What an exciting day! This is my first blog ever. Admittedly, I am relatively new to the blogging world, but now I’m thrilled to have the privilege of being a part of this process and to talk about technology that had such a positive effect on my teaching.

OK…who am I? My name is Bob Grifa. At the end of school year 2008, I completed 30 years as a music educator in the public schools. I was really enjoying teaching — and had no plans to stop anytime soon — when I was offered an opportunity to become a fulltime employee of MakeMusic as a SmartMusic Education Specialist. It was a difficult decision, but in the end I chose to take this new path.

Using Finale and SmartMusic has had a profound, positive impact on my teaching. Even though I do not teach students directly today, it is exciting that I am able to “teach” teachers about SmartMusic which in turn can have an effect on their teaching, and ultimately, their students.

In this blog, I plan to share my experience and ideas about using SmartMusic, related educational topics, and well, who knows what else! One point I’d like to share is this: my teaching methods, ideas, and individual musical thoughts were never compromised by using SmartMusic. On the contrary, my instruction was enhanced. I found that I could effectively and creatively reach more students, and that students could more readily understand how to develop better performance skills.

And do I dare say, it was “fun” to do? With all this in mind, here we go!