My (Fifth) Blog Post

As you could probably tell from the lack of the fourth blog post, I'm a little behind. I have not downloaded twitter yet, but I'll do that before the end of the week. Honestly I'm a little nervous about it because people always say that the best way to use twitter is to delete it. Maybe because you can get sucked into bad arguments with people and stay on there all day, but that's pretty much every social media platform. If I was on twitter, for educational purposes, I'd probably interact with music education platforms and resources, as I find lots of inspiring things online that I like to save from the other platforms I'm on. Having twitter may help my future career by connecting with people on the platform who may have job opportunities or professional development later. Learning how to use twitter could be good for me if I wanted to set up an account for my future band, so that we could share pictures of our group and get engagement with the community. 

The digital divide affects student success because today so much of what we do is online. Especially after covid, with things moving to zoom, google classroom, canvas, etc, it is almost expected for students to have computers. In many of my high school classes, we had to borrow computers to use for assignments. Sure, paper can still be used for lots of things, but it isn't as interactive, and paper doesn't automatically grade itself. It doesn't have the newest and improved programs and educational resources that the internet can offer. This means that if people don't have enough money to even eat everyday or get books, like many did at my school, there is no chance they'd have enough money for a computer, and maybe they wouldn't have enough access to one at the school. Obviously, money is a big reason for the digital divide. But it also comes from the long-term effects of racism, at least in our country, where people of color are on average making less money and are worse-off because of lack of generational house, high-paying jobs, higher education, housing divides, etc. To combat this in my classroom, I will be sure to know what kind of background my students come from, and provide as much computer access in the classroom that I can. I will apply to grants, hold fundraisers, and be creative with my lesson plans so that if people don't have access to computers, they won't be academically hurt by that. If any assignments are online, they will have plenty of class time to complete them. And they will never be made to feel bad by not having a computer at home.

Two software tools I would like to implement into my future classroom are Smart Music and Muse Score. Smart Music is a software that allows band directors to give students assignments or challenges to learn music and develop new skills. Students can record themselves playing and get feedback through smart music, and it will automatically be graded (for accuracy though, not necessarily musicianship). It would help with building technical skills. Muse Score is a music writing software that allows students to easily start writing their own music. There are other ones like this, but this is the only one I've used. It'd be great for students to get familiar with different clefs, ways of writing music, and making their own songs.