Thursday, July 21, 2011

SmartMusic Inbox: SmartMusic Goes Mobile

SmartMusic Inbox

Looked what showed up in my feed this morning.  As reported by choirguy at techinmusiced, SmartMusic now has a mobile app.  It’s something educators have been calling for in the forums for a while now – a mobile app to sort through the inbox from your smartphone.  It’s available as an app for both iPhone and Android phones. 

If you are using the educator version of SmartMusic, and you have students sending assignments into your inbox, it’s a great tool for going through them. You can view classes by student or assignment, listen to recording made by the students, grade and comment, add or edit points, and email from the app.

I installed and got as far as being told that my account is not set up for mobile access.  I wasn’t terribly surprised, as I don’t actually have an educator subscription.  This app only provides access to your grading inbox, and you only have one of those if you have an educator account. 

I’ve been reminded by SmartMusic that I should have an educator account since I’m a teacher, but I still just have a student account.  Why?  Because the educator account offers very little value add for me as a private Suzuki teacher.  Suzuki music is not assessable, so I couldn’t create assignments around my core teaching material.  Sure, I could assign supplemental work, but none of the supplemental music I use in my studio is available in SmartMusic either, and yes, I’ve submitted the requests.  I really just use it to play the accompaniments to the Suzuki repertoire in the studio, and occasionally for some sight-reading practice. 

I keep meaning to look more closely at the educator version and create a plan for actually implementing it in my studio, but I just haven’t had the time.  Private Suzuki teachers using the educator tools, feel free to leave a comment with ideas.  

2 comments:

  1. I hear your frustrations about the Suzuki material. SmartMusic has been hoping to incorporate Suzuki methods for a long time, but Suzuki has not given them license to do so. Have you contacted Suzuki? What did they tell you?
    -Beth

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  2. The Suzuki material is all there, you just can't run assessments on it. I have heard various explanations from both SmartMusic and the SAA, but the big sticking point is that SAA feels the pitch evaluation is not strict enough - SmartMusic will give you a green note even if you're a little off.

    SmartMusic simply says "Titles from the Suzuki Violin School solo collection have no assessment at the request of the Suzuki Association of America."

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