Digital Diagrams and Inspiration

Before we learned how to use digital diagrams in the classroom I have had no previous knowledge of the subject. I have had a few teachers that have hand drawn web diagrams but I have never seen or used digital diagrams. So this experience was completely new for me!

In class I learned how to navigate and use Inspiration software to create a digital diagram. Through our classroom I was able to discover how to customize a digital diagram through uploading photos, adding a hyperlink, creating the bubbles, and even changing colors and the overall layout of the diagram. Other than just simply creating the digital diagram I learned about the importance of using this technology in the classroom. These charts are easy for students to study and understand how contents are interrelated to one another.


Through our lesson on how to create digital diagrams I will be able to use this program to show the instrument families in the orchestra so students can understand how each instrument is categorized. I believe that using digital diagrams to show different facts about composers would also be helpful, so that students have a study aid for every composer. I really like digital diagrams and will definitely use them in my classroom!

Interactive whiteboards and flipcharts

Although I haven't had any experience I leaned a lot over the past few classes on how to create interactive flipcharts. I also learned that promethean planet is a resource open for teacher to use that has cool interactive activities and downloadable flipcharts for different classroom lessons. I really liked searching around on the promethean planet website and seeing all the cool things that I could download for free! I learned that there is different modes in Activinspire like authoring mode and at the board, which contain different tools that I can use. I also learned how to change the background, and how to use special interactive tools that I downloaded from the website.

Before working with Activinspire and IWB in this classroom I have had no prior experience of working with this equipment. We never used whiteboards in our school, because our teachers hated them because they constantly shut down and so they did take away a lot of time in the classroom. The second high school I attended wanted nothing to do with them so they did not put them in our school. So I've never really seen one being used properly. So it was really exciting to be able to see that we were going to learn how to use them for my future classroom.


I think that this lesson about using IWB and Activinspire is critical for my future classroom, because more and more technology is being integrated in the classroom through IWBs. I will use the board to put up important information such as which standards that we are covering in class, and also important dates that students should know that are arriving soon. I will also use the board to teach musicology and show important technique videos.  

Interactive Whiteboards Research Article

Before I read this article on Interactive whiteboard research I did not know much about IWB. I had never used this technology or have observed any teacher using this technology, so I have not had any experience what so ever.

After I read this article I found a few facts that were interesting about the IWB article. I thought that it was interesting that student achievement increased in the classroom when using the board with a successful teacher, and that if the teacher was not as successful in using the board that student achievement lowered. I feel that certain lessons are more useful than others when using an IWB.  Different types of learning tools will be helpful to making students feel more engaged in the classroom.

For example teaching through modeling how to shift would be more helpful than using the board, while learning about composers and history would be more useful to use the board. I believe that I will use IWB for teaching musicology and music theory, so that students can take notes, and learn from using helpful tools that the IWB provides.