ISM Joins the NAfME Roundtable for Advocacy in the Fight for Music Education

iSchoolMusic.org has joined forces with the National Association for Music Education Roundtable (along with other notable organizations) to champion advocacy for our schools in the field of Music Education.  iSchoolMusic's president and founder, Chris Purifoy, along with other members of the ISM team attended the National Conference in June and sat as members of the NAfME Roundtable for Advocacy in a forum to discuss the problems facing music programs across our country and the solutions for helping schools receive the help they need.  We all know that students who are involved in music education throughout school test higher on ACT and SAT tests and tend to be more disciplined and well rounded students.

Below is the latest Agenda Summary from the Roundtable.  You can click the link within the article to see the legislative agenda on your behalf.  Check out the sponsors at the bottom to get an idea of the muscles behind the fight for music education.  iSchoolMusic continues to push for high standards and better funding for our schools.  We invite you to join the advocacy groundswell through the NAfME website to give feedback and enter the discussion on the future of Music Education at http://advocacy.nafme.org/

Music Education:  Core to Orchestrating Success
A Statement on the Importance of Maintaining Classroom Music in America’s Schools

Now that America has elected its next President and Congress, the providers and supporters of sequential, standards-based music education encourage all policymakers to maintain a strong educational foundation for student success in our schools...

Click to read more ...

GET YOUR STUDENTS ONBOARD!

This is such a busy time of year for your programs!  We are excited that iSchoolMusic.org can help you with your communication with your students and parents!  If you haven't gotten your students signed up yet, NOW is the time to get them going!  Alfred Publishing is offering $300 of Sheet Music to be given away on December 1 just for getting your students signed up and referring your friends! Once all your students are signed up, your school automatically goes into the drawing for the grand prize of $200 and the 2nd prize of $100 of sheet music for your school program!

We want to make it as easy as possible for you.  If you go to the "Manage Sign-ups" tab on your Admin Panel.  You will notice that there is a button "email" by the Student Sign-Up Code.  That is a drop down box where you can paste all of your student's emails and it will send them an invitation with instructions on signing up.  The process is quick and painless!



As always, we welcome your feedback!  Let us know how you are doing and if we can help!

iSchoolMusic.org 2.1 Launches with a Fresh Look & New Engine.

After almost 2 years, iSchoolMusic.org is finally ready for public signups with the launch of iSchoolMusic.org 2.1! That means all 1,500 pre-registered schools are now invited to join us, and everyone else can sign up as well! It is a lot like the last version on the surface (for those of you who joined us in the private BETA), though it has a fresh new design and under the hood it is a whole new animal.  We have tightened the screws and fixed many of the problems from the old system.  FINALLY a solid foundation so we can scale this FREE and important surface to the world! Sign Up now and claim your school a free account!

The next version will be V2.2, and it will patch any additional bugs found in the public launch.  It should be out very quickly (estimated within 7-9 days), from there iSchoolMusic.org's engine should pur like a hybrid.  Each version after that will arrive by monthly or quarterly depending on the size of the release, and will be packed with improvements from your feedback, upgrades to current features and the addition of the rest of the tools listed on our homepage.  We have nowhere to go but forward!  

It is going to be a great year and if you stick with us, in 2013 we will have together built a FREE and COMPREHENSIVE management, communication and fundraising platform for future generations to come!  Thanks to all of the more than 400 schools and 1100 directors who walked with us the past year during our private BETA!  Your feedback was golden, and we listened!  Please continue to contact us for your support and let us know if you have problems, questions or praises!

TELL A FRIEND...OR 2!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS!  iSchoolMusic is the only web based product of its kind.  It is cutting edge technology for the music classroom.  Help us get the word out.  We would like to have 2000 schools signed up by Christmas.  The more schools we have, the more features we will be able to provide. 

Keep checking back and follow us on faceboook and twitter...we have FREE stuff to give to your school for helping us spread the word!

CELEBRATE...YOUR LIFE JUST GOT EASIER! 

iSchoolMusic.org 2.0 Delayed, Access iSM.org 1.0 Now!

 

We have been working 12-18 hour days all through the holidays to get iSchoolMusic.org 2.0 ready in time for spring.  We are SOOO close to having it ready, but we still need a bit of time to get the new platform polished. To show some good faith, however, we have decided to let everyone into the BETA platform to look around (sign up info is at the bottom of this article).  Just a note, however, the 1.0 platform has a few bugs and shortcomings and we are aware of all of them.  We have been testing for awhile and iSchoolMusic.org 2.0 will fix all the problems, streamline the navigation and improve the interface for a much more user friendly experience.  If you haven't already seen, here...

Click to read more ...

iSchoolMusic.org - Spring Launch Preview

You may have caught a preview of the new iSchoolMusic.org yesterday for those of you who are already using it.  We pushed it live for a few hours and ran into a few snags as you may have learned from the email we sent out today.   We decided to take the weekend to get the platform polished and ready.  I know there is a lot of anticipation building, so as a consolation here is a preview of the new look!  

We have been working all year long on and we still have a long way to go. The spring release will be the first semi-public BETA.  1000 schools are joining us and we hope everyone will pitch in to help us build the perfect solution for music education...

Click to read more ...

Check out the World's Largest Concert!

(formerly The World’s Largest Concert)
 

The World’s Largest Concert has undergone a name change! A sing-along concert linking students around the world through music, the WLC reached an estimated 6 million students, teachers, and music supporters over the years. A highlight of Music In Our Schools Month®, the title “Concert for Music In Our Schools Month” reflects the Concert’s place in NAfME’s annual month-long celebration of school music!

While the “official date” of the Concert for Music In Our Schools Month is Thursday, March 8 at 1 p.m., all teachers are encouraged to get creative and teach and sing with their students any number of the Concert songs at any time during March 2012 — whenever it fits into their school and community schedules!

Click here to see the great 2012 Concert songs and sheet music!

Thank you to

for its continued support of The Concert for Music In Our Schools Month by providing the sheet music and audio tracks for the 2012 program.

Spring Invites Are Here!

It's a NEW YEAR and we have NEW DEVELOPMENTS. The countdown clock for spring invites has begun. The platform will open to more than 350 thousand students in early January. A huge THANK YOU to all of you who have helped in the ALPHA phase of development and to the rest of you...WELCOME to the growing movement.  We are so excited to  launch iSchoolMusic 2.1 to those of you who have been patiently waiting.  We've worked out the kinks (update is coming in early January, 2012) and new features are in development, but we still need your help to make this product as intuitive and useful as possible. We look forward to all the feedback and support. If it wasn't for YOU, iSchoolMusic.org would not be the amazing FREE product that it is! We are changing our status to a Non-Profit organization which means that we can be the catalyst for AMAZING new music education initiatives.  YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT WE HAVE UP OUR SLEEVES!  More to come later. We are thrilled that 1000 schools will be joining us this spring to help in the movement to create a free way to simplify the school year and innovate music education. Brimming with excitement, Debbie and the iSM.org team

Message to iSchoolBand Users From the Founder

iSchoolBand Users,

I wanted to give all of you an update about what is happening over at iSchoolMusic.org.  We recently invited 100 schools to join us in our private alpha and we have been working day and night to get the bugs worked out.  The system is still a bit unstable, but we hope to get it ready for the next batch of invitations by next week!  We have decided to wait until the system is completely stable to move the iSchoolBand accounts over to the new system to save you the headaches!  We will keep you updated as things progress.

The new system is pretty much the same as the current iSchoolBand platform.  We have only added a few small features to improve parent integration and allow choirs and orchestras to use the system.  The other features listed on the homepage of iSchoolMusic will be in development over the next few months.  Our hope is to have several of them done in time for the Midwest Clinic this year! 

If you have any questions feel free to reach out!

best,

Chris Purifoy
Founder of iSchoolBand & iSchoolMusic

iSchoolMusic is Now Accepting Invite Requests!

Thanks for the overwhelming response!  We are really about to do something amazing together!  After the first 2 days of pre-launch, 64 thousand students will be joining us at iSchoolMusic this fall!  My humble thanks.

We are only allowing 2000 schools to join us next fall for our first release to make sure we can handle the bandwidth and maintain reliable standards!  We will open up the doors a bit more before concert season as well, so if you miss your chance this fall don’t worry!  Sign-ups are on a first come first serve basis!  Don’t miss it!

More soon.  Check back or subscribe to this blog to get updates on our launch date and more on iSchoolMusic’s vision for music education.

Here’s to a simpler band year! Cheers!

Chris Purifoy
Founder, CTO
@iSchoolMusic.org