I have continued to branch out with my PLC. I've repeatedly tried to use my tweet deck from TCH401, but it usually gives me too much stuff and it's too broad. Lately, I've just been following the "who to follow" or "you might like" suggestions. It has led me to a number of individual educators from across the country. Some of the new ones this week are @MsRommelBand and @TeachMrReed. The coolest thing I found this week was a National Guard Sergeant who was deployed to guard the capitol back in January and refused a sub....instead, he continued teaching virtually from his Humvee!
This week I decided to be a bit of a thief....I have been looking through some of the other music educators finds and summaries to see what they have been finding. On Julie Hensel's finds for this week, she had followed "Band Directors Inclusion Kit"...so I went to check it out. Under the related pages there was a page "Compose Her", which is a page dedicated to promoting female composers. On that page I found composer Nia Imani and a beautiful work she recently completed, Chrysalis Extended and boy oh boy is it beautiful! What started with one page from Julie ended with two more pages and a wonderful piece of new music composed by a woman of color! I may not be the biggest fan of twitter, but these are the moments that I truly enjoy from it.
For this week I've been doing lots of searching and using the "connect" feature. I decided to focus on expanding my PLN, specifically with higher ed institutions. As a high school teacher, I'm often talking with my students about where they want to go to college, so this will be my way of staying engaged with colleges and universities around Illinois and the Midwest in general. It's also a great way for me to just stay informed with what's happening with music at the collegiate level!
Some of the schools I've started following include ISU, U of I, WIU, Millikin, and Northwestern. Some regional schools include Michigan, Western Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. I tried to specifically find the schools of music (being a band director and all), but some didn't seem to have them, so I followed the general school page instead.
I would recommend looking at some of the people other music teachers are following to get some ideas of where to look. You may also find some hashtags that would be valuable.
For me, week 1 has been rediscovering how much I dislike twitter. I know there's a plethora of resources and communities, but every time I get on and try to find something, it feels like I'm grasping at straws and nothing useful is in reach. There's just so much going on and I struggle to find anything I like or find useful. I have revisited my "tweet deck" that I made back when I took 401. This helps me organize twitter into less chaos, but I'm still not making any real discoveries.
Week 4:
I have continued to branch out with my PLC. I've repeatedly tried to use my tweet deck from TCH401, but it usually gives me too much stuff and it's too broad. Lately, I've just been following the "who to follow" or "you might like" suggestions. It has led me to a number of individual educators from across the country. Some of the new ones this week are @MsRommelBand and @TeachMrReed. The coolest thing I found this week was a National Guard Sergeant who was deployed to guard the capitol back in January and refused a sub....instead, he continued teaching virtually from his Humvee!
Week 3:
This week I decided to be a bit of a thief....I have been looking through some of the other music educators finds and summaries to see what they have been finding. On Julie Hensel's finds for this week, she had followed "Band Directors Inclusion Kit"...so I went to check it out. Under the related pages there was a page "Compose Her", which is a page dedicated to promoting female composers. On that page I found composer Nia Imani and a beautiful work she recently completed, Chrysalis Extended and boy oh boy is it beautiful! What started with one page from Julie ended with two more pages and a wonderful piece of new music composed by a woman of color! I may not be the biggest fan of twitter, but these are the moments that I truly enjoy from it.
Week 2:
For this week I've been doing lots of searching and using the "connect" feature. I decided to focus on expanding my PLN, specifically with higher ed institutions. As a high school teacher, I'm often talking with my students about where they want to go to college, so this will be my way of staying engaged with colleges and universities around Illinois and the Midwest in general. It's also a great way for me to just stay informed with what's happening with music at the collegiate level!
Some of the schools I've started following include ISU, U of I, WIU, Millikin, and Northwestern. Some regional schools include Michigan, Western Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. I tried to specifically find the schools of music (being a band director and all), but some didn't seem to have them, so I followed the general school page instead.
I would recommend looking at some of the people other music teachers are following to get some ideas of where to look. You may also find some hashtags that would be valuable.
For me, week 1 has been rediscovering how much I dislike twitter. I know there's a plethora of resources and communities, but every time I get on and try to find something, it feels like I'm grasping at straws and nothing useful is in reach. There's just so much going on and I struggle to find anything I like or find useful. I have revisited my "tweet deck" that I made back when I took 401. This helps me organize twitter into less chaos, but I'm still not making any real discoveries.