Games

I think that a teacher should go as far as they find appropriate to their students and their material.

Online chat and instant messaging could help students who are worse at listening and taking notes.

In a music classroom, there really isn't much of a place for any form of text based communication. As I have said before, there is no replacing a good music director.

I could see podcasts helping in situations where the teacher is not allowed as much time with their students. At the same time it is definitely another way to passively deliver information.

In my case gaming helps and hinders my studying. Through playing lots of games over the years, I have wasted many an hour which could have been spent studying. In addition, my problem solving skills improve in periods in which I play videogames. When I have kids I will let them play videogames on a regular basis so long as their studies do not suffer the way mine always have.

Delicious

In my opinion, this is a very good way for a student to research something. By simply entering a search term, they can find the sites which people consider to be the most useful on the topic. At the same time it is still the internet, and the information may still be slightly questionable.

Inspiration

It seems like this would be a very good program to help students brainstorm for their assignments. While this is the case, for the most part it would not be the most useful of software for my future classrooms (choral music.) At the same time, it could be used to have the choral officers help me to brainstorm for ways to raise funds for the program or to help them write papers of their own over musical topics.

Once again, not much writing will come up during Choral rehearsals, but in the situation where the students need to collaborate to produce some ideas, simply using a mutual forum would work well to help them relate their opinions to each other with relative neutrality.
If only plagiarism were not a problem students could also post their written assignments to their blogs for their peers to give feedback as comments. Simply emailing their papers to each other could also prove problematic. Simply put, this won't come up for me in the future unless I am teaching at a school which offers some form of a music history course.

Blogging

In my opinion, blogging can be useful in many ways. At the same time its not exactly likely that every single kid in a class will have both the internet and a computer available to them at home. While this is becoming more and more uncommon, it is still a possibility which cannot really be ignored. As far as communication goes, I feel there is more appropriate avenues for students, professors, and even friends to relate their feelings to each other than an entirely public diary. Some students might have a tendency to say too much online.

Life and Education

I'm Andrew. Like most people, I have a background which leaned me in the direction of becoming a teacher. A large factor in this decision is both my family and the education I have received over the years. Like I hope to be when I graduate, both of my parents are music teachers. As a result I have grown up around them and their friends (also teachers.) We have lived in many places throughout Texas and as a result I have had the benefit of experiencing many school districts and many different teaching styles. I have been involved with music since I was five, and have not stepped away from it for any real period of time since then. I was involved in a select boys' choir in Amarillo when I was younger, took piano lessons, and remained active in band and choir through high school. Five years ago I applied and auditioned for admission into the music program here and was accepted and awarded a scholarship. I am now seventeen hours from completing my degree requirements and student teaching in the fall.