Tag Archives: music education

June 20, 2016 · 12:23 pm

“Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch Instruments” shared notes at @Teach21c. #MakerEd

I’m leading a Teach21 professional development workshop this afternoon, Cardboard, MakeyMakey, and Scratch Instruments. Here’s the description:
By adding the Arts to traditional STEM goals, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), we can embrace design, creativity, and integration and discuss interdisciplinary possibilities. Let us embrace STEAM by crafting cardboard instruments with conductive elements, programming notes and sounds in Scratch, and using the MakeyMakey to provide interactivity while discussing other project ideas and opportunities.

Click here to go directly to the webpage of shared notes or see the embedded document below:

Awesome Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch instruments from our @teach21c workshop this afternoon. #MakerEd #STEAM pic.twitter.com/jsJKIMymPx

— Karen Blumberg (@KarenBlumberg) June 21, 2016

Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch clarinet from our @teach21c workshop this afternoon. #MakerEd #edtech pic.twitter.com/oKvrQKUm2W

— Karen Blumberg (@KarenBlumberg) June 21, 2016

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Social networking in music class and YouTube alternatives

The curriculum at The School is thoughtful, intentional, and super integrated. Currently, the 7th grade is engaged in a study of Benin and West Africa: they study population, diseases, and statistics in Math and Science, historical and political movements in Social Studies, they read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in English, play African group sports in Wellness, and they examine African Art and West African music.

David Gordon, music teacher extraordinaire, wanted his music students to extend their in-class discussion of West African Music outside of their physical classroom walls. I set up a group on our in-house Elgg social network for this interaction to occur. For the record, we named our social network The Social Network over four years ago. Take that, Columbia Pictures.

David’s first published blog post contains a list of alternatives to YouTube. I am constantly reinforcing the importance of searching for share-alike, legal, licensed music. We talked (or rather, I talked) about how important it is to be ethical and legal and honor people’s intentions when it comes to sharing their work.

Below are the sites I offered the kids for now (suggestions would be greatly appreciated):

http://commons.wikimedia.org/
http://www.jamendo.com/
http://blip.fm
http://last.fm
http://pandora.com
http://we7.com
http://archive.org/details/netlabels
http://listen.grooveshark.com

See the full gallery on Posterous

List of websites mentioned tonight in my “Intro to New Tech in Music Ed” class at Teachers College

As an employee of Columbia University, I can take classes for free. As I paid for my first Masters at Teachers College mostly out of pocket, I plan on gathering at least another degree during my time here. What I really want is an honorary doctorate like Bono, but in the meantime, I register for at least one class every semester.

I signed up for “Introduction to New Technologies in Music Education” this term. My instructor, James Frankel, is energetic, enthusiastic, and super knowledgeable about his field. Tonight, he excitedly shared a variety of sites while discussing the role of the Internet in Music Education: