Countdown to 2022: 5 Free Tech Activities for #Elmused (#1) - New Rhythm Play-Along Video

Happy 2022!

Here in the Northeast of the States, the holiday started with an outbreak of the Omicron variant of Covid. This caused schools to pivot their current plans and weigh the options of remote learning, concurrent learning, or live learning with more restrictions. This week, to bring us into 2022, I am going to blog and share daily activities that can be used in your adapted #elmused classroom when returning from the holiday break.

January Rhythm Play-Along: This Mashup is inspired by Spider-Man No Way Home and Schoolhouse Rock

This Rhythm Play-Along involves quarter, half, whole, eighth, and sixteenth notes, 2 and 4 meters, crescendo and decrescendo, and whole and half rests. Inspired by Spider-Man No Way Home, it is a mashup that leads with A Magic Number. It is followed by various Schoolhouse Rock songs and finishes with A Magic Number again.

Resources:

• De La Soul (1989), The Magic Number [Recorded by De La Soul]. On 3 Feet High and Rising. Retrieved from shorturl.at/eotR7. Sampled from Three is a Magic Number by Bob Durough (1971).

• Frishberg, D (1976). I'm Just a Bill. [Recorded by Jack Sheldon]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto.

• Newall, G (1974). Unpack Your Adjectives. [Recorded by Blossom Dearie feat. Bob Dorough]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpPEQZl6_d4. Dorough, B (1973).

• Conjunction Junction. [Recorded by Jack Sheldon, Terry Morel, and Mary Sue Berry. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyjKgz9tKg. Blog Post: amymburns.com/elmusedtech

  Check back for a body percussion play-along to accompany this mashup, and eventually teaching materials.

  Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.

BONUS!

January Body Percussion Play-Along inspired by Spiderman No Way Home and Schoolhouse Rock! https://youtu.be/poUacmDdS2M via @YouTube. This body percussion play-along video complements the rhythm play-along (found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vliy0-mV6Fw). #elmused #mused #edtech #music #elementary #elementarymusicteacher #elementarymusicteacherlife #musiceducation

Countdown to 2022: 5 Free Tech Activities for #Elmused (#3) Google Slides or Seesaw Retrieval Practice or Assessment in Rhythm Literacy

Here in the Northeast of the States, the holiday started with an outbreak of the Omicron variant of Covid. This caused schools to pivot their current plans and weigh the options of remote learning, concurrent learning, or live learning with more restrictions. This week, to bring us into 2022, I am going to blog and share daily activities that can be used in your adapted #elmused classroom when returning from the holiday break.

#3: Puzzle Rhythm Play-Along Patterns

In November, I created a “Be Thankful” Rhythm Play-Along Activity. This Seesaw and Google Slides Project accompanied the video to serve the purpose of retrieval practice or assessment.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1XWZYsa-Mu7-Qcb7rT3u8h7dWxxDrOzJ0R19dU-nQsPg/copy

Google Slides: Be Thankful Rhythm Play-Along Retrieval Practice or Assessment

This google slides activity involves a puzzle for the students to solve. Once they solve the puzzle, they are to use the Mote Extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mote-voice-notes-feedback/ajphlblkfpppdpkgokiejbjfohfohhmk?hl=en-US) to record themselves performing the rhythm pattern. Once they have completed eight slides, they can press play and perform with the Be Thankful Rhythm Play-Along. Although this video was from Thanksgiving, it can be used throughout the year.

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=-163i544RUCMX3aV1K7nAg&prompt_id=prompt.a6088603-e514-4177-9e60-d06a771c261e

Seesaw: Being Thankful Rhythm Play-Along Retrieval Practice or Assessment

Very similar to the google slides activity, this Seesaw Activity uses the microphone tool to record themselves performing the rhythm pattern that they create from piecing the puzzle together. Once finished, they can press play on the ninth slide to perform all of the rhythm patterns with the rhythm play-along video.

Resources

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1XWZYsa-Mu7-Qcb7rT3u8h7dWxxDrOzJ0R19dU-nQsPg/copy

Seesaw: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=-163i544RUCMX3aV1K7nAg&prompt_id=prompt.a6088603-e514-4177-9e60-d06a771c261e

Check back as we count down to 2022 with #2 tomorrow!

Note: At the 5 min mark I say that google slides is much easier. However, Seesaw is what was supposed to be referenced at that 5 min mark.

Assessment: October Rhythm Play-Alongs

During the month of October, I have various rhythm assessments for my elementary students. The play-along videos give my students a great way to practice rhythms that they have learned throughout the fall and in previous years. Therefore, I like to turn the rhythm play-along videos into recorded assessments to use later when I am writing the student’s progress report. Here are two ways that this can be done:

Google Slides

https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1fyUlJsAGbit7L6qWPy9qgIILJtXy59pCy87TzISMA5M/copy

Creating a forced copy of google slides that just contain the rhythm patterns from the video is a great way to assess the students’ progress. Assign the forced copy into the student’s learning management system (LMS) such as Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology, etc.

If it is a video that you created, you can just add the first slide of each repeated rhythm pattern into this forced copy of google slides. If it is not one you created, you can take screenshots of each rhythm pattern. Once you have a new rhythm pattern on each slide, you can use google extensions such as mote (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mote-voice-notes-feedback/ajphlblkfpppdpkgokiejbjfohfohhmk?hl=en-US), as seen in this episode, or screen recording tools like Screencastify (https://www.screencastify.com/), Loom (https://www.loom.com/education), or Screencast-o-matic (https://screencast-o-matic.com/) for the students to use to record themselves performing each rhythm pattern on each slide. The final slide is a link to the play-along video that they can perform for fun. When they are finished, they can turn the forced copy into you in a way that is supported by your LMS.

Seesaw

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=Q8vgrrkITK6s6hgutrTe9A&prompt_id=prompt.552f170c-81c1-4377-9d98-351b67db6545

Here I created an activity where the students will use the microphone tool to record themselves saying or playing the rhythm pattern on each slide. When they are finished, they can enjoy performing with the play-along video embedded on the last slide. When they click the green check button for the final time, the activity comes to me to listen, place in a folder, save as a draft to send back (paid version), or approve to place on the student’s journal.

Assessment

With these recordings, I can review and assess according to a rhythm rubric. One for this activity would include the following:

4 - Student performs all rhythm patterns accurately.

3 - Student performs 80% of the rhythm patterns accurately.

2- Student performs 60% of the rhythm patterns accurately.

1- Student is developing their understanding of how to perform the rhythm pattern.

N/A - Student had tech problems.

Links

The links to the assessments are here, or you can also click on the pictures above.

Google Slides Forced Copy - https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1fyUlJsAGbit7L6qWPy9qgIILJtXy59pCy87TzISMA5M/copy

Seesaw Activity - https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=Q8vgrrkITK6s6hgutrTe9A&prompt_id=prompt.552f170c-81c1-4377-9d98-351b67db6545

Blog is Moving

Though mustech.net will stay where it is, the #elmusedtech portion is coming home to my website. I will be moving the most recent and relevant content from mustech.net to here where we will focus on #elementarymusic #elmusedtech #edtech and so much more. Please join me here and on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/awillisburns). I will also be adding more free items to the TPT store.

☕️

Please consider buying me a coffee if you like these resources, lessons, and videos (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech). Plus, check out the book, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches published by Oxford University Press (https://www.amazon.com/Using-Technology-Elementary-Music-Approaches/dp/0190055642).

“Best of the Pandemic #Elmused Tech” Episode 3: Book Creator

One of the most fun and cross-curricular activities that we performed this past year, and in previous years, was creating new verses for the traditional song, Down by the Bay, using Book Creator. If you are not familiar with this song, it is a traditional call-and-response song where the leader sings the call and the group echos the same call as the response. Each verse involves rhyming words like, “Did you ever see a bat dancing with a rat? Down by the bay!” From what I could research, this song was made popular by Raffi, a Canadian singer-lyricist and author of Armenian descent born in Egypt.

Creative and Assessment Activity Using Book Creator

Introduce Song:

This song is one of my students’ favorites to sing. Even when we had restrictions on singing in-person from the pandemic, we could still hum and think up new verses to the song. To introduce this song, I first start with Dr. Feierabend’s First Steps in Music process by beginning with Pitch Explorations. After that, I will begin singing the song and they echo. In the next lesson, I will sing the song with the Raffi book so they can now see the visualizations of the rhyming words.

Add Creativity and Solo Opportunities:

In the next lesson, I will still be the leader, but I will have them create new verses that we sing together. After that lesson, I will choose those who volunteer to be the leader and have them create their own verses that we echo.

Add Assessment Activities:

Now that we have sung the song over multiple lessons, I will create an assessment activity to assess their solo singing. I want to utilize multiple modalities when using retrieval practice and assessments. Therefore, I will use a Seesaw activity for them to sing a solo. In this Seesaw activity, I have used consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) and consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant (CCVC) words for the students to create new verses. They just drag the picture of the word into the box and record themselves singing the new verse. The word is also included with the picture for my readers. With the students using Seesaw to record, they are finding a comfortable scenario for them to solo, as opposed to making them solo in front of the class or in front of me.

Though I created the activity in Seesaw, I also included a forced copy in Google Slides. The difference is that they have to have an extension, like the Mote extension, to be able to record their voices in the slides.

Cross-Curricular Connections

Once assessed, we turn the song into our own creative ebook. We first start with the students drawing and writing their new verses. I will then take pictures of each of the student’s work. I launch Book Creator so that I can add their artwork into the ebook.

Book Creator is an intuitive tool for creating amazing digital books using the web-based or the iOS version. Students and teachers can use Book Creator to make ebooks, manipulatives, resources, and more. It is free to use when creating 40 books contained in 1 library. When you want to create more, you can subscribe to their monthly or annual service. Students can access Book Creator through a library that the teacher creates. They can log in via their school email addresses or a QR code for students with no email addresses.

For this activity, I displayed Book Creator onto a large screen and had each student come up to my device to record themselves singing into the ebook. The process was as follows:

1. Create an account at bookcreator.com

2. Click “+ New Book”

3. You can begin with a blank book or choose a template

4. For the cover, you can have Book Creator find images for you by trashing the image it might have given you in the template. Then click on the image icon (or the + menu and scroll down to import) and place the keywords in the search bar. Book Creator can search images that are, “Images from Pixabay are free to use and modify.” The students can use this search tool built inside of Book Creator as well, and you can teach them how to cite the image.

5. To upload the students’ pictures, you can also use the + menu and scroll down to import and upload the picture, or use the + menu and scroll down to camera. You can now take a picture or a video that will appear on the page.

6. To record the students’ voices, you can click the + menu and scroll down to “Record” (or “Add Sound” in the iOS version). The students can then record directly onto the page of the book.

   1. For students who are shy to sing a solo in front of the class, you can also upload the recording onto the page by using the upload tool (or the “Files” tool on the iOS version).

7. By using the “i” tool, you can change the look and design of each page, font, etc.

8. To share your ebook, you have some choices. In the web-based version, you can share the ebook by publishing it online and sharing the link, printing, or downloading as an ebook. In the iOS version, you can export as an ePub, as a PDF, as a video, or you can publish online. Since I have a teacher account, publishing online and sharing the link is the most universal way for parents and caregivers to see the students’ ebooks. When I do this, I make sure that no pictures of the students appear as well as they only use their first names. If I cannot publish the ebook online, then I will export it as a video (iOS version) or use a screen recording tool like Loom to create a video of the book (web-based version) so that the parents and caregivers can see and hear the book being read to them.

9. Book Creator does have the ability to read the book to the students. Book Creator (web-based) also does have the option of text to speech in 120 different languages, as well as having your book read to you in multiple languages (depending on which device you’re using).

Finally, Book Creator allows you to share libraries. For example, my third graders created an ebook that included their originally composed state song, a reflection, and an instrument they created to perform their original state song. I shared their library link and the students were then able to experience each classmate’s state ebook.

Book Creator is another great tool to continue to use when our teaching scenarios have stabilized. It is a tech tool that can offer wonderful ways to share work, level up learning, and for students to experience being an author and publisher.

Resources:

Book Creator – https://bookcreator.com/

YouTube Episode – https://youtu.be/Ay7pyWSl0CI

Down by the Bay – https://supersimple.com/song/down-by-the-bay/ and https://www.amazon.com/Down-Bay-Raffi-Songs-Read/dp/0517566451

Dr. Feierabend’s First Steps in Music – https://www.feierabendmusic.org/first-steps-in-music-for-preschool-and-beyond/

Seesaw Activity for Down by the Bay – https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=LdnRzi7bScWCBi5yp3oOAQ&prompt_id=prompt.5a2e1d05-755e-4bcb-b3c6-e23c8adedc37

Google Slides Forced Copy of Down by the Bay – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1B5VGxy9kdvPoRFw6hQDY1uAiZyZuK8k9OGTCA7SPYwo/copy

Mote Extension – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mote-voice-notes-feedback/ajphlblkfpppdpkgokiejbjfohfohhmk?hl=en-US

Loom – https://www.loom.com/education