The Music Tech Teacher Podcast

Each year I put together a list of free music tech resources – websites, software and more – that you can use in your music classroom. The latest version of the Ultimate Free Music Technology Resources Guide is out this week! So what's new? There are around 40 new listings in this year's guide and I'll talk about some of my favourites in this episode. I hope you enjoy the guide and find the resour...

We're continuing with our theme for this month on the blog and podcast which is holiday PD for teachers AND back to school ideas to tie in with extended summer break that's happening right now in the northern hemisphere.   In the previous episodes for this month I shared some free online music tech webinars that you can take at any time of the year (episode 81) and talked about some must-read musi...

Our theme for this month is on the blog and podcast is holiday professional development for teachers AND back to school ideas since most of you in the northern hemisphere are on your extended summer break.   In the previous episode - number 81 - I shared some free online professional development opportunities that you can pursue at any time of the year.  In this episode I share some of my must-rea...

Our theme for this month on the blog and podcast is holiday PD for teachers AND back to school ideas since most of you in the northern hemisphere are on your extended summer break.  I know many of you use this time to do some professional development and start to gather ideas for the next school year.   In this episode I share a range of free online professional development opportunities. There's...

Recently, I was a presenter at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) 2019 conference. In this episode of the Music Tech Teacher Podcast, I share some of my highlights from the conference.

Our theme for this month on the blog and podcast is iPads and in today's episode I'm going to talk about some of the useful accessories and adaptors that you and your students can use with iPads in order to expand their capabilities in the music classroom.     In my new GarageBand for iPad course , I've put together a whole module on this topic of accessories and extras that you can use with your...

One of the more complex aspects to using the app is how to access the student GarageBand project files so that you can assess them.     When assessing work done in GarageBand, as a teacher you will generally want: to be able to hear the student's work to be able to see the GarageBand project - how many tracks were used, how were they arranged, whether the student has made an effort to adjust the l...

We're back with another episode of the Music Tech Teacher podcast. We've had a bit of a break recently and I wanted to catch everyone up on what's been going on at Midnight Music recently, some special events that are coming along in the near future  and I share a few tech-related things that I've been loving lately.

For a number of years now I've been using screencasting software to record my computer screen so that I can make tutorial videos, show someone how to fix something technical, provide feedback and assessment, answer a music tech question quickly, or capture student work on websites that don't have a save option.     There are many screencasting software applications available but in this episode of...

Learn how you can make your own iPad video tutorials for students by using the inbuilt screen record function.

Youtube - it's a tech tool that's used almost daily by most music teachers. Today I'll share some simple keyboard shortcuts that will make your Youtube use a breeze (and make you look like a total tech ninja).

Discover the free, "works-on-any-device" online digital audio workstation Bandlab. Lauren Hendry Parsons is the Associate Vice President of Communications and Partnerships for Bandlab Technologies and she comes on the show to talk all things Bandlab.

John Mlynczak - the Managing Director of Noteflight - is a passionate advocate for music education and technology.  John and I discuss Noteflight Learn and the new Noteflight Marketplace - where teachers can purchase sheet music in a notation file format that they can legally edit and arrange.

Marc Gelfo is the Co-Founder & CEO of Modacity - an app that aims to help musicians use their practice time efficiently and effectively. Marc and I discuss how Modacity works, what it's like to create a mobile app from scratch and tips for practicing more effectively.

Katie Miller, a K-5 music teacher at Hadfield School in Wisconsin, has had some great success running tech-based projects with her elementary students. Recent favourites include digital book reviews in which she showed students how to create soundtracks using GarageBand and a composition project where her grade 3 students composed for grade 3 students at another school in her district. Katie share...

Lyric videos that have lyrics that show up line-by-line in time to an audio track can be a useful tool in teaching students songs and helping them to learn lyrics by heart.  They are not hard to make but they do take a little investment of time. For this reason, they're best suited to songs that you are teaching to many students - perhaps across multiple year levels - or for singalong songs that y...

Today we welcome back Shawna Longo - a music educator from New Jersey - for the third time.  Shawna has just finished creating a full online course for Music First and I thought it would be great to have her on to share some tips for tackling course and lesson design when you're starting from scratch.  

In the previous episode - number 66 - we had part 1 of my interview with middle school choir director Christopher Russell from Oltman Middle School in Minnesota who describes himself as a traditional-style music teacher who uses technology to support his program.     If you haven't already listened to that episode, I would suggest going back to listen to that one first.   In part 2, Chris and I ta...

This episode is part 1 of 2 where I speak with Christopher Russell of Oltman Middle School in Minnesota. Chris is a great example of a traditional-style music teacher who uses technology to support his program. Over the years he has utilised technology to increase his productivity and assist the smooth running of his program. He's an expert at creating music notation files and rehearsal tracks for...

This episode is part 2 of my chat with Sydney based music educator Brad Fuller and we continue our discussion about Brad's innovative teaching space and the way he uses technology to deliver his music program.

When students join Brad Fuller's ProjectRnB music program, they are greeted with "Welcome to show business…!" This episode is part 1 of my chat with Sydney based music educator Brad Fuller.   In 2012, Brad was contracted to redesign the teaching space at Northern Beaches Christian School where he is now the director of music. The redesign of the physical space is innovative and works hand in hand...

Deborah Smith is an Australian music educator who has a very strong background in the Kodaly method and over the years she has made a name for herself as one of Australia's leading ear-training and musicianship experts.  Deb self-publishes a series of books and I speak to her about the tools and resources she uses, how she creates video and the influence of technology on her processes.

My guest is Daniel Spreadbury - who was the Senior Product Manager for Sibelius in a previous life - but for the past 6 years he has been working on the conception, design and marketing of the new professional-level scoring application Dorico.  Daniel and I discuss what it's like to start a new software application from scratch and what makes Dorico different from the other notation software on th...

David Bennett of Overnewton Anglican Community College has been working on remixing projects with his music tech students in years 7 through to year 10.   He also likes to keep things fresh by using current music with the students and his projects incorporate music theory skills as well as technology-based skills. In this episode, we talk about where Dave finds audio stems for remixing projects, t...

Recently I gave a keynote speech for a music education conference with the theme Play, Create, Inspire . I loved this theme because it was simple to tie into what's going on in music technology right now. In the keynote speech I covered 4 topics - songwriting apps, multitrack music videos, sampling and live looping. Today I'm going to share the songwriting apps that I mentioned during the keynote...