The blog (now added to the blog roll) is www.musicianswithapps.com.

The apps recommended by Stewart were:

from Foriero:

1. Music Keys
2. Music Notes
3. Music Tones
4. Music Cubes
5. Music Intervals

(The author of www.musicianswithapps.com also strongly recommends My Note Games)

Crack!

Tonight the inevitable occurred.  An iPod Touch in our house hit the cement in our garage, and the screen is operable, but you can feel the broken glass.

For those of you that follow this blog, you will know that we have two iPod Touches in the family–one for our three year old, and one for our twelve year old.  You might be surprised to find out that our twelve year old’s iPod Touch is the one that is now broken.  He was using the device in our SUV, went to get out of the car when we got home, and it hit the concrete.

His initial reaction, after a full-out anger tantrum, was to ask if we could go to the Apple Store where they would replace it for free.  I had the privilege of telling him that Apple wouldn’t cover an iPod Touch out of warranty for free, and that the repair would be $199 (I looked it up to verify the cost).  So what do you do?  Buy a new one?  A new iPod Touch (32GB) is $299.

The end result is that you find an iPod repair service.  You can search the web for people near you, or you can even check Craigslist for people that offer the service.

Several years ago, I had read about Blake Paulson, a college graduate in Alexandria, Minnesota, who started a company called ifixipodsfast.com.  Blake put several “how to” repair videos on YouTube, and the Star Tribune (one of the newspapers in the Twin Cities) ran an article about him in 2007.  ifixipodsfast.com is no longer a valid web address, as Blake fixes more than iPods.  His website is now www.fastfixology.com.

Last December, my brother-in-law had an older iPod Touch that stopped working due to a failed battery (long out of warranty), so he bought a replacement battery off eBay and we attempted to replace it (mainly, I tried to replace it).  In the process, I didn’t install the battery correctly, and I broke the digitizer (in the earlier iPod Touch models, the glass and digitizer were separate items).  I remembered having read about Blake’s website, and found it on the web.  After an exchange of e-mails, I ordered replacement parts and service, sent the iPod to him, and he was able to quickly and cost-effectively replace the bad battery AND repair the damage I caused.

So when I need a repair on an iPod Touch or iPhone, the first place I look is fastfixology.  I know there are other services, but three things are true:

1. I’ve worked with fastfixology before, and the work has been affordable, fast, and reliable.
2. I’m dealing with a fellow Minnesotan (even though we now live just over the Minnesota border).
3. When I price compare, his prices are the best.

There are two differences between a TouchPad tablet and a typical Android tablet. First, nearly all Android tablets are 16:10 widescreen devices, whereas the TouchPad shares the same dimensions as an iPad (4:3). Second, the TouchPad lacks the external hardware buttons that are present on older Android Devices, and replaces them with software buttons (which, I believe, is how Android 4.0 will work with all devices).

My thought of the day: Android devices (in all forms) aren’t ideal for children. My three year old has been using our iPhones, iPads, and his iPod Touch since he was one. Of course, as het gets older, his level of interaction increases. But there were many apps, such as Bumblebee Touchbook, that he has been using for years.  Actually, as I write this post on my MacBook, he is using my iPad and drawing (on Noteshelf), and playing a number of games.  At the moment, he’s interacting with Miss Spider’s Bedtime Story.  If he wasn’t using my iPad, I’d be writing this blog post on it instead of my MacBook.

From time to time, we use the HP TouchPads as a Netflix player to alleviate the demand on the TV (the twelve year old typically wants to watch “Good Luck, Charlie,” and the three year old wants to watch “Curious George.”  I’ll also bring the TouchPad to the bathroom at bath time, and let a show play (TouchPad on the counter) in the background as the three year old splashes away.  And from time to time, my three year old tries to interact with games on the TouchPad.  This is ALWAYS a disaster.  If my three year old is playing a game on the TouchPad, it isn’t long until he’s pressed some button he shouldn’t have, is in another menu, or he’s accidentally left the game altogether.  You could argue that this is a TouchPad related issue, and that if the TouchPad were an actual Android tablet, there wouldn’t be (at least until version 4.0) software buttons, only hardware buttons.  My response: do you think any rational three year old (or forty year old) isn’t going to be pressing hardware buttons (intentionally or unintentionally)?

This experience with Android helps me to realize that the iPad…at this point…is still the far better system for schools.  Technologists may prefer tinkering with the Android, but let me say with some certainty that the majority of educators are NOT technologists, and when they are teaching, they want to simply be able to teach.  They want technology to become transparent in the classroom, not the focus of the classroom.  Technology becomes the focus of a classroom in two ways: either there is a visit from a person whose school does not have technology, and the “wow” factor makes the technology the most noticeable factor in the room; or the technology does not work and thus becomes the area of focus.  Educational technology has to be extremely user-friendly for the student and the teacher.  Don’t assume that because students are raised in a digital world that they have any clue of how to actually use that technology.

Our iOS devices have proved to be kid-friendly.  This is why products like the BubCap have been produced.  Has my three year old accidentally exited a program?  Yes.  Are some apps poorly designed, allowing non-readers to find themselves in menus from which they have escaped?  Yes.  But the difference is that kids figure out what that single home button does pretty quickly (yet another reason why all the rumors of the home button going away are laughable), and many developers (particularly for kid apps) are very aware of making kid-friendly apps that even help the non-readers.  Android is still a mess of buttons (physical or not) where the “owner flexibility” of the device is a hinderance for children.

Perhaps Android “isn’t for kids.”  But isn’t the education market a huge potential for growth (Or is Google pushing the ChromeBook for that market?)?

Does anyone know what happened to the site? Did it close because of a lack of funding? Is this related to some of the recent actions that shut down “sharing” sites?

Did a publisher find a work under copyright and request the whole site to be shut down like IMSLP?

Or did the site just change hosts and is in that period where it won’t appear until all the net servers are updated?

If you know can you please send me an e-mail?

UPDATE:

I just received an e-mail (Thanks, Rich!) that mentioned that the site was hacked and that they are working on getting the site back up as soon as possible.

This happens to be one of those rare situations where searching Google (i.e. beyond a single search) didn’t turn up any information on why the website was down. Even a Twitter search for “PDF Band Music Library” (and some derivatives) resulted in finding my own post!

I’ll try to remember to update this post when the PDF Band Music Library website is back up again.

• 8-second startup times
• 8.5-hour battery life
• Self-updates
• Easy to manage on a network

Ironically, the article actually lavished the most praise on tablets (not specifically on the iPad).

But here’s the item for me: The ChromeBook is generally useless for music education.  You should be able to use some web-based music games, musictheory.net (whose developer now writes iOS apps), and perhaps even NoteFlight.  But let’s be honest…are you going to be able to use these devices daily in Band? Choir?  Orchestra?  General music?  Can they become part of your daily music curriculum?  Probably not.

So from a standpoint of a music educator, I have to say “Boo” to the adoption of ChromeBooks.  They may be useful for web research and Google Docs.  Unfortunately, those tools don’t impact our subject matter on a daily basis–and in fact, they might not impact a numbers of subjects.  Are all textbooks web-based and thus accessible on the ChromeBook?  What about its uses in other subjects like Art, Business (Programming?), or Math?

I’d just like ChromeBook adopters to be honest and say that a school of ChromeBooks sends a message that technology is for specific subjects or kinds of projects.   What really matters in a ChromeBook school is the ability to access the web and to write papers and make presentations, with a physical keyboard.  It doesn’t matter if the devices are adaptable for multiple subject areas.

iPads aren’t perfect.  So far, there are less than a dozen new interactive textbooks in the iBook Store.  If you want to type on a physical keyboard, you need to buy one.  There are over 170,000 iPad apps, some of which are ideal for education.  But some apps aren’t great, and others are lacking features.  Even so, the iPad gives a new level of flexibility to more subjects, rather than to simply be used for searching the web and putting projects together.  So unless you’re looking at the bottom line of cost, isn’t the iPad the better fit for education?  Or is it possible that I’m such a “fanboi” of Apple products that I can’t appreciate what the ChromeBook brings to the table?

 This isn’t a music education post…it’s a post about a new product, called the Nest.  It’s a wi-fi enabled thermostat that learns your preferences  It’s also customizable.  It’s a $250 purchase, but it will pay itself back in energy savings over time.  It was designed by the father of the iPod, Tony Fadell.

Some tech bloggers have complained about the set-up of the Nest (a “C” connection is typically required, but not connected on all heating systems), but I had tried to install a 3M50 wireless thermostat last summer to no avail.  I tried three different 3M50s, and all failed to connect to the Internet reliably.  I ended up returning that thermostat and getting my $125 back.  I’m glad I did.  At twice the cost, the Nest is 100 times better than the 3M50.

The Nest was well labeled, came with all the accessories I needed (including a multi-purpose screwdriver), and connected in minutes.  The biggest potential issue would be people living in a home without a “C” wire (a “C” wire provides power to the thermostat) and thus might need to pay a specialist to run that wire.  At the same time, most thermostat wiring includes extra wires for situations like these.

The hardest part of the setup was using the click wheel (remember that the designer of this device invented the iPod) to enter my wireless router’s information into the device.  The device then connected to the Internet, downloaded an update, and has been good to go since.  Turning the thermostat up or down is as simple as rotating the clickwheel left or right.  It also has a motion sensor, and if the thermostat senses no motion in your house, it takes your house into energy saving mode (at the temperature you choose).  If you walk past the thermostat, it lights up, and if it saved you energy, it lets you know with a message.  It also indicates if it is heating (glowing orange), cooling (blue), or at temperature black)

The theromstat also comes with iOS and Android apps, allowing you to control the thermostat remotely, and to set heating schedules.  You can have up to five thermostats in one house, and up to two locations (think about the cabin, if you have one).  Our house, like many others, only has one thermostat.

I particuarly like that my wife can control the thermostat in the bedroom, without having to come all the way downstairs.  Sometimes our house seems colder or warmer, even though the thermostat reads a specific temperature…so if that happens in the middle of the night, she can easily adjust the thermostat.

We’re also finding that the house seems warmer…we used to live at 72 degrees (winter), but now have the thermostat set at 71, which still seems warmer than the old thermostat at 72.  The Nest also monitors humidity, and may adjust for the feeling of humdity in the house while heating or cooling to a specific temperature.

We really like our Nest, even though it was expensive.  But I’ve tried other wireless thermostats…some are just as expensive as the Nest…but none are as easy to use or install.  If you’re looking for or even considering a thermostat…check out the Nest.

So, I went to create an iTunes Connect account so I could upload the book for sale. I discovered that an ISBN number is required to publish your book for sale. A single ISBN costs $125, ten cost $250, and the price goes down from there. You pretty much need to buy the pack of ten, in the event that you write a second edition of a book, or publish it in a different format that needs an ISBN number. In other words, it is a required piece of publishing that is certainly detrimental to the individual who publishes their own book–and it certainly favors the big publishing houses that can buy 1,000,000 ISBN numbers at a time.

And that also doesn’t include the $30 you need to copyright your work.

And finally, there’s no guarantee that Apple will choose your book to publish, either.

So you have a potential investment of $155 (1 ISBN) or $380 (10 ISBNs) to possibly have your iBook rejected. And if you do sell your iBook, perhaps at $4.99 each, meaning that you need to sell 45 books before you break even at the $155 (109 books at the $380 investment). What if you write on a somewhat limited topic, like practical technology in music education?

I need to think this through…you don’t want to throw away money!

1. Finale is going to release a Finale Reader for the iPad in the near future.  They are going to demonstrate it at NAMM (note to ViolaJack, if you go to NAMM, could you get some photos of the app?).  I’m hoping the app will offer some of the features of Scorch for the iPad, such as audio playback and transposition.  As I’ve mentioned over and over again, I’m also skeptical of any reader that does not have the ability to annotate a score.  I have not seen the app, other than an image on the Finale Blog that may or may not be a capture of the Finale Reader app for the iPad.  Nonetheless, I’m open to being “wowed.”  The most important thing about this announcement  is MakeMusic’s continued entrance into the world of iOS, making me desirous for Finale for iPad and SmartMusic for iPad.  At this point, I’d guess that both are a done deal, it is just a matter of “when” rather than “if.”
2. Perhaps more importantly, Finale is going to make Finale Notepad 2012 free.  This is a return to Finale Notepad 2008 which was free.  For Finale 2009, MakeMusic decided to charge ($10) for the program.  This was problematic to me as a teacher, as we had Finale Notepad installed on computers in our labs, so I could take my theory classes to a lab.  While in the labs, we would use Notepad to complete assignments that were based on what we were learning in the theory class.  Most of the time, I would create a template that students would complete.  This became problematic as I moved to newer versions of Finale, but Notepad was still at 2008, because we didn’t have $350 to install Notepad in one lab, or over $1000 to install it in several labs.  I liked teaching with Notepad because it is limited in scope and teaching the program was straight forward.  We bought Finale 2010 for our MIDI Lab when we opened our new high school in 2009, and I stopped using Finale with my theory classes because the full version of Finale was too advanced and offered far too many options.  Ultimately, I was spending more time teaching Finale than supporting the theory concepts we were trying to learn in the lab.  Finale Notepad for free is a welcome re-addition.  I truly believe it is a better option for high school theory labs, it gets students used to (addicted to?) using Finale, and it will compete with MuseScore, which has grown in popularity because it is a full music notation product that is a free download.

It was another “wow” moment (series of moments?) for me and the parents of my students.  Every conference focused on the actual achievement of each student, listening to their performance and pointing out errors with pitch and/or solfege.  Ultimately, it was the most performance and student focused set of conferences I’ve ever held in my sixteen years of teaching.  Parents were amazed by the technology and were pleased to be able to hear their children sing (some students do not sing at home).  I didn’t officially offer a survey, but I would be willing to bet that every one of those parents that came tonight would encourage the continued use of SmartMusic, as well as the continued use of SmartMusic Inbox at conferences.

As with most sets of conferences, parent attendance dropped to zero roughly an hour before the end of the night.  At that point, I was able to start grading the SmartMusic submissions from the past two days.  I had a stack of seventy to go through, and made it through forty-four of those in under an hour.

As I work more with SmartMusic, I’m beginning to come up with some new ideas for grading rubrics based on SmartMusic’s own settings.  I’ll write more about this later, and I believe that I’m going to be partnered wit the State of Minnesota and the Perpich Center of the Arts to supply a number of assessment tools for music education that will be available free of charge to the public (more news about this later as details emerge).

I mentioned some difficulties with hardware (not a MakeMusic/SmartMusic issue), and have created a “Quick Start” document to help students solve program opening issues and microphone issues on their own.  When I’ve edited that document some more, I’ll certainly post it so that others can use it as a model for their own Quick Start guide.

As a note to all SmartMusic educators…SmartMusic Inbox on the iPad is a  valuable tool.  There are some issues (e.g. no “resubmit” button, no way to change the due date of an assignment, and an error that doesn’t necessarily show feedback you’ve already provided), but on the whole, it’s a stable app that really fills a valuable niche in the world of performance-based music education classes.  It is great for grading, and it is incredible for conferences.

It may seem that I’ve become a SmartMusic apologist as of late, but please understand that for the first time (December 22nd, in fact) self-created vocal assessments became a reality, at the same time that MakeMusic is beginning to enter into the iPad marketplace (more about that in a separate post).  In other words, both my career (vocal music) and area of vocational interest (technology in education) have merged at the same time with SmartMusic, making this a highly successful tool (already!) for me and I am sure that its use is going to show in student achievement both individually and as members of their choirs.