Book Creator is one of my favourite apps to use in my music classroom. One of the advantages to using a general classroom app in music lessons is that the students already know how to use the app and therefore most times I do not have to spend time teaching them all the skills needed. On … Continue reading Creating ePubs in the Music Classroom
It's that time of year again in Australian Schools with mid year reports due. Now that I have finished and sent mine through, I would like to share with you how I use video observations to help me with my assessment. Taking video footage in the classroom is really easy now that we have it readily … Continue reading Gathering Video Assessment for Reporting
Why should we bring coding into the music room? Because not only is it cross curricular and ticking the STEAM methodology of teaching, it is also asking our students to think about the fundamentals of music. What is it we need to consider when making an instrument? Pitch, melody, and/or beat, rhythm, tempo and tone … Continue reading Coding Music Instrument Apps in Hopscotch & Tynker
Coding is the new buzz word in primary education with many schools starting to teach it with the emphasis on teaching STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). It is also possible to add in the Arts, with new research showing that teaching STEAM (STEM + the Arts) projects significantly impact learning. Intrigued by this, I attended a workshop on coding … Continue reading Create your own MIDI musical instrument with Scratch and the Makey Makey
Use http://www.typedrummer.com to engage your students in any subject and lesson
I have had some great feedback on my initial post about specialist/single subject music planning in an IB school. Apologies for not writing this one sooner. This post is a wrap up of my programming in my 3rd year of teaching in an IB school. Please note I still see myself on a learning journey in … Continue reading Part 2: Planning IB PYP in the Specialist / Single Subject Classroom 2014 Overview
In 2015 I have been presenting this workshop around Australia and New Zealand receiving great feedback from those who have attended. At the beginning of October 2015 I launched the above title as the first in my series of Virtual PD publications. It is 90 Minutes of accredited Professional development containing video tutorials, step by step … Continue reading Digital Portfolios: Assessment in the iPad Classroom
This month I presented my first PD workshop titled 'iPads in the Middle Primary Music Classroom' at the Music Technology in Education Conference in Melbourne, Australia. I had really great feedback from the participants and comments that the information I shared is not only relevant to Middle Primary but all the way through K-12. The topics … Continue reading iPads in the Music Classroom Professional Development Workshop
Do you grab kids attention without having to speak? As music teachers our voice is our instrument, we need to care for it and therefore we need to be diligent in finding ways we can communicate using non verbal cues to conserve the use of our voice. Not only this, but it lightens the mood … Continue reading Music as Non Verbal Cues in the Classroom
Our children are now growing up wired for visual and sound with all the technology that is available to them. We as teachers are need to learn how to embrace this shift in our classrooms as well. TV adverts are full of quick visual stimuli and attention grabbing music and this is what our children … Continue reading The YouTube Classroom: using videos to grab attention
mrsbmusicroom.com 