Amy M. Burns

Elementary Music Technology and Integration

Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.

My Attempt at the Music Bulletin Board Videos!

August 21, 2022  /  Amy M. Burns

Hats off to the elementary music educators who create the most decorative spaces and then take it a step further to create TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube shorts showing the process of getting their rooms ready for the first day of school. I marvel at their talent and I tried to do the same as my oldest daughter and I created the music bulletin board outside of the music room.

Creating the Video

You know what I am talking about. The videos usually begin with a music educator laying out items that will be used. The video then goes into fast motion and ends 20 seconds later with a room that is so artistic and beautiful. I applaud them so much. One, because they are lucky to have a room where not all elementary music educators have a room or can teach in a space that is solely theirs. And two, because they are so creative with their materials that the end product is gorgeous.

My Video

Here is my attempt at creating the video just for the bulletin board in the hallway. As you can see, the stapler never cooperates, I cannot hang bulletin board paper without four hands, and I never know what to put on the bulletin board (very thankful to my oldest daughter who helped with the two latter items).

Mikayla, my daughter, went through various google searches to find a music teacher’s idea of “Music Transforms You” with a plain top half, sheet music for the bottom half, and butterflies as the image of transformation (from caterpillar to butterfly). We added aspects of our program to the butterflies from creativity to performance. The fonts and colors change to also show the transformation.

As the school year progresses, we will add photos to the board around each butterfly. I am also considering adding the caterpillars to bring home the theme. Finally, my classroom is located in the Science Hallway, and they study chrysalises in third-grade science, so this has a nice cross-curricular connection.


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