 Blended learning combines traditional methods with today's technology in a process that redefines the educational process. The main goal of blended learning is not just to substitute traditional tools with electronic ones, but rather to incorporate technology to elevate student learning to the level of redefinition. Technology is not only used to enhance learning, it is used to create student-centered projects that were previously not possible. Bloom's Taxonomy All of us who went through an educational degree program are aware of Bloom's Taxonomy, which is basically moving students from lower-order thinking skills to higher-order thinking skills in order to create more depth of knowledge, independence, and mastery of concepts. When using technology to assist the march up the taxonomy tree, there is a model that I will refer to called the SAMR, or SAMR model, and the SAMR model provides a logical structure for incorporating technology into Bloom's Taxonomy and using technology as a way to elevate learning. In this model, technology begins as a direct substitution for a traditional learning method and moves from there to technology not only to learn how to do something, but to redefine that task in a way that was not previously possible. The SAMR model provides traditional ensembles with a method of enhancing the learning of individuals within the large ensemble in ways that were not previously possible. It also ushers in the opportunities for students who are not participants in a traditional performing ensemble to become music creators and producers without learning how to play an instrument or singing chorus. So at the first level, the substitution level, blended music learning is using technology and traditional methods together where the technology is just substituting for a tool that we already use. Many traditional music education programs already have incorporated modern technology tools to assist them with doing what they already do. Here is an assessment that is at the substitution level of the SAMR scale. This is the Moodle page for my middle school band class, and we use Moodle as our primary LMS for the school. Down here in marking period one, I have several different assignments. These are all assignments except for the participation one. These are all assignments that they do from home. The substitution level assignment is this practice recording. So for this first practice recording of the year, they can use any device that they have on hand, their cell phone and iPad, the microphone and audacity on the computer to make a recording of a major scale of their choice. We teach and review major scales right at the beginning of the year, first thing every year. And the idea is that the student is going to select one of those scales that they're actually having the most trouble with. They do two recordings of that scale. They do a before recording and an after recording. The before recording, they state their name and they say which scale that they picked and why they picked it. They might say this is so-and-so and I picked the A-flat major scale because I'm having trouble playing the correct flats. And then they do their best on that before recording to play through it, stumble through it and get a recording of it. After they do a few practice sessions, they then come back and make a second recording that is an after recording. And they play the scale improved upon the first time to explain what they thought went better and what they think that they need to improve on for the next time that they do it. They upload both of those before and after recording MP3s to the Moodle page and then I listen and assess them. Primarily I'm listening for improvement from the before to the after and I'm also assessing whether or not they followed the directions correctly and included a verbal summarization of what they're doing in order to improve the scale's performance. The second recording project of the marking period is selecting an excerpt from their winter concert music to do a before and after recording on. Blended music teaching at the augmentation level of SAMR. Over the past 10 years, several innovative companies have developed products that not only substitute for traditional tools but allow collaboration and customization in a way that was not previously possible. Many scholastic performing ensembles are using smart music to assess student achievement rather than the traditional time-consuming in-class playing test. Site Reading Factory provides similar cloud-based practice and assessment for the important skill of site reading or site singing. NoteFlight provides students with not only a cloud-based music notation program but allows students to collaborate and comment on each other's scores with social sharing. One innovative company, Music First, is providing an entire suite of cloud-based music education products for K through 12 classrooms and ensembles incorporating everything from site reading and assessment to general music lesson plans and music theory training. Site Reading Factory is a web-based application that functions at the substitution level of SAMR but also at the augmentation level. It's substituting for a traditional in-class site reading assignment or playing test, but it's also enhancing that whole process because of what Site Reading Factory is capable of doing. The students complete this work from home over the web, so there's no pressure of having a teacher sitting right there grading them. They also don't have to play in front of their peers, so in that way it can really inspire them to work at this and not be afraid to do poorly. Each student gets an assignment from me. I have classes set up within Site Reading Factory for each of my classes. Let's take a look at the strings class. This young man here, Erasmussen, is a viola player. I already graded this assignment for him, but I will give you a peek at what he submitted. So the Site Reading Factory has six levels of difficulty. You are able to differentiate by student. You can create assignments at different levels of ability. This was the first assignment of the year, so I was still getting used to finding out what they could do, and this is a level one assignment where I had the letter names listed there, and he only needed two attempts to get to a recording that he was satisfied with, and he got a 19 out of 20 on it, so obviously the next time I give him a Site Reading assignment, I'm going to give him a level two assignment and take the letter names away. You listen to the assignments right here in line, and the students get 30 seconds to look this excerpt over. There's a 30-second countdown timer, and then they record. If they're not satisfied with the way it went, they can select another one, and it generates a new eight measures and gives them another 30 seconds to look it over. You can see the number of attempts, so you can really tell if somebody is struggling, or you can really tell if somebody has real perfectionist tendencies and that they've done 20 attempts to get every single note right before they have submitted, and you can use that to also give them very detailed feedback that they can either log in to Site Reading Factory to read or you can give them feedback by email or you can put it into their gradebook if you're using an LMS of some kind. That feedback is critical because it's your opportunity to one-on-one give them specific feedback on their performance and without any other ears listening to that conversation. Blended music teaching at the modification level. At the modification level, student learning becomes self-directed. This is the tipping point where instruction leaves traditional teacher-centered paradigms and puts the students in charge of their own learning. Not only does this enable the students to personalize their education and move in an appropriate pace, it trains students to be productive members of today's rapidly changing professional landscape. Some ensemble music applications of technology at the modification level might include teaching middle school instrumentalists to write simple melodies for their primary instrument over primary chords on the piano using note flight to create, share scores between students and print scores for performance. Students can record their own performance of their melody and upload it to a learning management system to SoundCloud or to some other cloud storage for evaluation and commentary by both the teacher and other students. High school students can arrange a popular song for a quartet of their primary instrument recording their own performance of each part or collaborating with other players in their section for live recording of the arrangement. Score sharing and feedback can all happen in an LMS or in the cloud as in the middle school example. At the high school level and the middle school level, but particularly high school, writing original music for a mixed ensemble in the style of their favorite artist genre or idiom is something that the honors level students in a music program can certainly tackle and if they're invested in the relevance of it they're going to want to dive into the more rigorous arranging for a chamber group or even for a full band orchestra. Here are some samples of the composition projects that my students have done using note flight. This composition here is an original solo melody that I believe this is a second year middle school student and the chords here were provided by the teacher but you could differentiate this by allowing students to come up with their own chord progressions. They learned the basics of melody writing by studying major scales as part of our normal ensemble rehearsals and they learned basic primary chords by studying arpeggios and putting those things together and understanding how to play them on their instrument then applies at the end of the year to our composition unit. Here is what she came up with for her second year of trying to write her own melody over chords. The next year she wrote a duet and when we get into part writing they usually start with duets and we discuss the conventions of part writing such as avoiding parallels and things of that nature. So here's her first attempt at a duet. You get the idea there. The students print these out and practice them find out what works and what doesn't. It sounds good on the computer but maybe it's kind of hard to play in person and go back and refine and then play them in class as part of our end of the year celebration of composition. Then there's the other end of the spectrum. This is an arrangement of Commodore and Skia which is the Russian folk song more commonly known as the theme from the video game Tetris and this was arranged by one of my sophomores last year who arranged it for string orchestra, string ensemble, plus percussion. I helped him refine this arrangement a bit and I'll put it in strip layout so you can see it a little bit better once it plays. We refined this and actually printed it out and practiced it and performed it as part of the orchestra's spring concert. So a little taste of... We'll start here at measure nine and give you a taste of the whole thing. Here we go. He got into the V theme and actually did arrange because the end actually has multiple melodic elements coming back as a reprise. So some examples of our composition projects at the school. It's important to note that all of these projects permit the students to work on music that they can relate to and find to be relevant to their interests. It's also important to note that all of the ensemble music projects can be accomplished completely outside of the school day with instruction happening online via instructional videos. Projects such as these can also be presented as feature moments in concerts or as its own separate chamber music festival. Blended music teaching at the redefinition level. The redefinition is the final frontier in music education. It's the place where the traditional meets the contemporary and creates what I like to call the 21st century artist or 21st century artistry. Many of today's successful YouTube artists are doing just this. Combining classical music instrumental performance with today's popular music. Sometimes using technology such as effects pedals and looping stations. They distribute their own music using YouTube, iTunes and many other online media outlets. They use crowdfunding like Kickstarter, GoFundMe and Patreon to garner support from their fan base and are able to turn their passion for music into a full-time career. Certainly the goal of public music education is not to produce a world full of full-time musicians. But certainly a goal can and should be to give the students the skills to not only be an ensemble performer, but an independent musician capable of producing their own music as an avocation or even as a part-time income. Now I know a lot of the band orchestra and choral teachers at the high school level in particular, but even in middle school are probably thinking the same thing. How in the world do I find the time to incorporate these kinds of things into what I already do? And I will be the first to admit that it does take time out of what you're already doing in order to be able to do some of these things. And it also requires more of you not only to learn the technology and how it works and what you can do with it, but also to be able to create a program and content for the students to use and to have time to assess what they're doing. There is the beauty of incorporating technology using the methods described is that how much of it can be done outside of your normal rehearsal time where the students have access to these web-based tools from home, they can use their own iPhone or another device to make recordings of their performances, they can use the web-based notation software to write music and once you get them down the road of being able to create their own things from their home, they actually want it. They crave the ability to be able to have their own voice and to make their own stuff. So there is setup and there is intensiveness in terms of creating the infrastructure for all of that. And there is class time involved in explaining how it all works and giving students an opportunity to be able to work together collaboratively in your normal program. But there is so much of that that can happen outside of your normal day and the benefits of that are huge because it takes them from just being an ensemble member who needs a large ensemble to be able to be a musician and gives them the tools to become a musician independently in their own right.