Mr. B's Blog

www.vocaroo.com I discovered Vocaroo.com last year through Dr. Alex Ruthmann.  Vocaroo is an online voice recorder which gives you a link to the recording along with the ability to download in multiple forms.  It was not working on my school server when I tried it a few months.  I checked it out again yesterday as I was trying to find an alternative to Google Voice for another teacher who wanted a recording to last over three minutes.  I was pleasantly surprised that is fully functional and now even lets you upload recordings.  Sure you can do this on SoundCloud but you need to log into that.  As a teacher, I find that 20% of my time spent utilizing technology is filling out usernames and passwords.  Luckily, some cloud-based software are now letting you sign in with your Google account.  Vocaroo requires no username or password so it is a winner in my book.  You can even receive an embed code for your website.   One negative i...

Hi Everyone, I purchased the Samsung Google Chromebook for $250.00 from Best Buy back in October.  I think it is important to share my reviews about this technology.  A lot of schools right now are in a state of flux.  Do we buy iPads, Kindle Fires, new Windows laptops, or Chromebooks?  Everyone I talk to that has purchased a tablet has ended up buying an iPad.  So if you are going to use a device just for apps, by all means get an iPad!  Last year I worked in the Lowell Public Schools and they spent at least a million dollars on all new MacBook and iPad carts in every school.  I was in charge of the carts for two of the schools I worked in.  I can sum up the iPad up in this fashion: it is great for looking up information and online text books.  Apps, unless in special ed or foreign language, are really difficult to utilize in a normal lesson.  I am proud to say I don't own an iPad...I'm pretty content with my iPhone.  M...

With the new teacher evaluation system engulfing our school systems in  Massachusetts, music teachers are looking for creative ways to provide  evidence of formative assessment. Many ensemble directors require students to meet with them individually after  school to perform scales, solos, sight-reading, and repertoire.  Over the  last decade, new software has come out which makes it possible for students  to perform assignments online at home.  However, such software is often rising in costs each year and some students do not have a home computer with internet access.   What if there was a way for students to perform selections at home for free?  There is an answer and it is called Google Voice.  It is pretty simple as Google will offer a new phone number for each Google account which will  forward calls, voicemails, and text messages to any number of your choosing.  The voicemails in particular are saved as mp3...

Going Beyond the B-flat Scale Whole/Half/Quarter/Eighth/Sixteenth Band Warm-Up!   Over the past few weeks I have been doing some major soul searching of what makes a great band rehearsal.  This semester I passed out "Songs of Earth, Water, Fire, and Sky" by Robert W. Smith.  I quickly collected this piece back when I passed it out to my band a few years ago.  I gave it a go this semester and found excitement in the piece when my young clarinet section basically mastered a tough sixteenth note ostinato passage from just one day of sectionals. I knew my philosophy on selecting music needed to change along with a new-found focus on creating a very balanced and consistent warm-up routine for my band rehearsal.  I did something very unusual this past week as I stopped the learning of all sheet music and instead had section leaders run sectionals going over all 12 major scales and specific tuning tendencies/solutions for their instrument family.  The results...

I am happy to announce that I will be teaching a new graduate course titled "Technology Integration for the 21st Century Classroom."  I consider myself a technology guru when it comes to integrating technology into the curriculum.  I will not lie, I have no idea and no interest in what makes a computer or internet work.  What I do care about is going through the vast educational technology that is out there right now and weeding out the good from the bad.  I have much experience working with other subject areas and have received a lot of technology training from Apple and from my years teaching for Virtual High School.  While at Pentucket, I served on the District-Wide Technology Committee.  As a result of all these experiences, I want to give teachers a hands-on opportunity to embrace technology and feel comfortable making lesson plans using technology. Here is the course description: This course is aimed at giving educators hands-on training of the lat...

When coming to Lowell I immediately began working on trying to capture the cultural value in the city with a vision of a new multidisciplinary project.  Lowell is a melting pot rich with many different cultures and has a great art scene.  This project in particular brought together high school and kindergarten students. The high school received grant funding to start a new program called "The Literacy Lab."  This is where students who are brand new to the country and the English language come to learn.  The room is staffed with a full time teacher and four tutors representing many of the students' nationalities.  As the students progress they are slowly introduced to the regular high school schedule.  This is an exceptional program lead by Kristen Colon. The 95 kindergarten students I teach at the Rogers School is a new pilot program focused on giving a full-day experience for students who specifically have little or no pre-K education.  Here we ...

When I was in the third grade I distinctly remember watching my brother Steve play the drums in the 6th grade Band at the Bagnall School in Groveland, MA.  I idolized him and thought that's the instrument I am going to play...I'm sure my parents were happy with no rental fees!  In fourth grade, there were tons and tons of percussionists.  I remember Matt Lovett and I standing out as the better of the bunch.  Back then, Mrs. Tatarunis was our band director and General Music Teacher at the Bagnall and she rocked!  Everyone was in band!  We had it the last hour of school each Friday and the teachers loved getting that free time. In the 7th grade, I got that typical middle school attitude when meeting Mr. Howard in my first percussion lesson. When asked for my name instead of saying Anthony, I said Lloyd, named after the main character of the movie Dumb and Dumber.  Everyone in the lesson laughed their heads off and Mr. Howard decided to keep calling me ...