Techology is the buzz word of today’s society. Schools are desireing to upgrade their curriculum to include methods of the 21st century each year. Parents seek out the top schools where their child will gain an understanding in computers and other techological sources as well as the major subjects in the curriculum. As a future educator, this pushes teachers towards using technology on a regular basis in their classroom. Is this transition actually a good one or not?
There are wonderful ways that technology has advanced the music curriculum. For example, with a program like finale students can better learn to compose and even hear what they wrote as it is played back to them. Band-in-a-box can be hugely useful to assist beginning players in a small band setting to learn to play from chord charts. Programs have even been created for band directors to write their marching band drill on the computer and then sequence all of the commands to watch the drill. This would save hours of plotting out simple points with pencil and paper.
With all of these wonderful advances, do music educators have anything to worry about? I would venamently say “YES!” We have to guard our classroom from becoming a computer class. Students come to band or choir to learn to sing/play, not work computers. If we begin to get to caught up with the latest technology we may waste precious class time explaining programs instead of the music behind the programs.
As a student at Grove City College I recieved a personal laptop when I arrived my freshman year. The first week I went to a class to learn about all of the cool features that the machine can do. I was overwhelmed and amazed for example that I could actually take written notes right onto my computer.
I’m now a junior and have yet to use that “wonderful” feature of my computer. I relized in the first week that with my music classes it was so much easier to just take notes with pencil and paper so I could write on staff paper sometimes and notebook paper other times. This notebook is lighter to carry to class and keeps me from wasting time formatting my notes. This has taught me that though the technology may be available to you, it is not always most efficient to use it at all times.
So to use or not to use…….I’d recommend examining the particular situation closely before investing in the time and money to use technology as an everyday part of the music classroom.
Pictures from Yotophoto 
Information for this article was gleaned from this music technology site: http://www.mustech.net/2007/03/music-education-and-technology-a-realists-approach/
Check out how another music educator feels about this topic by going to: http://alleyjazz13.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/music-technology-a-realists-approach/
