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About
The Dallas Chamber Symphony has developed TechNotes as part of an exciting new music curriculum that strikes a perfect synergy between the use of new technologies in the classroom, and real-world, hands-on experience. While utilizing our publications through iPads and personal computers in elementary grade classrooms, our educational programs inspire children to learn more about their world through music and the arts.
Once delivered to each student on his or her own classroom computer or iPad, this digital supplement provides a TEKS-aligned curriculum of musical concepts that are often not fully covered by a typical school’s ordinary textbooks. This digital experience exposes students to a myriad of audio samples of classical music, allowing them to, in a short period of time, find and learn about music they like, where it comes from, and why it’s important. The TechNotes program further prepares students for a field-trip to see the Dallas Chamber Symphony in concert.
The Dallas Chamber Symphony’s educational programs are made possible through charitable contributions. Please consider supporting this worthwhile endeavor. The DCS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your gift is fully tax-deductible.
Apps & Flipped Classrooms
TechNotes materials represent only a small portion of our orchestra’s educational programs. Through our partnership with app developers, students of our educational programs can also receive complimentary access to innovative, award-winning apps on the iPad.
Apps on the iPad make it possible for our partner schools to employ a “flipped” classroom model, allowing students who have access to computers or iPads, to access quality, curated digital content on their own time, outside of the classroom, so that precious classroom hours remain focused on those learning activities that utilize group and social dynamics.
Video Conferences and Visits
In addition to TechNotesTM the Dallas Chamber Symphony provides its partner schools, and their students, video conference sessions with DCS musicians. In fact, the whole experience begins when students watch introductory videos, just before their first video conference with a DCS musician. These conversations can happen in group settings as well as one-to-one, moderated by the school’s music teacher.
After students have met our musicians digitally, they have the opportunity to meet them in person. DCS musicians arrive at classrooms, instruments in hand, and provide interactive demonstrations that engage the students through music.
Concerts
The program culminates in a field-trip concert at Dallas City Performance Hall that is designed especially for elementary grade students. Having been familiarized with the concert program through TechNotes, they will arrive at the concert hall prepared for the experience.
Preparation is a key difference between DCS music education programs and those offered by many other orchestras–nationally and internationally. By offering a consistent and complete immersion in orchestral music and the arts throughout the school year and over a prolonged period of time, we maximize our positive impact on students.
At field trip concerts, students experience music that is familiar to them from film, cartoons and commercials, and then branch out to concert music that is less familiar. Programs also include classics, like Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Students will hear the instruments they have learned about in class, and see how they are combined to create the music that they experience every day. Because of their preparation, our young audiences will be engaged and knowledgable, ready to get the most out of their concert experience. The end result is a program that is exciting to learn, fun to teach, and aligned with TEKS.