Earlier in the summer I started a Patreon to gather some support for this blog and podcast. One of the perks that all levels get is to join the Music Ed Tech Talk Discord server where you can talk all about your favorite music, tech, and teaching practices.
So far I have a few supporters and there has been some pretty lively discussion, particularly about the subject of grading.
Some members of the Discord decided to read Ungrading together. Ungrading is a collection of short writings by teachers who have, in varying ways, decided to eliminate some (or all) of the grading from their teaching. It sounds extreme. But so far I am finding it more practical than expected. There is a lot you can take or leave from it.
We are running a public summer book club to talk about it. The book club is going to meet over the next month or so on Wednesday’s at 8:30 pm EST. We tried it on Twitter Spaces last week with some amount of success and are going to try it on Clubhouse this coming Wednesday to see if it is a better and more engaging experience.
You do not need to be a member of my Discord to join the conversation or listen in. However, Clubhouse does require an invite. If you need one, let me know.
Here is a link to the book. Below is a link to the Clubhouse discussion.
Round 1 of my summer book club had some weirdnesses on Twitter Spaces so we are experimenting with Clubhouse next week.
DM me for invites.
“Summer Book Club: UNgrading” with Music Ed Tech Talk. Wednesday, Jul 14 at 8:30 PM EDT on @clubhouse. Join us! https://t.co/F0ZQDxykx3
I aspire to write more about my smart home setup here but doing so requires a style of writing that doesn’t always come easily for me. So I decided to podcast about it. Scroll below to hear my recent conversation with David MacDonald about how I set up my smart speakers. Click here to learn about my favorite smart home devices.
Episode Description:
Robby and David (music composition, theory, and technology teacher at the Wichita State University) compare smart speakers, their assistants, and their smart home ecosystems. This episode covers the HomePod, Google Nest, Amazon Echo, Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, Sonos speakers, and the various quirks that result from trying to use them in combination.
Backstage Access Patreon supporters get extended conversation about Apple Notes, DEVONthink, Standard Music Font Layout compatibility, FileMaker databases, student motivation, grading (and ungrading), and sticker charts.
As you can imagine, running a blog and podcast isn’t free. Costs of tools and hosting fees are monthly investments, not to mention the countless hours it takes to edit, publish, find guests, and other logistics.
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<div class="image-caption"><p class="">Backstage Access patrons get access to an early-access podcast feed with bonus discussion. Ooooooh…. look at that pretty alternate artwork.</p></div>
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As public school teaching and private teaching are already far greater responsibilities in my life, this site has remained largely a hobby project to share the tools and strategies that help me manage my actual job, which is performing and teaching.
This past year, COVID forced me to be home more often and I felt a great need to share more of my experience with technology during a year where people needed it. I bumped up my average publishing to two episodes a month and a few blog posts.
I’d like to maintain that pace into the future and continue to produce deep, high quality content, that helps both teachers who are new to technology and those who are looking for more out of it.
All supporters get a video update once a month which is kind of like an extended version of the Tech Tip/Apps/Albums of the week segments of my podcast. All supporters also get invited to the Music Ed Tech Talk Discord community. All you need is a Discord account and then you can join other patrons and guests to talk about tech, music, pedagogy, lesson ideas, hardware, tech support, and more.
There has already been some lively discussion there. I hope you will join in on the fun!
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<div class="image-caption"><p class="">The Music Ed Tech Talk Discord community is a place you can talk with me and others about all things music, teching, technology, and more.</p></div>
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Its been a busy few weeks as I have been wrapping up the end of a tough school year. While I am late to getting this week’s podcast episode out, I have been working on this site and have a bunch of content to share in the coming week.
I managed to sneak in enough time during the last week of school to watch Apple’s WWDC Keynote and to talk about it on Music Ed Tech Talk with Craig McClellan (cohost of my other podcast, The Class Nerd).
It was an opportunity to take a nice break from the challenging end-of-year procedures, and to think about how Apple’s fall software updates will impact how I get work done in the classroom. Listen below.
Robby and Craig break down the announcements from Apple’s Word Wide Developer Conference and discuss how teachers might use the upcoming features to their latest software updates.
Music Ed Tech Talk 