New Trier, Wilmette Junior High combine for jazzy start to holiday season | Chicago Tribune

"Music is an integral part of the holiday season, and jazz is one of the liveliest musical genres to play or experience, so it probably isn't a surprise that student musicians from New Trier High School and Wilmette Junior High School helped usher in the 2016 holiday season with a Dec. 2 joint jazz concert." according to Kathy Routliffe, Writer.

Dan Nicholson, a professional jazz saxaphonist, adjusts the reed on New Trier Jazz Ensemble 1 member Griff Parry's tenor sax before the joint New Trier High School-Wilmette Junior High School concert, held Dec. 2 at the junior high. Nicholson and two other Chicago area jazz players performed with the students.
Photo: Kevin Tanaka / Pioneer Press

The concert, which took place at the junior high school, showcased pieces performed by the seventh grade jazz lab band and the 8th grade jazz band, said WJHS teacher and band leader Kimberly Farris. The two combos comprised about 35 students, Farris said.

The performance also featured music from about 90 members of four high school ensembles, according to Nic Meyer, director of jazz ensembles at New Trier.

Three professional Chicago area jazz musicians – saxophonist Dan Nicholson, trumpeter Marques Carroll, and trombonist Steve Horne – were also on hand to solo with the groups, Meyer said.

"One of the cool things about this is that the audience is going to get to see the progression of musical development, from our seventh grade jazz kids, all the way through the senior level at New Trier, which is amazing," Farris said.

In fact, members of New Trier's advanced jazz ensemble joined forces with musicians from both of the junior high groups at the end of the evening to perform one piece, "Blues by Five," by jazz great Red Garland, Meyer said Dec. 1.

"We got together once today," he said, "and practice went great. All three groups had practiced the piece separately, so it was just a matter of putting everything together."

Farris and fellow District 39 band teacher Ann Dufek have worked over the past few years to increase the number of collaborative events with New Trier, Farris said.

"We've done other collaborations, but this is the first time we've had a collaboration with the jazz program," she said before the concert. "Our kids will be able to work with Mr. Meyer, to get to work with him and the high school kids. We're super excited."

Work on this concert began at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. Meyer said the decision born out of both practical concerns and his appreciation for the WJHS auditorium.
Read more...

Source: Chicago Tribune

CONSERVATORY NOTES: Why the arts matter to all | Wicked Local Hingham

We here at South Shore Conservatory can't imagine our life without the arts. Can you? To learn more about SSC programs and events, visit sscmusic.org or find us on Facebook.

---

Photo: Elaine Sorrentino

"For the third consecutive year, South Shore Conservatory (SSC) participated in MASSCreative’s Arts Matter Day to publicly express why the arts matter to us." inform Elaine Sorrentino, South Shore Conservatory’s Communications Director.

Created as a vehicle for showing our legislators the importance of the arts to all populations, Arts Matter Day allowed us to crow about how the arts make a difference in our personal lives.

SSC was one of 640 participating arts and cultural organizations and individuals. Among the other organizations who joined us in posting photos and videos on social media were the Museum of Fine Arts, Longy School of Music, Artists for Humanity, Arts Boston and BosTix, Oliver Ames High School, the Clark Institute of Art, BU Arts Initiative, Boston Lyric Opera, Institute of Contemporary ARtBoston, and a host of others. Parents, students, faculty and staff members took pen to paper, taking stock of their many reasons for needing the arts in their lives.

SSC moms were perhaps the most passionate about their love for the arts. They see the difference the arts make to their children every day. Music Together moms wrote that the arts matter to them because they shape their children’s lives, and instill a sense of wonder in their children. Preschool mom Lara Thompson said “the joy of singing and learning to play music last a lifetime.” An active member of SSC’s Woman Song ensemble, Lara would know!

Other young moms chose less wordy responses to the question of how music makes them feel. “ALIVE!” and “like dancing” and “like breathing!” were all testaments to the power of the arts in helping us learn, express and be human.

At the Hingham Senior Center, our adult ukulele students proved that the benefits of the arts doesn’t stop at childhood. As they posed for a picture, proudly displaying their ukuleles, these seniors shared that the arts matter to them because they give them great joy. And this statement gave their instructor John McCarthy great joy!
Read more...

Source: Wicked Local Hingham

Portland Symphony Orchestra musicians enhance learning at Portland elementary schools | Press Herald

"A recent $600,000 grant will enable the PSO Explorers program to expand and continue through 2020." notes Bob Keyes, Staff Writer. 

Watch the Video

The kindergartners laughed when Brian Thacker mentioned the word “pizzicato.”
 
“Is that a type of cheese?” he asked. “A fancy pizza?”

“NO!” the class bellowed as one, knowing better than to fall for Thacker’s trickery.
 
The students in Beverly Lawrence’s kindergarten class at Longfellow Elementary School in Portland knew that “pizzicato” is an Italian word that describes plucking the strings of an instrument – in this case, Thacker’s big, brown acoustic bass. And in this lesson, the pizzicato plucks that emanated from Thacker’s big brown bass described the action of a principal character in the children’s book “The Little Red Hen.”
 
Thacker, who plays bass in the Portland Symphony Orchestra, brings his instrument to school a lot these days, as part of the PSO Explorers program. His primary goal is not to help students understand musical terms and techniques but to help them become better readers and all-around learners by using music to sharpen their focus and concentration. Musicians partner with kindergarten and first-grade teachers at two Portland elementary schools to develop curriculum to help students with literacy, social and emotional skills.
 
After Thacker demonstrates the plucking sound of the goose in the children’s book, he introduces another Italian word, “arco,” which describes bowing an instrument’s strings. Lawrence reads the story to the children, who are seated on the floor in two arcing rows in a sun-filled gym, and Thacker bows the bass strings in a low rumble, imagining the sleeping dog in the story. 

The orchestra began PSO Explorers three years ago and recently received a $600,000 grant to expand and continue it through 2020.

The program is unusual because it’s not attempting to teach kids about music. It uses music to enhance existing reading lessons, said Lynn Hannings, who plays bass in the orchestra and coordinates the program’s curriculum. It’s premised on the notion that music helps students relax and learn by using different parts of the brain.

 
“Listening to music gets you moving and gets you thinking,” she said. “When using music to teach literacy, we have found that music helps increase the energy level, which helps get the brain going.”
 
Music has proved particularly helpful to students for whom English is not their primary language, Hannings said. For those students, music provides a different way to engage their interest and narrate a story.
Read more...

Source: Press Herald 

Motivis Learning Launches 2017 Aspiring Educator Scholarship Initiative to Support Future Teachers | Motivis Learning

Photo: Katrina Langer

$10,000 Scholarship Geared to Ease the Financial Burden of a Deserving Student by Katrina Langer.    

---

Motivis Learning, the Learning Relationship Management System designed for student-centered, personalized education models, today announced its new 2017 Aspiring Educator Scholarship Initiative, aimed towards students enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program in education. In January 2017, the company will award one $10,000 scholarship to a student who tells Motivis Learning how they will make a difference through teaching. Qualified students can learn more about how to enter a submission here.
 

Photo: https://motivislearning.com/aspiring-educator-scholarship/

A 2015 analysis of student debt by U.S. News & World Report showed that those who received master's degrees in education accounted for 17 percent of graduate students who are $50,000 or more in debt “We know the heavy financial burden of pursuing their degrees can deter even the most inspired future teachers – but our goal at Motivis Learning is to keep them inspired, which is why we created our inaugural scholarship initiative for students pursuing a career in education,” said Motivis Learning CEO, Brian Peddle. “This is our way of giving back to the education community we care so much about, and showing that Motivis is invested not only in education technology, but in the people who are truly shaping the success of our future generations.”

For the inaugural scholarship, Motivis is asking future educators to explain how they will use their career to make a difference in the lives of their students.

• In no more than 800 words (but no fewer than 500), tell us how you plan to change the world through education. More specifically, will you promote student success in the classroom and beyond, through community engagement, emerging instructional practices, and/or educational technology?
• Submissions must be sent as a PDF or Word document, and emailed to scholarship@motivislearning.com
• Applicants must be 18 years or older, and enrolled in an accredited graduate or undergraduate education program in the U.S. or Canada. Please include an unofficial transcript as proof of enrollment with your submission
• The deadline for the 2017 scholarship is February 28, 2017. Motivis Learning will notify recipients on March 31, 2017 

For more information about this program, including judgment criteria, please refer to the Aspiring Educator Scholarship official rules.

In October, Motivis Learning launched its new Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System, answering the call of K-12, higher education and continuing education institutions for a personalized, student-centered, and competency-based education (CBE) learning platform. The LRM System is a next generation, cloud-based software platform that fully-integrates Motivis’ Learning Management System (LMS), campus community system, coaching and advising platform and student information functions. It has combined all four systems – typically thought of as isolated education technology systems – into one seamless platform that is powered by Salesforce CRM. 

To learn more on how to complete an entry for Motivis’ scholarship, please proceed to the Aspiring Educator Scholarship page 

About Motivis Learning  

Motivis Learning has built the first Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System specifically designed for innovative, student-centric and personalized teaching and learning models. The platform was born out of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University and put to work in SNHU’s next-generation CBE program, College for America, the first CBE of its kind approved by a regional accreditor and the US Department of Education. Backed by decades of success in education, pedagogy and technology, the LRM system is a fully-integrated suite of learning tools (built on Salesforce) that delivers the true 360-degree view of the student. Fully integrating the LMS, SIS, campus communication system and ePortfolio into a single platform.  

For more information, visit www.motivislearning.com, or connect with Motivis Learning on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. 

Source: Motivis Learning

Teaching Students about Their Digital Footprints | Faculty Focus

Photo: Dawn McGuckin

Dawn McGuckin, professor at Durham College (Canada) summarizes, "Our students live in an online world. They’re emotionally and physically attached to their devices and many of their relationships exist within technology."

Photo: Faculty Focus

As educators, there are many ways that we have had to adapt to this changing landscape of communication within our teaching, and when I look around my institution, I think we’re doing a remarkable job at keeping up with the rapid pace of change.

However, one area that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is educating students on the digital footprints they leave behind. Footprints that can jeopardize their employment potential. A large part of our job as college educators is to ensure that our students have the skills to become contributing members of society working in their chosen fields. We give them content knowledge and skills and we may even impart some of our worldly knowledge, but we rarely think about their online activities and the long-term ramifications they can have on their ability to achieve these goals.

I have presented on this topic on several occasions throughout North America and I am always surprised by how little some post-secondary educators know about the functionality and privacy of certain social media platforms. At the most recent conference, one participant told my colleague and me that it was safe to send a photo over SnapChat because it disappeared after a set amount of time. I was astounded. [See: Snapchat admits deleted photos aren’t really deleted] We explained to her that this was certainly not the case and absolutely anything transmitted on your phone or the Internet can have a positive or detrimental impact on your future employability.

Scenarios such as this only confirm for me that instructors not only need more information on this topic but should also have a solid lesson plan in place to educate their students about online activity.

Below I describe several steps for creating a lesson plan that will aid in making the Internet a constructive tool for building a positive, online identity for our students. 
Read more... 

References for this article are available on the Faculty Focus website. 

Source: Faculty Focus

4 Mobile Marketing Trends to Focus on in 2017 | Small Business Trends

Photo: Megan Totka

"As we begin our descent to the end of 2016, it’s vital for small businesses to look ahead to 2017 and beyond." according to Megan Totka, Chief Editor for Chamber of Commerce.

Photo: Mobile Phone - Shutterstock

Creative marketing can set your business apart from the pack, so it’s wise to stay updated on new approaches and trends.

The amount of consumers accessing the web via mobile devices now outweighs desktop users. These days, it’s not enough to just be “mobile friendly.” Here are four ways your small business should be utilizing mobile marketing in the upcoming year...

Mobile Apps
A recent Gallup poll indicates that 72 percent of Americans check their phones at least once an hour. The overwhelming majority of that time, up to 90 percent, is using apps. If your business doesn’t currently have a mobile app, now is the time!

Apps increase engagement, provides your business with customer data and increases the ways in which you are able to connect with your audience. Mobile app development can be done inexpensively and stands to benefit even the smallest companies by growing awareness of your brand.  
Read more...

Source: Small Business Trends

Google intros App Maker for businesses | Mobile World Live

Photo: Saleha Riaz

Saleha Riaz reports,  "Google launched App Maker, a “low-code” tool for creating custom enterprise apps for mobile, as part of its G Suite portfolio.

Photo: Shutterstock

“Whether you’re looking for better ways to onboard new team members, staff projects, or approve employee travel requests, App Maker helps you build an app for that in days instead of months,” Google said.

For one, IT or “citizen developers” (such as analysts and system administrators) can quickly iterate from a prototype to a deployed app.

App Maker offers a cloud-based integrated development environment that features built-in templates, a drag-and-drop user interface and point-and-click data modeling.

It supports open and popular standards like HTML, CSS, Javascript and Google’s material design visual framework, so developers can make the most of existing skills and knowledge.
Read more... 

Source: Mobile World Live

Amazon, Google Race To Bring Artificial Intelligence To Apps | MediaPost Communications

Follow on Twitter as @LaurieSullivan

"In a race to widen their respective developer networks, Amazon and Google have released separate self-service tools to help inventors create apps based on machine learning that will ultimately make it easier for brands to work with the technology." inform Laurie Sullivan, writer and editor for MediaPost. 

Photo: GraphicStock.com

Amazon has made three of its artificial intelligence tools available to developers within its Web Services group, marking the first time that the company has allowed outside inventors to build apps and services on its technology.

Building AI capabilities into apps requires access to large amounts of data and expertise in machine learning and neural networks. The deep and machine-learning algorithms require access to automatic speech recognition, natural-language understanding and classification to collect and train the networks to recognize phrases, speech inflections, objects, and keywords.

The group, Amazon AI, features three services: Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, and Amazon Rekognition. Lex, the technology that powers Amazon Alexa, allows any developer to build conversational experiences for Web, mobile and connected devices. Capital One, OhioHealth, HubSpot and Twillo have used Amazon Lex to build out chatbots for their respective companies.  
The Washington Post and GoAnimate used Amazon Polly to turn text into speech, enabling their respective apps to talk with 47 lifelike voices in multiple languages.

The third tool, Rekognition -- which Redfin, and SmugMug applied to apps -- allows app users to sort through images. The application uses deep learning-based image and face recognition.

Google also has been pushing self-serve tools, trying hard to convince developers to adopt technology that allows them to create bots for Google Assistant through Actions on Google, which the company should release earlier this month. Venture Beat reported in October that a software development kit (SDK) that brings Google Assistant into device not made by Google should become available next year.
Read more...

Source: MediaPost Communications

It's Time To Get Serious About Your Mobile Strategy | NewsFactor Network

Photo: Maribel Lopez

"Mobility has been a hot topic for some time, and it continues to be a key strategic initiative for both consumer and B2B-facing companies." notes Maribel Lopez, Principal & Founder.

Photo: GraphicStock.com

Lopez Research surveyed IT leaders on their top priorities in 2016, and over two-thirds of them listed mobile-enabling the business as one of the most important. Yet, only 48% of the firms interviewed have a formal mobile strategy in place. This disconnect between crafting a mobile strategy and deploying mobile applications can dramatically decrease the effectiveness of a company’s mobile efforts.

A mobile strategy should define the architectural approach for connecting data from systems of record and engagement such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management system (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) to mobile applications. Without this, the apps development team is simply building a pretty user interface that can’t connect to transactional systems.

Outlined below are three phases of mobile strategy that we believe will help companies reach the next stage of mobile-enabling their business. 
Read more...

Source: NewsFactor Network

The future of front-end development is design | TechCrunch

Photo: Carson Miller

Carson Miller, head of digital at Fahrenheit 212 summarizes, "Should we make our kids learn to code?  I can’t argue against the value of every child having a working knowledge of software development."

Photo: TechCrunch

Should we make our kids learn to code? This question was posed to me at a recent dinner party. As one of the only people in our social circle who has worked in and around software development for an entire career, I get this type of question often. My immediate response was a resounding yes, and I shared a few superficial reasons why the choice was so obvious.

The conversation eventually moved on, but the question stuck with me. Maybe it was the phrase “to code,” which encapsulates such a massive spectrum. There will always be a role for engineers focused on the massive challenges required to build autonomous transportation, virtual reality and any other ambitious future technology that we will inevitably conceive, but I’m not so sure this is what my friends had in mind for their kids.

If they’re envisioning a future where their kids code web and mobile apps, I question whether I made the right recommendation. Given the significant innovation in design tools and software development infrastructure, this type of coding is going to look dramatically different in the future. In fact, the line between design and development may no longer exist, resulting in fundamental changes to the skill set and teams required to bring a product to market.

Barriers to development are decreasing rapidly 
Over the past decade, the cost to launch a software product has decreased exponentially. For example, during the original dot-com boom, the cost to launch an internet startup was hundreds of thousands of dollars, due in large part to the capital costs of servers, internet bandwidth, software licenses and office space. Since then, cloud infrastructure (like Amazon Web Services), developer tools (like GitHub), open-source frameworks (like Ruby on Rails) and bespoke back-end services (like Algolia for search) have all emerged to enable rapid digital product development at a fraction of the cost of even just 10 years ago. Today, if you have the time and the design and development skills, it is possible to build and launch a product for a few hundred dollars.
Read more...

Source: TechCrunch