The best... FREE App... I've ever downloaded!!!!

If you are like me with technology, you are always using it in your classroom for various things.  As a music teacher I am big on the idea of multimedia... I show tons of pictures, let them listen to lots of music (go figure), show lots of videos, and use my iPad to display just about everything under the sun.

This is where Doceri comes in...

Here's the App's icon so you know you got the right one!!

I admit to you right now that I use Doceri EVERY DAY in my classroom.  I've got an iPad and an AppleTV set up in my room, and Doceri is open all the time.  The kids even know how to use it because I have them edit things on it.  I have also used Doceri to flip my classroom for the recorder, recording myself teaching the songs to the kids so they can learn it at home and come to school to test  or get some refining help.  I have also used Doceri to teach a lesson to leave for a sub... yup... I gave the sub the youTube link and she pressed play... no sub plan needed!!

Here is a list of a few ways you can use Doceri:

1. Use it as a white board... only mobile because you can hand it to a student to write on.

2. Take a picture of a piece of music or a text and use Doceri's markers/highlighters/shapes... to annotate it.

3. Record a lesson where you are writing on the "board" and post it for parents or for students to get extra help.

4. Record a lesson for a kid who was absent!!

5. Create a slide show with a voice over... or have the KIDS create a slideshow with a voice over!

6. Use the staff background to compose music as a class!!

and my personal favorite....

7. Have your iPad on Airplay... stand in the hall where the kids can't see you after their teacher dropped them off... and write messages like "STOP talking" and "I'm watching you!!!!" for them... totally freaks all of them out.

Screen shot off of the Apple iTunes site!

Seriously, this is something that I use very often and it is free, so get excited and try it out... it changed my teaching... and made it sooooo much easier.

Room for 2013-2014!!! We're ready to go!!!

Hello again!!  I thought that I would put up pictures of my room this year to show everyone what it looks like for 2013-2014!!!  So here goes:

Genres and the music word wall is featured on my cabinets this year!  The paw print will move to focus on a new word each week!

This is the back of the room and the seating for this year.  I decided to go with an unusual idea this year and put some chairs and tables in the room so the kids aren't met with just this huge open (wild) space!

Boomwhackers!!!! ... and the best little poster in the world from my friend Julie!

Here's the front of the room with books on the far right and computers on the far left.

This wall has their file folders for each grade level and the cutest decorations in the room!  Each year my Honor Choir does a festival and we get t-shirts, so I'm stapling the shirt to a canvas each year and adding more to the wall as we go!

This is where the kids' supplies are... clipboards, dry erase boards and markers, crayons, etc.... all within reach!

I've got a desk again!!!!  This is my own personal corner of the universe which features the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Blackhawks, a little Wicked, and other random fun things and of course Harm.... he's my beautiful Macbook Pro on the desk!

This is in the front of the classroom and has become my motto:  "Be a Problem Solver, Not a Problem Maker!!!"

And the last is a board in the front of the room that show just a few things right now... I would assume that more would be added in... right now it just shows the blog address for the kids, what their edmodo logins are going to be and a poster about tattling...

So there's my room for the year!!!  Now I'm off to work on the school music blog to show off for the parents!!  If you want to see what we are doing during the school year, check it out: Music At TW

More to add with Binder Organization

All right... here is another one.  As I'm putting my stuff together for my room, I'm realizing how much stuff I actually have.  I also realized that when I'm teaching during the year, I sometimes forget what I've got in my toolbox for teaching.  For that reason, I'm organizing my curricular tools into a certain format in my binders now.  A lot of you saw my binder system from a previous post, but I've decided to tweak that just a bit this year for ease.  Instead of creating the lesson plans for each year, I want to remind myself of the resources I have available to me.  So for each unit of the different grade levels I'm composing a list that follows this format (for example)

1st Grade Rhythms (tells the unit)

Rhythm Performance (1 on 1 Assessment) (gives the assessments of the unit and their format)
Rhythm Creation (P/P Test)
Rhythm Dictation (P/P Test)
Cabinet: (location of resource with list of items I can use - in this case filing cabinet)
     - Rhythm Baseball Cards
     - Rhythm Books on Binder Rings
     - Pool Noodles with Rhythm Symbols
     - Rhythm Train Cards
     - etc.
Music Library: (Kid Picture books I use to teach with)
Curriculum Pages: (Pages in the textbooks I can use to teach concepts with)
Worksheets/Other Print Sources: (This would be kept in the binder)
Teacher Computer: (Things like powerpoints or SMARTboard lessons I have saved)
Videos: (Web-based or saved to my school computer)
Web-Based Resources: (Websites with games or things I can use)

Now when you look at it, you might think that it is some serious micromanaging... which it is... in the beginning.  If you don't have any videos or books to go with a unit, don't include that topic.  My thoughts are this though... I'm only going to put resources on here that I have used or I want to try.  I can easily add new things to the list each year or take things away.  The best part is that when I go to plan out my unit, I know what I have.  I know that I have to assess them three different ways at the end of the unit.  I know that I have rhythm books available for them to use on their own.  I know the different games that I want to play with them, and I'll know what other resources will make up my unit.  Anyways, I thought this would be a helpful idea for those that look at their classroom and realize they have all these resources and don't remember what they have and don't have when they start their unit.

My Classroom

I thought that I would let everyone check out my new theme for the school year!!  Our school theme is genres, jumping on board with the Common Core Standards and working on academic focus.  Well, of course, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk to the kids about musical genres as well.

The above picture is what is going on in the front of my classroom, my "desk" (two random tables) is there on the left, with my randomness bulletin board that has my schedule.  The black cart next to it houses my document camera every year, which is quite nice.  Then the top runner has Country, Pop, Jazz, Classical, and Rock artist around it so kids can see all different people in music.

Then we have the back of my classroom with the digital piano, some boomwhackers, and our theme title.  The blue stripe on the back is an idea I stole off Pinterest of having a timeline.  I'm going to have the kids talk about what they learned at the end of each unit and we're going to put up some cool stuff for what we've done.

The white bookcase (a new donation from my third grade pal Nicki) has crayon boxes, markers, white boards, dry erase markers, white boards, clipboards, and basically everything that the kids need to work on all their stuff in class.

On this front board, I'm going to put different reminders up about upcoming dates and tests and things like that.  I just laminated some cardstock, so I can use a vis a vis or I can use dry erase markers on it.

Here are my file folders for 2nd-5th grade.  Each class is a different color and each student has a numbered folder.  This way, when they are doing group projects or anything like that, they can just put things in their folders and it is their responsibility to make sure it is in the right place.  It's actually quite nice to have them keep track of their stuff!!

So that is my classroom basically.  My other wall has a bunch of boring cabinets that you don't want to see.  For now that's all I got going on, and I'll be posting some new stuff later on as we are getting into the school year.