iPads in the Music Classroom

[nafmeadmin]

What is happening out there in music ed land with iPads? How are you using them, with whom, in what settings, etc.?

Anne Fennell tweeted a great tip on a new book available through Hal Leonard Performing, Creating & Learning Music on your iPad® by Thomas Rudolph and Vincent Leonard. Will resources like this help us engage in new technologies? Are more books like this needed? What do you think?

[nafmeadmin]

Ipads can be a great resource for filming community experiences and interviews. I had students film an interview with someone on the role music had played in a crisis time in their lives. They showed short clips in class that moved us all to tears – it was a powerful experience. Ipads could be used to interview students about what music means to them and clips could be posted on the music website for advocacy. Students can film performances of their own compositions and post those on websites too.

[nafmeadmin]

I love using iPads in the classrooms. My classes have created music videos, worked in small groups to form iPad ensembles, and used GarageBand to create accompaniments for original compositions. I have started using forScore for my own music. It has helped keep me organized and is much easier to carry around than a folder full of music. I particularly like the fact that I can mark my scores with color coded annotations. My colleague uses the air pedal for forScore to turn pages – hands free.

[nafmeadmin]

I gave a workshop to an area group of elementary music teachers this week who had not used iPads previously. They really liked the ideas, but worried about how to implement them–especially if they only had one as a teacher unit. Has anyone had experience in this situation, much like the old single computer per classroom scenario that many of us still have?

How about using personal iPhones in the classroom as display devices? This was an option for many but they didn’t want to have their phone on the school network–good point.

What kinds of options are being explored in your schools if only one iPad or one iPhone is available?

[nafmeadmin]

All the Performing Arts teachers in our district were provided with an individual iPad 3 years ago. This has had a great impact on music teaching. Even in cases where teachers still have just their own personal iPad, they have found very inventive ways to use them. I will let my colleagues speak for themselves and ask them to post. The iPads have also been great use in traditional ensemble settings. Schools, teachers and students frequently use face time to get and give feedback. This is done routinely.

[nafmeadmin]

Thanks for the reply reynoldsj025! I hope that you will encourage your PA teachers in your district to share…it’s been a little while so they might need a nudge 🙂 This is an area of interest for many I think.

[nafmeadmin]

Hi everyone! I think this is an interesting topic we should be exploring further than technological aid. All of the tablets are very powerful for increasing efficiency in the classroom, however, I find more interest in giving students the tablet. This gives them the ability to use it as a musical instrument. Personally, I’ve been using an iPad in high school performance ensembles. In marching band we use it as a control surface, a student then controls everything from triggering custom samples, volume levels, microphone filters, effects, etc (extremely upset that DCI has not adapted this yet). In the concert hall, we’ve been using it as a standalone instrument. Students get their own musical part, controlling software instruments and more.

What makes this all possible is the tablet’s adoption of Open Sound Control (OSC). OSC basically transmits MIDI-style information wirelessly. There are plenty of apps out there that turn your iPad into a wireless, compact version of the midi keyboard you have sitting in your tech lab. This has made a huge impact in the entertainment industry! Entire digital mixers and light shows are being controlled by a single designer on an iPad.

I am trying to put together some research to share this information with teachers. It is extremely accessible and very DIY if you want to make your own instruments and controllers out of a tablet or even just a laptop!

(These are also interesting topics that work really well in high school music tech classes).

-Evan

[nafmeadmin]

I think that iPads in the classroom can be both a good and bad thing..

While yes it has all of these wonderful uses for the music classroom, kids are still kids. It could lead to temptation to use them for purposes other than what they should be using them for during the class session. Sadly not all school districts have fixed this error of the iPads letting students use things like social media and games during the school day but until then, is there any ideas from everybody of how to combat this kind of issue in the classroom?

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