People can create a greater number of resources when they work together for the right reasons. A great example is Wikipedia, the completely crowdsourced online encyclopedia. Although teachers scolded students who cited Wikipedia during its first few years, you’ll now find citations from reputable articles and highly regarded journals at the bottom of nearly every Wikipedia article. In fact, Wikipedia is the 8th most visited website in the world as I write this on March 2nd, 2021.
The Music Educator Online Learning Project was designed to harness this power of collaboration for the betterment of music programs across the globe. Our shared vision is to ensure equitable access to the highest quality supplemental music education platform; a platform created by music educators for music educators and students.
To organize efforts, the Practicing Musician team is offering to teach you how to create high quality content at home with technology you already own. Then, we’ll host the video tutorials, compositions, and assignments in sequential order on our site for free. Through your collaboration with our team and the 145+ educators who have already joined forces on this project, we can quickly create a completely free student AND teacher centered space for online music learning.
The process looks like this:
The content you create will be owned by you—the educators—and our library will be available to you free of charge. All content will also be downloadable for students who do not have internet access at home.
We’re also working with writers of the National Core Arts Standards and Model Cornerstone Assessments to develop standards based Zoom/Google Meets teaching methodologies. Together, we have already designed 23 Synchronous Learning Best Practices with standards-based assessments. We are currently adapting the best practice methodologies for use in-person during the 2021-22 school year.
Online Learning Project roles include: Video Producers, Sheet Music Composers/Arrangers, Video Editors, and Content Managers. We already have curriculum designed for Concert Band and Orchestra, and we’ll assign specific tasks to you so no one reinvents the wheel. Click HERE to learn more about each role and join the project.
By contributing, you will have the chance to join a new project every 30 days. You may join as many or as little projects as you wish, and you may ask to be taken off the roster at any point in time. Every time you contribute to a new project, you will be considered a Founding Member of that project. Founding Members are different than traditional project members because there are a limited number of new projects. In contrast, traditional project members will go back and refine the content created during old projects based on the peer review process integrated into our site.
As a Founding Member, you will receive the following after you complete your assigned tasks:
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Your photo, district, and school(s) or organization on the Founding Members of the specific project’s page on our website.
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One personalized social media post thanking you for your contribution with your photo, district, favorite quote about the benefits of music education, and school(s) or organization.
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A Certificate of Acknowledgement that you are a Founding Member of the Music Educator Online-Learning Project.
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Resume worthy experience (college/graduate students).
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The knowledge that you will have helped hundreds of thousands (soon to be millions!) of students in music programs across the United States access EdTech and a quickly growing library of content for free. We have even seen music programs in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Philippines, South Korea, and France use our platform since we launched our service at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year!
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The knowledge that you have played a role in helping your own students access EdTech and a quickly growing library of content for free.
We will also throw a virtual celebration for the Founding Members of each project once the content has been launched!
Although we still need contributors for all roles, we especially need Video Producers (educators who record short video tutorials that cover a single concept each on the instrument or method they specialize in) and Sheet Music Composers/Arrangers.
Spread the word to your colleagues. The more educators contribute, the less work will be required of each educator.
This project is being led by Practicing Musician’s founder and CEO, Jake Douglass. Feel free to reach out to him at any time by emailing [email protected] or by calling (206)854-6076. He’s here to help.
Your participation and contribution to the Music Educator Online-Learning Project is made possible thanks to our fiscal sponsor,
Realize Impact, a Washington state 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization.