Technology proves to be a difficulty for most people. For few do gadgets and devices serve merely as tools for navigating the day. Laptops, phones, iPads, televisions, radios, apple watches, and e-readers consume our days. Though my laptop and phone together help me communicate, research, listen, discover, and write these posts, I am often concerned how compelled I am to stay on these devices far longer than necessary.
It appears as if I am not the only one who struggles with this imbalance. During studio class it is rare for one of my studio-mates to perform to a completely captivated audience, as half of our studio is looking at a phone surreptitiously. From the bright screens of laptops in my Music History class, I see far more scrolling Facebook news-feeds than moving cursors in note taking applications. As I teach private lessons, I will often glance over to parents and discover that they are fiddling with their own phones.
While lessons can serve as a beautiful thirty minutes of collaboration between teacher, student, and parent, the moment can also be ruined by negativity, and worse inattention. I think students crave moments in which their parents are entirely focused on them. I have caught onto students requesting, even making deals and bets, with their parents for a phone free lesson.
For this reason I often consider eradicating technology from my teaching entirely, as I fear our constant interaction with devices isn’t healthy. However, I’ve decided there are a few applications of technology that assist the learning process. They are listed below…
- Email – I use Mail on my MacBook Air once daily to communicate with parents about scheduling.
- Calendar – I use iCal to keep track of lessons.
- Calendly – for easy scheduling. I love the interface but wish it didn’t require a premium membership.
- Evernote – Take notes on student progress, general teaching sequence. (Parent note taking).
- Metronome – the “Metronome” app on my iPhone has been invaluable and I use it with my older students to keep an unbiased beat.
- Video – one of the only reasons I would recommend parents have their phone out in the lesson is to record what we are working on.