Mr C's Music Room

  Moving Beyond the Conduit     This week, I read Jenifer Vanek's article Digital Literacy and the International Literacy Association's brief Improving Digital Practices for Literacy, Learning, and Justice: More Than Just Tools . Coincidentally, I arrived at the same conclusion after reading both texts: New Literacies should not solely be used as conduits. It goes without saying that many young people today are very proficient in keyboarding and navigating a computer. However, Vanek (2019) argues that many more proficiencies must be in place for students to successfully function in the digital age. These proficiencies include finding and evaluating information and knowing which tools to use to complete tasks. In this new digital age, one cannot find much success in the workplace with basic typing skills. The task-oriented nature of today's market necessitates the ability to use technology to locate information and display that information in various ways. Without putting ...

  New Literacies in the Classroom     As Sang (2017) described in her paper, the term "literacy" no longer refers to being able to read and write in academic English. Recent advances in technology and information retrieval have brought a new digital side to the term. Simply put, "literacy" now encompasses the ability to derive and display meaning within various forms of media. In Music Education, "literacy" is often viewed as being able to read and write from standard sheet music notation. However, many students struggle to translate elements of rhythm and melody into sheet music.  Last school year, I worked with a voice student who could never quite manage to decode the symbol for a Quarter Rest and understand that it meant he needed to be silent for one beat. One day, this same student showed me two parentheses that he had put on his computer ( ) and asked, "Is this what a Quarter Rest could look like?" During each subsequent lesson, if I showe...