Acquiring Technological Knowledge

For this final week of reading, I found this chapter to be overall rather dry. This is not to say that it was not worthwhile or that the information that it contains is not useful. However, this did leave one section in particular to stand out quite noticeably. I found the section on developing various types of knowledge to be very interesting, especially in what it had to say on acquiring and developing technological knowledge. The section breaks down different types of knowledge and what they represent, including pedagogical, content, and technological knowledge, and also lays out a study in which music educators were asked how they acquired knowledge in each of these three categories. Both pedagogical and content knowledge are what make up the vast majority of learning at institutions of higher learning for music educators. However, the study showed that when it came to acquiring knowledge for music technology most teachers had to find other avenues of learning. It should be stated that the study had respondents that had been teaching for upwards of 40 years, and in the case of many current music educators the current music technology was not even around. It should also be noted that some respondents were young teachers with only a few years of experience and as such grew up with this technology readily available. The reason that I found all of this to be so interesting is because of the severe lack of exposure I had to music technology as an undergraduate. I am only 25 years old, and much of what is still cutting edge in music technology was in existence during much if not all of my undergraduate career. While I did have some exposure to Smart Music and a good amount of training on Sibelius, I had never even been made aware of many others. Even more frustrating to me is that my undergraduate institution never highlighted the potential of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or even YouTube and how these can be used to reach students. I hope that this does not seem like a tirade or rant of some kind, it is just that these last 6 weeks or so have proven to me just how useful music technology can be in just about any type of music education setting. Surely this is beginning to change, and it is wonderful that there are many professional development opportunities out there to help with this, but this nonetheless shows how reluctant or resistant some groups can be to adopt or even become familiar with a new way of doing something.