, yet excited and full of new ideas that I can hardly wait to show my kids. I come home with more catalogs than I know what to do with. And of course I come home with bags of "gourmet lollipops" for my kids to try to earn as a special reward. This year, I also came home with one of these: http://www.wengercorp.com/Teach/footNOTES.html. It's a rug...a very large rug. And I won it in a drawing that the Wenger peeps hold every year. My friend Steve almost always wins a stand...but I came home with a rug that I have to somehow get into my car so I can take it to school tomorrow morning and show my kids.
So tomorrow I return to life and school, hopefully with some new tips and tricks up my sleeve and a new energy and focus for the remainder of the school year. I'm also more energized to get back to work blogging and putting myself out there to connect with other music educators, as well as getting to work to build my website that I've been dreaming about and planning for who-knows-how-long. I want to do my part to contribute to my profession...there are some pretty big shoes out there to fill.
Life is good.
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