Being a teacher who always looks for ways to creatively capture students attention, I was extremely excited two weeks ago when I found this awesome website which works on both computers and tablets www.typedrummer.com
First I planned to use it as an introduction activity for my first music lesson of 2016, however during the lesson my students inquired, investigated and morphed the activity into a lot more, showing me the potential this website has for not only the music classroom but for use in other subjects as well.
Here are 10 ways to use Typedrummer, the first 9 are general classroom uses, number 10 is a classroom music lesson.
1. Welcome messages – I had this displayed on the data projector as students came in.
2. Spice Up boring content – The most boring time in the classroom is setting up your rules and boundaries at the beginning of the school year, this year I presented mine by typing each one in typedrummer.
3. Instruction List – type a list of instructions for students to follow.
4. Instruction step by step – type each instruction as students complete them, This I found to be an awesome tool for packing up instead of raising my voice above the noise of the class.
5. Names – teacher/students introduce themselves typing their name, investigate different combinations, first name, last name, full name.
6. Answers – ask your students a question, ask them to answer it in typedrummer.
7. Presenting a statement – maybe this is the answer to a question, the start of a presentation or the introduction for an exposition.
8. Spelling activity – change one phonogram at a time or practice your spelling words.
9. Question and Answer – one student asks a question, the other answers. In this example it is a Maths question, note that type drummer does not have sounds attached to numbers, therefore the words need to be typed.
10. Music Lesson – investigate the different sounds and loop combinations created when typing letters and changing the text structure.
- 1 letter, 2 letters or 3 letters
- reverse the word
- put each letter on a new line
Teach to transform!
Cheryl
