Wrapping up

I'm so thankful for the eye-opening experiences I've had this summer. In addition to all the required coursework, I look forward to performing independent research next summer. While I haven't decided on a topic, I know I'll need to do a literature review before I even decide what I'd like to know more about. ERIC will be a wonderful database for me to search for previous research on my topic. I now know how to navigate it much better by utilizing title and author fields and controlled vocabulary in lieu of a vague keyword search. Though I've always fancied myself a skillful searcher (read: stalker), I really didn't know how to use all of the functions of advanced search, and I certainly had no idea what controlled vocabulary was! Now that I know, I'm much better prepared to locate pertinent resources.

On the off-chance that IC doesn't have something I need, I now know how to track it down via WorldCat. My experiences with ILL were positive (no rejection!), so I'm confident that I'll have access to anything that I might need. As far as next school year goes, I know that I'll make use of several resources covered in class. I'd like to do a better job connecting art and music, so I know that I can use the Inventory of music iconography to find relevant artwork. Now that we know about Creative Commons (which is something I've seen on a bunch of teaching blogs that I follow), I will be able to search for graphics for my handouts and other resources without worrying about violating copyright laws. I know that there are ways I could incorporate the other resources we've learned about that are more music-specific than they are geared toward education, but I think that I'll start with what's listed above and venture into some other collections in between summers two and three. I really enjoyed the presentations by my peers on their digital repositories, and know that I can incorporate those in specific lessons. For example, I could use artifacts from the MET on an opera lesson in general music, or I could use jazz teachings from Berkeley or a high school interpretation of 4'33" when working with my middle schoolers. Since my classes for the older kids are more project-based and driven by topics that interest them, I'll have to wait to see how the year unfolds.