On November 28, ConVal’s Director of Choirs Krystal Morin, Instrumental Director Jim Wickham, and Technology Integration Specialist Helfried Zrzavy presented a workshop at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester.
This workshop demonstrated how several apps of the G-Suite for Education can be effectively integrated for instruction of large performing ensembles. The apps that were demonstrated to work seamlessly for a variety of purposes for ConVal’s various chorus and band ensembles included, among others, Google Classroom, Google Sites, Google Voice, and Google Forms.
The presenters explained how technology-enabled assignments in a blended learning environment made it easier to do, before the concert, critical voice checks, folder checks, playing tests and how they facilitated performance assessments after the concert.
The additional information that was provided to students via Google Classroom assignments and the construction of Google sites also helped deepen the understanding of the music pieces in their respective music-historical, geographic, linguistic, and cultural contexts which, together, improved the performance of the pieces in concert.