December 11, 2012 at 1:44 PM
I have taught privately for twenty years and never did I ever think that my studio would be online. I never even imagined skype lessons. When the idea was presented to me I thought how effective could it really be. I travel quite a bit with performing the violin and one summer before going overseas a student of mine (from a military family and very comfortable with skype) requested skype lessons. I said ok we can give it a try but I never found the time to make it possible. The following year she asked again and I thought OK - I will seriously give it a try. That summer I taught three students by skype and was terribly surprised by how effective it was. The same summer I was encouraged by another person to make youtube teaching videos. Again I ventured out of my comfort zone and was very surprised, yet again, how effective this is for a teaching tool and it goes hand in hand with the skype violin lessons. I am a die hard traditionalist and am nowhere near what I would call a techie but in many ways I have ventured outside of my comfort zone. Since then I have read multiple articles on the new age of education for children. Children's brains are "turned on" while being taught through social networking sites for example youtube and skype. I have seen this for myself when with one student of mine who struggled learning a scale after having conventional private lessons with me finally learned it perfectly via a skype lesson and one youtube video.Everything could not have been orchestrated better because now I am living in Gabrovo, Bulgaria playing with the Gabrovo Chamber Orchestra and I am still able to teach my violin students in the states and add students from around the world to my newly located online violin studio. Currently, I have a student that is a high school senior preparing for university auditions and because of skype violin lessons I can still work with her in her preparation process. We indeed do live in an exciting day and age with endless possibilities.
Now when I tell people I teach on skype they look at me and say how is that possible and I smile and say I once thought the same.....
Happy Practicing!!!
Heather Broadbent
www.onlineviolin.net
www.youtube.com/user/heatherkbroadbent
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