Disclaimer: This post is for a graduate school (University of Maryland University College) assignment.
Turn up the Classroom with Garage Band!
Many teachers struggle to understand their students' tastes in music. Whether a student prefers hip hop, country, punk rock, or heavy metal, all kids have their own opinions on what makes a song worthy of their ears and attention. Apple’s Garage Band application provides students of all music ability levels the opportunity to create music. Whether a student has played an instrument or not, they can easily compose their own original tune with Garage Band. With this Web 2.0 tool, students can upload their songs to iTunes, Google Drive, and many other apps for sharing. Through the process of digital music composition students can learn a variety of skills. Music vocabulary like tempo, time signature, treble, bass, and more are all included in the app. Garage Band can be used as a classroom tools in many ways!
- Students can import their Garage Band song into an iMovie to add an original sound track.
- Students can monitor their fluency using Garage Band’s audio recorder.
- Students can explore and ultimately compare/ contrast instruments from different time periods and countries.
These are only a few ideas for implementing Garage Band into the classroom. Apple even has an a multi-touch iBook that can guide teachers on ways to use this application. This past summer I had the opportunity to attend the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute in Berlin, Germany. At the institute I attended a session hosted by Apple’s Senior Project Manager of Garage Band. Mr. John Danty explicitly modeled how Garage Band can be used to have students create a soundscape. In short, a soundscape provides an appropriate background layer to a reading or narration. A soundscape is defined in more detail in Apple’s book linked above. My students completed their first soundscape project in September. I blogged about this project in an earlier post. Check it out here!
This week my students are writing their research reports on a topic that relates to our Space Systems and Stars unit. I am currently writing my own research report, From Launch Pad to Landing - Legendary Space Missions, alongside my 5th graders. My report is serving as a tool I will use to model various informative writing strategies. This week I decided to transform my lead paragraph and into a soundscape… enjoy!
This week my students are writing their research reports on a topic that relates to our Space Systems and Stars unit. I am currently writing my own research report, From Launch Pad to Landing - Legendary Space Missions, alongside my 5th graders. My report is serving as a tool I will use to model various informative writing strategies. This week I decided to transform my lead paragraph and into a soundscape… enjoy!
Click the image above to hear my newest soundscape!
