Tech.Grp Project(Dance/Music) and Final thoughts

Well, it is my final week of technology class and it has been a great journey. Not only did it give me time to reflect on how technology can enhance dance, but through the assignments I am feeling more comfortable with technology/computers/software. As a final project, the class was broken up into groups. Each group had to develop a lesson plan incorporating the performing arts and technology.

My group was made up of two music educators and one dance educator (me). For our project we decided to create a unit plan that included a webpage/timeline that had information on Salsa Music and Salsa Dance/dancers. Our unit plan would be an interdisciplinary were both Music and Dance educators would work together to design lessons that would incorporate the following:

• Information/History of Salsa Music and Dance - Style, culture, influences, instruments, beats/timing, musicians, singers, dancers
• Students will gather information, pictures, music etc and begin to develop a webpage with all of this information
• Students will use itunes, imovies/movie maker, audacity, digital cameras and so forth to build their projects
• Students will learn to play and dance salsa. Perform at the end of the year

All of this will take place in a 6 week unit plan. This unit incorporates performing arts, history, research, performance, literacy and culture.

Group Process - As a group we were able to divide the work by History, Music and Dance, each of us completing a part. Then we created webpages about the project on our own sites. The individual pages on each of our sites were then connected together using html codes. So when you click through the pages, you are actually clicking on all 3 of our personl websites. I think our group worked well because we laid out a plan as a group, but then were able to work on our sections separately. We were all parts of a whole. We presented our project to the class and it went smoothly. I think we complimented each other in our presentation styles and backed up each other when our classmates had questions. I will definitely continue to work on this project and develop the lesson plans for my dance education portfolio.

Final Thoughts

This class has really helped me to think about how I can incorporate technology into the classroom. I have done several lessons in the past year and not one included a section with technology. That has all changed for me now. I will be a better educator by being aware of all the technology resources that are available to me and my students.