OllieBray.com

Rocktober: MGS Gig, Live Streamed to the Web (follow @mgstv)

My substantive post is at Musselburgh Grammar School (MGS) in East Lothian where I am part of the school leadership team. One of the great things about MGS is how they have always been a school that embraces new technology.

This innovation has included the first European Schools Podcast in 2005 and the creative games based learning Guitar Hero transition project in 2008 and now the use of mobile technology to live stream one of their many student shows.

On Friday you can watch MGSTV's Rocktober Event Live on twitcam. to find out more you will need to follow @mgstv on twitter or you can find out more information form the school website.

Microsoft Songsmith: now free for UK Teachers

The UK Microsoft Innovative Teacher Blog celebrated its first birthday today and as a reward it looks like Kristen and Stuart are going to be giving away free stuff to members of the Innovative Teachers Network (ITN). Anyone can join the ITN you just have to register on the website to gain access to the resources and discussion forums.

Today they announced that they will be giving away Microsoft Songsmith. If you have not seen Songsmith before it’s a clever little product from Microsoft labs.It didn’t get off to a great start in the UK because it was launched with a pretty awful television / web commercial. But now I’ve had a look at songsmith I think it’s got some potential – particularly now it’s free!

Basically, you (or your students!) sing into your PC and and Songsmith adds a background track of your choosing to create your own song. The songs are produced as .MP3 files, and could be used in a number of ways.

Stuart Ball wrote about possible uses for Microsoft Labs Songsmith here.

To download your free copy of Songsmith, go to the UK Innovative Teachers Network. (You’ll need to register and log in with a free username and password if you don’t have one already.) You’ll see an announcement about Songsmith on the home page and a link for further information and download instructions.

Here is a nice little Songsmith song created by my friend Dan Roberts and his class at Saltash.net community school. Its on Magnets – more songs from Dan’s class here.

If you use Songsmith in your school I would love to hear from you.

You can also download Auto Collage for free from the ITN

iPhone in Education: Using Mobile Devices in Music Lessons

As always I like to pop in and out of the music department at Musselburgh Grammar School. Although, I haven’t managed to catch up with my old pal Alan Coady for far too long! My recent visits have got me thinking about the use of a mobile device in music lesson. The following are just my thoughts – I’m not and never will pretend to be a music specialist.

Maybe if all of the children had a mobile device this is how they could be used in music?

Recording Work

Using applications such as Speakeasy, children could record their own performance pieces and up-load them to their e-portfolio, blog or class website. This would allow opportunities, if appropriate, for peer observation and increasing the audience for students work.

 

Listening to Music

The iPhone (like most mobile devices these days) is also a great way to listen to music. However as the iPhone allows you to run more than one application at once. Students could be listening to a piece of music and writing comments about it on the mobile note pad at the same time.

 

Instructional Video / Podcasts

One of the great things about the iPhone / iPod Touch is its ability to play back high quality video recordings and You Tube Videos. I think there is a lot of scope for individualised learning using some of these tools. The picture below is a screen shot from the iPhone of a You Tube clip teaching guitar cords.

 

 

Digital Music

There are lots of great music applications of the iPhone / iPod Touch. I am sure that some of them would be more useful than others. Here area couple that I liked just because they are fun!

 

Ocarina

I love this (but it’s probably got no classroom application at all - apart form the link to history!). You blow into the microphone and press one or all of the four digital buttons that appear on the screen. Depending on how hard you blow and which buttons your press – depends on the quality of the digital sound that you create.

 

However, what I really like about it is how it could be used aross the curriculum to introduce place. Ocarina uses the phones GPS function to broadcast your tune live onto the Ocarina community. At anytime, when in the application you can press the globe button to see where in the world Ocarina tunes are broadcasting from. What a great context for discussion.

Guitar

I don’t know much about playing the Guitar, but the user reviews on the chords application look very promising. It’s described as a, ‘no frills guitar chord reference, that offers 28 chord types for each note.’

 

If that’s not enough you can even turn your iPhone / ipod touch into a Guitar with Frontier Designs Guitar Application (it only has 5 start reviews!).

 

There must be some education potential in here somewhere?

 

uFlute

Finally, turn your iPhone onto a flute (well uFlute) – I like the idea (for novelty value only!), but it keep crashing on me!