Music Tech Ideas

Well it is a good thing this is not Twitter because I am worse at "tweeting" than I am at blogging. It seems I am always apologizing for my lack of posts. I would love to be one of those weekly writers but it never seems to happen. I promise this will be the last time I whine about never posting! Moving on-

I will be away from my classroom and wanted to leave some assignments for them using technology. It is always nice when I can send them to the tech lab and they can work on something that doesn't require a sub to monitor too closely. Many of our teachers use Edmodo as an extension of their classroom and students regularly turn in assignments through their class pages. Edmodo is often called "Facebook for the classroom" and that is a pretty good description.

My junior high students will be using it while I am gone. They will all be logging into their Edmodo account where they will find their assignments. Once there the sixth graders have a link to the Rhythm Trainer. Rhythm Trainer is a fantastic site by John Blank created as part of his masters project while at VanderCook College of Music. The site lets you practice hearing rhythm patterns in two different ways. There are options for tempo and a variety of notations to choose from. One of my favorite parts is that my students can email me their results. When I get the email, it tells me their name, how many correct, how many wrong and the best part....how much time they spent doing it. Great for when you aren't there and wonder if they are really doing what they should be doing.

My seventh grade students will be working in Jam Studio. Jam Studio pretty much helps you write a song. You have the option to choose your chords, tempo, meter (4/4 and 3/4) and all of the instrumentation. Very fun and they enjoyed using it.

The eighth grade has a bit more complicated assignment. After signing in to Edmodo, they will access 4 links. The first will take them to a Google Site (You are welcome to take a look) that I created to help them discover some things about musical form. They also have links to two Google Forms where they will answer questions as they go along. I will be curious to see how they handle all of it. Sometimes they are very focused and receptive to using so much technology and other times they act like they've never seen a computer before!

Please be sure to share these marvelous sites with your music teachers. They are all easy to use and your students will enjoy infusing a bit of music technology in their learning.