New Tools for Kids!

Our students now have Google Apps available to them!

This news was shared with our staff in a short sentence in a lengthy Monday morning newsletter.  Way at the bottom.  I really think that news should have been shouted from the mountain top, with way bigger type and about a dozen exclamation points!

Can you tell that I am pretty excited?  Those of you who have had Apps for a while are probably yawning right now.

Why would a band director be so excited about kids having access to Google Apps?  When you use SmartMusic like we do (everywhere and everybody) kids frequently ended up sharing accounts with other members of the family.  Now each kid can get his/her assignments without having to dig through big sister's/brother's assignments to get there.  Sure, I could have set them up with an account myself, but I am pressed for time as it is.  Now, someone else has done all the set-up.

Other reasons to get excited include all the other tools that go with an Apps account.  Writing, spreadsheet, forms, presentations, web pages can all be authored with these tools.

The cross-disciplinary assignments that I didn't get to may be possible now.

How about a serious tuning unit with a spreadsheet to track your tendencies over several practice sessions?  Wouldn't be cool if kids new where they typically were on the tuner with a little scientific study?

Report on a composer?  Or should that be a presentation?  AND it gets stored on the "Cloud," so no more "the dog ate my homework."

Nothing like a new tool to get the excitement going!

One Concert Down...

We had our first band concert of the year last night at my school.

Friends and families of the students seemed pleased.  This is a particularly strong bunch of 7th graders.  

The concert went well.  The next day in class we listen to the concert.  It's a tradition.  My kids know the rules:  we take turns, we listen to what others have to say, no comments about performances by name (by section is OK, but nothing hurtful.), be ready for follow-up questions from me, if someone says something that applies to your performance-- don't just brush it off--- listen!  

These discussions always make for some ideas to work on.  It is easier to motivate students when they think it is their idea.  The next concert is going to be about tone, blend and tuning!

We need to do a number of short assignments on SmartMusic that use long tones.  Kids will need to listen to their sound.  

Tuning can be a sort of science experiment/data collections thing...chart your tuning.  Glad every kid has access to a tuner in SmartMusic.

Blend will need to happen mostly in rehearsal, after all it really is about how you fit into the group.   But I think kids will have a better idea of what that sounds like with an accompaniment recording that features some fine players.  Glad they added the near CD quality audio.