Blog 3 -E- The Mac in the Class

I just recently observed (well more like helped out a friend of mine) at J. Colin English in North Fort Myers. He is a Music teacher at the school and I help him out from time to time in his classroom with working with the students. I am not musically talented but he knows I am going to be a teacher some day and he knows it is good to get experience being in front of the students. What I have noticed is that he uses his own personal Mac in his classroom instead of the school computer. He has shown me a lot of awesome programs that the Mac has that enhances his student learning in the field of music. There are some awesome recording programs where he composes a group of students music piece and combines them into one song; then he presents the song to the class. He also records his music plans on there and he tells me that two times a month he gives his students a CD for them to take home and practice the same music he has on there so they can learn that song. He divides each type of instrument and gives the appropriate song to the student studying that instrument. I have learned a lot of new teaching methods just by viewing the teacher operate and utilize the programs from a Mac computer. It will be a little harder for me to use it as a history teacher but there are a lot of programs in the Mac that I can use to make my presentations or other lessons with. I know many classrooms will not be equipped with a Mac computer but it was nice to see some of the great programs in the system and how you can use them in a classroom.