Jim Ayres
Netzaberg, Germany
The Best is Yet to Come
Music has always been a part of my life. My mother was a musician all her life. She had me singing at state and county fairs before I was five. It is who I am and will always be. I always felt music and performing on stage was exciting and fun. My wish is for all my Department of Defense students living in Germany to have the same feelings and opportunities to enjoy music. It took 30 years of teaching in the core subject classes before I became an Elementary Music Specialist. The teaching of music was not something I wanted to do as an every day job. Many music educators get burned out doing the same thing year after year. I did not want to become one of them. Music was something for me to participate in just for the fun of it. The first 30 years of teaching I kept my word and did not teach music.
Advances in multimedia and the Internet have made teaching elementary general music fun. These new innovations are the reason I finally became an elementary music specialist. These last ten years have been my most enjoyable years in teaching. The tech tools developed for music and video technology and the creation of the Internet have opened a whole new field that was not available to the elementary general music educator of the past. Today, a music educator can educate, entertain and influence people anywhere in the entire world. Three goals for my professional and personal future are to grow in music technology, video technology, and to continue to communicate this information on the World Wide Web.
Continually learning music technology is the way I will become the best elementary general music instructor that I can be. Searching the Internet and subscribing to RSS Feeds of online resources that have interest and value to me professionally will be helpful in discovering the latest in music technology. Incorporating strategies using social media such as Facebook and Twitter will increase my professional learning network. Attending music conferences will allow me the opportunity to develop close relationships with teachers who have similar interests. I will be proactive in seeking out possible technological solutions to learning challenges. It will be important to take the time to explore new approaches to creating, performing, and responding to music with technology. These are all ways to help me achieve a continual upward spiral of the knowledge and skills necessary for music learning today.
Video technology is the best way to communicate music to a large audience. Music is a performing art that needs to be seen and heard. It is vital to share and document what my students and I have accomplished. To do this, it is necessary to develop an acute eye and ear and observe what other videographers do. More time is needed for me to practice and develop these skills. Quality video production is such a complex business. Reasonably priced technological tools are there for me to explore. Eventually, I may need a partner to fully develop my ideas and talents, similar to the partnership of composers Rogers and Hammerstein.
The third skill I would like to develop is mass communication, so I can get these videos out to the largest audience possible. Some of my videos will be tutorials, while other videos will be for students to showcase their talents. There are currently a few of these videos on my Netzaberg Elementary School website. Since attending MAET at MSU, I have accounts with Vimeo and Youtube and have created many websites. I have acquired a large inventory of pictures and video files stored on my Google Drive. Many people view my website daily from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Never before was it this easy to broadcast information to the masses.
I hope my students can experience the joy and excitement of musical performance as I have throughout my life. Their audience will not be just the people in an auditorium. My military students can keep in touch with their parents who are serving in the military in Afghanistan, Syria, or other parts of the world, or their grandparents living back in the states. The entire world can be their audience. Teaching elementary music has evolved since 40 years ago, when I started my teaching career. Today, with changes in technology, the tools for musicians are different. The music standards today are different. All these new aspects of general music education make it exciting and fun. I am glad to finish my education career as a General Elementary Music Educator working for the United States Department of Defense. It has been a good life, and the best for this music educator is yet to come.
