Breckenridge Music Department
SmartMusic and Practice Journal Update 10/18/10
Dear Parent or Legal Guardian,
We will no longer be using practice journals as a form of assessment. Instead, the students will be using SmartMusic. Each week a performance assessment will be assigned through Smartmusic. These assignments will be due each week on Saturday. This allows the student to complete the assignment at school any day during the week before or after school, or at home with a SmartMusic subscription. Each student will be given enough time during class to perform the assessment once or twice. The students are expected to practice at home with or without SmartMusic to make passing the assessment faster and easier as well as improve their practice and performance skills.
Our reasons for switching to SmartMusic as a form of assessment are numerous. It was becoming evident that some of the students that were turning in practice journals were not actually practicing. The opposite was also true. Some of the students clearly were practicing and were simply not turning in their practice journals. Also, many students were not practicing in a way that improved their skills.
SmartMusic offers many resources that allow the student to learn in the following ways:
· Students practice with background accompaniment and get visual and audio feedback on each assignment, which makes practice more meaningful and productive by motivating students to continue practicing in order to improve their scores, similar to a video game, which makes practice more fun.
· We can provide more individualized attention for your child with SmartMusic’s assignment features, including notes of encouragement.
· Parents have access to their student’s progress 24/7.
Although a Smart Music home subscription is not a requirement, we want to highly encourage you to get a subscription. We believe your child will enjoy practicing more and improve faster.
· Place your order at www.smartmusic.com by clicking on the Order Now button. All you will need is a PC or a Macintosh with an Internet connection.
· An annual subscription is $36, plus a one-time cost for a microphone ($19.95 for Windows and $29.95 for Mac). The SmartMusic microphones are more sensitive and responsive, which makes the assessment and recording features work better.
The students are also encouraged to practice at home using SmartMusic or other means, in order to make passing the assignment faster and easier, as well as improve their practice and performance skills.
We hope this letter was informative and helped to clear up any confusion in regards to SmartMusic and practice journals. Please call the band office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Joseph Radtke Instrumental Music Teacher (989) 567-4047 jradtke@edzone.net | Nathan Schulte Instrumental Music Student Teacher (517) 610-4434 10nsschu@alma.edu |
