Thing 10: Search Tools Ninja

I decided to try duckduckgo because I teach High School students (and I'd never heard of it before!). I liked the ease and simplicity of it - and it even reminded me of a google search. I also liked how the safe search options were right at the top of the page - I didn't need to search around for it in the settings.

Here is the link to my custom music search: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=008407749930667759192:4x3jyk0odny

I compared the search of "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" across three different search engines: duckduckgo, smartpage, and sweetsearch. Here is what I found:

1. duckduckgo: only 1 ad at the top of the search. First 3 sites that came up were wikipedia, britannica.com, and biography.com
2. smartpage: 3 ads at the top of the search! First 3 sites that came up were wikipedia, britannica.com, and biography.com
3. sweetsearch: 4 ads at the top of the search! First 3 sties that came up were britannica.com, biography.com, and classicsforkids.com.

So, there were a lot of similarities, but I definitely like 1 or 0 ads, so duckduckgo was the winner for me. I also found it interesting that sweetsearch omitted wikipedia. 

This was a fascinating subject. Before investigating, I wasn't sure how I would use something like this in my classroom. I'm glad I chose Thing 10 because it has been one of the most useful sections.

Thing 06: Digital Storytelling

I decided to use sharalike because I liked how it could be used across platforms. I used my iPhone and my laptop computer. I did run into many difficulties. After allowing access to my photos on my iPhone, it would only let me choose one photo whereas I have hundreds of photos saved on my phone. So I decided to take a couple of test photos around my house. I added them to the slideshow and let the app select the music for me (I liked this feature). Then, I previewed the slide show. It looked great. When I went to save & export, I decided to use the link (https://sharalike.com/s/rD99). It shows by slideshow on the app, but when using the link, I just see the words "oops the image is not available" in place of all the images. The music does still play. I tried going through all the steps again and got the same result. The app was not intuitive to use and seemed to have a lot of difficulties (I am still not able to see any of the pictures I have taken on my phone).

I did enjoy some of the articles posted in this section, like "6 Reasons you should be doing digital storytelling with your students". I liked when the author compared the steps of digital storytelling to the steps of writing:

• Brainstorm
• Plan
• Create
• Revise
• Edit
• Publish
• Reflect

It really got me thinking about how I can incorporate some of these activities into my music classroom. 

Thing 05: Audio Tools

I am very excited to explore more audio tools. As a music teacher, I am always looking for new and exciting ways to get my students to record themselves for self reflection and for formal assessment. Right now, I use SmartMusic (google chrome & subscription based) and Audacity for recording. The one complaint about SmartMusicis that it only works with Google Chrome or iPad. Many students want to use their phone. I explored Vocaroo, and made a test recording (https://vocaroo.com/i/s03xXkRYWuAF) but then realized it did not work for recording on smartphones.
I also tried some of Mrs. Carpenters items from her Cool Tools blog. I tried Clyp on my iPhone. What confused me was that it kept asking me for my location and then gave me access to other Clyp files in my area. This was concerning, as I don't want this to happen to my student's audio recordings, nor do I want them to be distracted by other random recordings (it started playing me police dispatch audio clips as soon as I opened the app).

Thing 4: Twitter, Facebook & Personal Learning Networks

Twitter helped me find information - not all of it was good or useful. There was definitely a plethora of data, opinions, and conversations.
Yes, there were also interesting people on twitter using the hashtag #edchat. I did not recognize any of the names. I wonder if there is a specific hashtag to look for music education information?
I don't really see myself using twitter in my professional life. I have been to regional, state, and national music education conferences, and at no point was twitter even mentioned as a relevant tool in our field. At this point in time, I do not see myself using it. The only reason I might use twitter in the future would be to communicate with students - send of class reminders, calendar info, etc. In the meantime, I use the app Remind to do that.
I read many of the articles in this section (several of the web links did not work). Each and every one of them baffled me. I couldn't believe so many educators are using twitter. I had never heard of twitter being used as an educational resource.

Thing 3 : Photo Fun

Here is a photo that I found on Instagram. Because I am using a school computer and network, I had to log on to Instagram using my phone, take a screen shot, and then email it to myself. I hope this is acceptable.

My experience was a little frustrating because of all the social media blocks my school district has set up. I do see the benefits of using social media sites like SnapChat & Instagram - I really liked the one article written by the school librarian. In the classroom, we do not allow phones, and we especially don't allow social media. I would be hesitant starting something as to keep with building policy and to stay consistent with other teachers. I wouldn't want students to go to their next class, use their phone, get in trouble, and then say they were allowed to use snapchat in my class.