1. How can technology specifically help you to become a better music educator?

Technology is an ever evolving field that has become a necessity in our everyday lives. Gone are the days where one could escape from technology by choosing not to use it. Technological advances are so prevalent and rapid that you simply cannot participate in the world without a basic understanding of the way technology functions in our society. As educators I feel it is incredibly important that we keep up to date with these tech advances as to better understand our students, who are being brought up with this new technology.
Understanding modern technology and implementing it in the classroom allows us to better relate to our students who live with this technology and are used to it being part of their life. Because there is so much technology in our students' lives it can be used as a teaching platform in ways that would not have been possible 20 years ago such as using apps to create or arrange music.
We now have access to computer programmes for music creation that are incredibly intuitively built, and can be used as experiential teaching tools for students to interact with in whatever capacity they are comfortable with. For example garageband is built in such a way that differentiated learning is incredibly simple. Where one student could be learning to implement and arrange basic loops to create a composite piece of preexisting material, another student could be hooking up a USB microphone and learning  to record live sound and mix it. Using just one program, these two students, who are at very different places in their development, were able to develop their skills and learn important skills from the same programme.