I am very excited to announce that a new interactive resource for music educators and their students is on the way!
As part of my university work this semester we are creating a technology based music education resource. Over the next three months I will be collaborating with another student from my cohort to bring this resource to the stage.
This semester I am completing a placement at a Sydney School as a pre-service teacher. After a discussion with my supervising teacher (one of the music staff at the school) and one of my peers who is also completing a placement at the school we have developed an idea for a resource that would be useful and engaging for students attending this school.
We have identified a gap in the current resources for stage 4 music classes and our project will solve this problem.
Currently stage 4 (year 7 and 8) students at this particular school explore composition through various forms of technology including GarageBand on an iPad. Students are set a task taking approximately 15 minutes which explores different musical aspects and ideas. Currently, students are guided through the task using a PDF with written instructions and a screenshot of the iPad screen with graphics to assist them. However, the instruction sheets have been made for the old version of iPad and are not interactive, further limiting their usefulness. The new version of GarageBand also has new features and so new tutorials will need to be created.
To solve this problem we will be creating an interactive web page that takes students through each tutorial. Each tutorial will be approximately 8 steps and include a short video clip that depicts each action in the step.
We will be using various programs in this project to create the different aspects of each tutorial. Using the iOS Screen Mirroring feature from an iPad to a Mac Desktop we will record the tutorial steps using Reflector 3. The videos will be edited using Screenflow where we will add callouts which will show where to tap/swipe to complete actions. Hype 3 will enable us to compile all the videos, add text, and buttons to control the videos and transitions and create a webpage using HTML5. From here the Hype file can be uploaded to a school's Moodle site (or equivalent) and it creates a link to the webpage for students. We will be creating it for Google Chrome (although it is also supported on other browsers) as this is the preference for the school it is being designed for.
This project will be completed in collaboration with two music teachers from my Prac school as the resource is being designed for their classroom and their students however, it will hopefully be of use to teachers and students from many schools.
I will continue to blog about this creation process so you can stay up to date!