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November Music Education Blog Carnival

10/16/11 By 2 Comments

I am very excited to announce that MusicEdMajor.Net will be hosting the November 2011 edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival! The Music Education Blog carnival is a project of Dr. Joseph Pisano which seeks to offer music bloggers an opportunity to share their work. Each month, the blog carnival presents the blog posts of music, education and technology blogs from every corner of the web. Looking for some ideas of what to submit? Check out the categories below!

Categories

Bloggers can submit articles of a variety of concentrations including:

  • Music Advocacy
  • Music Pedagogy
  • Music Education
  • Music Performance
  • Music Software/Hardware
  • Music Technology
  • Music Tips
Articles can be of any aspect of the above categories.

Don’t Miss Your Chance!

To submit an article to the November Music Education Blog Carnival, just click this link. All you have to provide is a link to your post, your name and e-mail, and a short description of your post. It’s that easy!

Articles will be accepted through Monday, October 31st. Are you a teacher, musician, or music lover? Please consider contributing to this awesome music resource. If you have any questions regarding the blog carnival, you can Tweet me or contact me through the “Contact” page above.

Happy Blogging!

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Filed Under: Professional Development, Uncategorized, Worth Sharing Tagged With: , ,

MENC Changes Name to NAfME

09/28/11 By 1 Comment

As many of you probably know, what was formerly known as MENC has changed its name to National Association for Music Education (NAfME). NAfME began as the Music Supervisors National Conference in 1907. The organization underwent a long line of name changes, first to Music Educators National Conference, and changing again to reflect the nature of the organization – MENC: The National Association for Music Education. In an attempt to clear up any remaining confusion about the name and purpose of the group, the national association completed their name transformation to reflect what we have today, National Association for Music Education.

I had the opportunity to speak with NAfME representative Elizabeth Lasko about this transition and other exciting development in the national organization. Check out the interview below!

What Is NAfME?

NAfME Website

NAfME Press Release: Building on the Past to Shape the Future of Music Education

Follow @NAfME on Twitter!

If you were part of the MENC Facebook group, be sure to “like” the new NAfME and NAfME Collegiate pages!

MENC Changes Name to NAfME

 

Special Thanks to Elizabeth Lasko for taking the time to do this interview with us!

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Filed Under: Graduate, High School, Interview, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Tagged With: , , ,

MusicEdMajor.Net is Expanding!

08/09/11 By 2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that summer 2011 is coming to a close! In just a few short weeks we will all be heading back to school or going back to work. Many band directors already have begun their summer camps in preparation for the marching season to come. We here at MusicEdMajor.Net are also gearing up for another academic year with some fresh new changes. This site has undergone quite the transformation this summer, and has hopefully become an even better resource for Music Ed Majors of all walks of academia. Check out some of the new changes below!

New Editors

In the beginning of the summer, I had the honor of taking over as Editor in Chief of MusicEdMajor.Net. In doing so I not only wanted to continue the mission of MusicEdMajor.Net, to be a great resource for undergraduate music education majors, but expand to become a resource for high school students considering Music Education as a career path, and also graduate students building upon their undergraduate education. With this thought, I quickly realized that I needed help. While I can easily write and discuss issues dealing with undergraduate music education, I have no experience as a graduate student, and it’s been four years since I was a senior in high school. That being said, I would like to introduce the new additions to the MusicEdMajor.Net blogging team!

Sari Feinstein will serve as the High School editor for MusicEdMajor.Net. Sari comes to us from Commack High School and has had experience as an author of quite a few guest posts right here on MusicEdMajor.Net. Sari will be attending the University of North Texas as an incoming freshman Music Education Major in the fall. We have seen many great posts from Sari already on the process of applying, auditioning and choosing the right music school. We certainly look forward to many new posts from her on making the transition from high school student to music major and tips for living life as a music ed major.

Kyle Freesen will serve MusicEdMajor.Net as a Graduate Editor. Kyle is currently a graduate wind conducting student at Wright State University. At Wright State, Kyle serves as a graduate teaching assistant, teaching Brass Methods and serving as an assitant to conductor Dr. David Booth. He also has much experience blogging at his own site, The Virtual Podium. Prior to attending Wright State University, Kyle graduated from Western Illinois University and has taught as a band director at all levels of public school. We look forward to many blog posts from Kyle regarding a wide array of aspects from the graduate music major perspective.

MusicEdMajor.Net Reading List

One of the best ways to continue learning about a particular subject is to dig in to a good book. The big question is where to start? MusicEdMajor.Net is making this process a little bit easier for you with our interactive reading list. Just head over to this page to find a list of books that deal with music, education and technology uses in music education. If you find a book that’s intriguing, just click on it to be taken to Amazon for ordering! We would love your input on this list! If you have read a book that belongs on this list, let us know via the contact page, or Tweet us (@MusicEdMajor)!

Stay Tuned

These are just some of the great changes coming to MusicEdMajor.Net. With the addition of the specialized editors, we hope to have current and relevant information being regularly written for the site for every type of Music Ed Major. Get the RSS feed to stay updated with the latest posts! And as always, we value any input to the articles posted here. Just leave us a comment with your thoughts!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized, Website

Happy 2nd Birthday!

06/15/11 By Leave a Comment

Today is MusicEdMajor.Net’s 2nd birthday! This past year the site has seen some major changes, and continues to evolve into a better and better resource for music students everywhere. Check out some of MusicEdMajor.Net’s projects and accomplishments below:

Also, here are some of the top posts from the last year:

  • Music Education Week 2010 Live-Blog
  • Hire Me! Tips for Finding Your First Music Teaching Job After Graduation (guest post by Thomas J. West)

In addition to these many accomplishments and projects, MusicEdMajor.Net has experienced some other changes. With the graduation of Andy Zweibel, I was given the opportunity to fill his position as Editor-In-Chief. Andy has founded and grown a fantastic resource for music students everywhere. While he will still be helping us with some of the technical aspects of the site and writing some guest posts, Andy truly believes that the day-to-day responsibilities and content of MusicEdMajor.Net needs to be run by music majors. I am very excited for the opportunity to do this and continue the growth of this site that Andy has started.

Please continue to check back to MusicEdMajor.Net as some more great changes will be occurring! Also be sure to follow @MusicEdMajor on Twitter, and like us on Facebook to stay updated! If you would like to contribute to MusicEdMajor.Net, let us know via the contact page!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

A.P.S. Music Master Pro

06/08/11 By 2 Comments

Yesterday an iPad app (soon to be released for iPhone and iPod Touch as well as Droid platforms) was released that will change the way music teachers teach. With the release of this App comes a more simplified (and much less cluttered) way of organizing all of the tools needed to teach music, all in one App! As a summer instrumental lessons and drumline instructor, I am very excited to be able to utilize such a handy tool in my teaching. Check out all of the features below! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Worth Sharing Tagged With: , , , ,

Vote for MENC in the Chase Community Giving Campaign

05/20/11 By 3 Comments

Andy Ritenour here to offer a bit of a challenge to all of you. As you may or may not have heard, MENC is in Round 2 of voting in the Chase Community Giving Campaign. They have survived Round 1 by being in the top 100 charities with the most votes. They have made it to round 2, but to win the $500,000 at stake, they must be the charity with the most number of votes. This is where you come in.

The Challenge

The first step of our challenge is for you to go and vote. It is super easy and only takes about 30 seconds of your time. All you have to do is:

  1. Click this link
  2. “Like” Chase Community Giving
  3. Vote for MENC

That was the easy, yet necessary part of the challenge. Now for the real challenge. After you have voted, get at least 10 of your Facebook Friends to vote for MENC in the Chase Community Giving campaign! There are quite a few ways to do this:

  • Message you friends and tell them why it is important to vote for MENC.
  • Invite all of your friends to the Facebook event Vote for MENC in the Chase Community Giving Project and encourage them to do the same with all of their friends.
  • Post on your friends’ walls.

Why Vote for MENC?

As part of the requirements to move on to Round 2 of the voting, MENC had to put their Big Idea in words, telling how they would spend the $500,000. Their ideas are very noble ones:

Creativity, discipline, teamwork … just a few of the life-long benefits of music study.  But kids across the country are losing access to music as school programs are cut back or eliminated.   The most affected are those who need it most – kids in underserved communities.  We will use $150,000 to provide 100 grants of $1000 -$2500 to school music programs in the most underserved areas to help students achieve success through music.  We will use $150,000 to develop resources and to provide training to help teachers create music programs with strong foundations and also to help those whose programs are facing budget cuts.  We will use $200,000 for a national web/social media campaign to encourage kids to study music and others to support school music programs.  We will feature teachers and students in programs that have received grants – to show what is at risk and what stands to be gained.  Our BIG IDEA:  The study and making of music by all

In addition, here is a video created by MENC to show their Big Idea:

Do Your Part!

With over 70,000 members in MENC, getting enough votes for this grant shouldn’t be a problem. So now we are calling upon you to do your part to help music education! As of this morning, MENC was in 51st place with a mere 614 votes (1st place has over 5,000 votes). To catch up, we need not only for you to vote, but for you AND 10 of your friends to vote for MENC! In order for MENC to stand a chance, they need YOU to vote and spread the word! With the state of education today, we all know that Music Education can certainly use this money. So please step up to the challenge: Vote and spread the word to win $500,000 for music education!

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Filed Under: Advocacy

#MusEdChat Recap – Time Savers (12-6-10)

02/02/11 By 1 Comment

The #MusEdChat held on December 6, 2010 discussed time savers that could be used in the music office or classroom. [Read more...]

Filed Under: #MusEdChat, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
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