"Connect on Home” is an interdisciplinary and community project designed within the middle school setting that integrates music and technology. The Carthage Middle School Instrumental Educator along with the Electronic Music Educator teamed with NCPR (North Country Public Radio) to create an authentic recording experience for our students while supporting military families not only in our district but abroad as well. The visiting artist, NCPR's Joel Hurd, worked closely with the students on the production and distribution of CD’s to the USA troops overseas. Students visited NCPR in Canton in the Spring of 2008 to view first hand the working of a recording and production studio.
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Left: Students get familiar with recording
equipment.
Above : listening to playback
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Big Idea: to create a recording project for our Middle School students while supporting our military families within the community and abroad
Essential Questions to guide the partnership:
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How can musical performances and media production better connect and inspire soldiers and their families?
A large percentage of our students have a parent that is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. This project brings the music performances of our students to family members serving in the military.
What methods will we use to increase student achievement?
Student self-reflected on the their music performance. The music educator also used the performance as a tool for teaching methods and assessments during choral/instrumental classroom instruction.
What are the steps involved in planning, creating, publishing and distributing audio and other media communications to our troops?
The authors of this grant have connected with NPR and developed a strong authentic music recording experience for our students. Carthage has a strong connection with the military community via our district Fort Drum Liaison. Through the office of the School Liaison located on Fort Drum our efforts in this project have been successful.
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How do we create and sustain an on-going recording calendar of school and community events?
Carthage Central is fortunate to have a public access channel within our district. Our concert series is recorded and aired on our television station channel. Copies of these performances are also available to community and family members who were not able to attend our concerts. Carthage Central Schools now offers video on demand which can be found on the front page of our district web page.
Joel Hurd introduces the students to the studio. |
Students were excited to learn the process of creating a recording of their music performances, and were inspired to achieve high quality music recordings during the spring of 2008. Students used various assessments and reflective methods to calculate the achievements of this project:
- Rubric developed by the teachers
- Student/Classroom discussions
- Formative Feedback
- Interim Planning
- Evaluation and Reflection meetings
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The orchestra rehearses in preparation for recording.
“I learned how to add effects to the recording and burn it on a CD. But then I realized that they [the soldiers] were going to love anything since it was their child’s progress and performances. . . I felt very honored to be given this opportunity . . . I thought that a lot of hard work was paying off. Not everyone gets to learn something like I did everyday” -- 7th grader Maeve M.