Tia Agate, an eighth grader at Hopkins West Junior High, goes online almost everyday.
One of her favorite Web sites is www.smartmusic.com. It's not a social networking site, like MySpace or Facebook, but a homework tool that helps her practice her band music.
"I fool around with the site almost everyday," said Agate. "I like to use it when we get new music in class and I don't really know what it's supposed to sound like. It lets me hear the whole song."
"I also like it because it lets me hear my own part. I can count my rests and then I can hear better when I'm supposed to come in," she said.
In past years, Agate played the alto sax. This year, however, she plays the baritone sax in the eighth grade band and the eighth grade jazz band. The Web site, she said, helped her make the transition between instruments. "SmartMusic is like a private tutor for me," Agate said.
Agate's band teacher, Danielle Boor, agrees. "For a lot of kids, SmartMusic is like having a mini teacher in their house," she said.
"It's kind of like playing Guitar Hero," Boor said. "It turns their band practice into a game. They compete against themselves and try to up their score."
Even though students often feel as though they are playing a game when they log into SmartMusic, they are actually being graded. For example, Boor uses the site to assign between four and six assignments each quarter.
"The district is trying to incorporate technology throughout the curriculum," Boor said. "For us, SmartMusic is great because the kids really grasp what the program does."
"Students can use the program here at school, but I'd say about 80 to 90 percent of the kids have the program at home," Boor said. "It's a software they can download to a laptop or home computer and use with the Internet."
The district offers students a discount code that allows them to purchase the software for a cost of $18.75. Most parents, Boor said, readily accept this cost. They like the program because it encourages their children to practice their instruments more often.
Boor likes the program because it allows her to give individualized feedback to every student.
This is how it works: A teacher uploads his or her class list to the program and uses the software's vast library of scales and sheet music to assign practice pieces to each student.
When students log in, their assignments pop up. After clicking on each, scales and chords appear on the computer screen.
Students can run through the notes as many times as they like before pushing a "record" button. Once they lock in a recording, it gets e-mailed to their teacher.
The teacher listens to each student's practice session and e-mails feedback. A teacher can also choose to forward a practice session on to a parent.
The SmartMusic program can also perform more sophisticated tasks. For example, it can automatically compare the notes a student plays to the actual notes of the sheet music. Each correct note a student hits appears as green. Each incorrect note appears as red.
In addition, once students progress beyond the basic run of scales, the program allows students to practice their individual parts for their band's larger ensemble pieces.
When a student does practice these individual pieces, the computer accompanies them by playing all the other instrument parts. This means that the students are able to hear the entire song as they are practicing and can easily tell whether or not they are keeping the appropriate pitch and speed.
"The kids are playing with better tune and tempo," said Kay Hawley, who is also a band instructor at West Junior High. "I've found that all of them are much more active listeners."
The band teachers at West Junior High have been using SmartMusic technology since 1993, when the school became a pilot site for the software's parent company, Make Music, Inc., which is based in Eden Prairie.
Yet it's just in the last two years, Hawley said, that she has used the program with all of her students. Last year, improvements in the software gave it a more user-friendly interface and lowered the price, which caused Hopkins to adopt the technology district wide.
"Originally, I used this program as enrichment to push the top kids, but now I'm using it with everybody," Hawley said.
"The kids really like it. It grabs their attention. And for me, it's also helped improve my connection with parents," Hawley said. "All of us now have a much better feel for how the kids are doing."
Alex Guggenberger agrees with that. He plays the French horn in eighth grade band and likes SmartMusic because it keeps a tally of his class points. "I can see my grade online," he said.
"It saves all my recordings, too, so that I can go back and see how much better I've gotten," Guggenberger said. "It's really helpful."
