Elementary Music Technology and Integration
Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.
Join in the fun with this exciting play-along for the song, "Puppy for Hanukkah" written by Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes. Gather your instruments, including C, E, F, and G boomwhackers, tambourines, rhythm sticks, and maracas and shakers, and get ready to play!
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One of my favorite holiday pieces is “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” by Savatage / Trans-Siberian Orchestra (1995). It is a combination of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” played in the beginning of the song by a solo cello, and then in a round with a flute and guitar. The next part picks up the tempo and is the melody of “Carol of the Bells” or “Shchedryk”, the Ukrainian New Year’s song by Mykola Leontovych, written in 1916. I recently arranged this piece for my school’s Philharmonic, which consists of students in grades 4-8 who play strings, brass, woodwinds, and piano. They had a wonderful time learning to play and perform the song, and it inspired me to create this play-along video. For this video, I edited the song and slowed down the tempo so that it could be successfully performed by elementary and middle school students.
Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
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This is the seventh installment of my summer project of creating play-along videos of songs and concepts found in the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This week, I feature Pass the Pumpkin Round and Round play-along video and steady beat movement activities (Boomwhackers, Percussion, Xylophones, and Game) video.
To break down the video so you can use it as a whole or teach it in parts:
00:19 Melody
01:28 Bass Line
01:59 Percussion
02:29 Steady Beat Game/Activity
03:28 All of the parts together
Read MoreThis rhythm play-along medley consists of four popular songs for higher elementary moving up days. The rhythm patterns covered are syncopation, quarter, eighth, whole, dotted quarter, and sixteenth notes, as well as quarter rests.
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Level up from ChatGPT and try some of these AI tools specifically created for educators! This blog/episode focuses on three AI tools that educators can use to save them a lot of time and energy. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
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Tech Tip #3: Two Sites to Create Musical Dice and Stories
Check out this post to find ways to help your students improvise music and read and perform rhythm patterns!
Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
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This is another attempt at creating a play-along with floating notation and boomwhacker colors. This is a recording by The United States Army Field Band. Resources are included below along with a link to the original video. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read MoreThis is the third installment of my summer project of creating play-along videos of songs and concepts found in the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This week, I feature the Teddy Bear Play-Along video to go with the retrieval practice worksheet (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zN-cwSbWZ_7aS1uhQ97olGHVgWJqUCaE/view?usp=sharing) that I posted earlier this week.
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Canva for Educators (https://www.canva.com/education/)
Canva is amazing! It is a one-stop show for finding templates, finding graphics, creating presentations, creating short videos, finding useable images, creating manipulatives, and so much more. This video focuses on the "Tidy Up" feature to assist in making concert programs. I cannot say enough about how great of a tool it is for #elmused educators. Like my videos? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Read MoreThis video is for birthday celebrations if you can celebrate them in your music classroom. This video will cover all of your students' birthdays throughout the school year. Like my videos? Please consider buying me a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech The musical concepts covered are 3-meter, 4-meter, accents, quarter, half, dotted half, whole, and eighth notes, along with triplets.
Read MoreHere 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.
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.
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.
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.
Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1XWZYsa-Mu7-Qcb7rT3u8h7dWxxDrOzJ0R19dU-nQsPg/copy
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.
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.
With Martin Luther King day coming up in January, having a choice board with resources and simple rhythm and writing activities would work well if coming back to asynchronous or remote learning. These Google Slides and Seesaw Activities give students the chance to learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr through various resources. It also gives them the chance to use retrieval practice methods for rhythm literacy. Finally, it encourages them to write about what they learned through thinking maps as well as rhythm patterns.
Here are seven different resources that include songs, raps, rhythm literacy and play-along, stories, and history.
Here is where the students can practice certain rhythm patterns that come from phrases created with thinking maps. In both Seesaw and Google Slides, they can click the play buttons to hear the rhythm patterns.
In Seesaw, the students can spin the wheel, circle the rhythm pattern, and use the microphone tool to record themselves performing the rhythm pattern. In Google Slides, they can spin the wheel and practice the rhythm patterns.
In both Seesaw and Google Slides, they can use text tools or drawing tools to create their own thinking maps about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr from what they learned throughout the activity.
Examples of Thinking Maps created by my second graders.
In Seesaw, the students can end the activity by using one of the phrases they wrote in their thinking map to decode and record themselves performing the rhythm pattern. In Google Slides, they can use the mote extension to record themselves performing the decoded rhythm pattern.
Check back as we count down to 2022 with #4 tomorrow!
Here is a rhythm play-along that includes 4/4 meter, whole, half, eighth, dotted quarter, and quarter notes, as well as fermata, repeats, rolls, and quarter rest. It is a mashup of six holiday songs listed below. 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.
Music:
"All I Want for Christmas is You" written by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff; Performed by Mariah Carey from Merry Christmas (1994) Columbia Records
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" written by Johnny Marks; Performed by LeAnn Rimes from What a Wonderful World (2004) Asylum-CuRB Records
"Puppy for Hanukkah" written by Daveed Diggs with William Huston and Jonathan Snipes; Performed by Daveed Diggs (2020) published by Wonderland Music Company “I Have a Little Dreidel,” written by Samuel Goldfarb; Performed by Maccabeats (2018)
“Happy Kwanzaa,” Performed by FANOKO SINGERS (2015) CD Baby (on behalf of Fanoko Singers); ASCAP, CD Baby Pro (Publishing), and 2 Music Rights Societies
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine; Performed by Shawn Colvin from Acoustic Christmas (1990)
"Blue Christmas" written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson; Performed by Elvis Presley from Elvis's Christmas Album (1964) RCA Victor
“Best of the Pandemic #Elmused Tech” Episode 1: Kindergarten and Grade 1 Assessment-Five Voices
his week’s YouTube episode explored assessing the five voices of young students. In a variety of standards or Grade Level Objectives (GLOs) or Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), many music educators have to prove that the students are learning in music class. This can be done with data-driven assessment tools like pre- and post-tests. However, if your students are young readers, and written forms of pre- and post-testing would not be ideal, how can we use the technology we acquired and learned from teaching during a pandemic, for assessing young learners?
One way is to use the learning management systems (LMS) or digital tools the school had you use this past year to create the assessment. This way, when you need to collect the assessment, it is stored all in one place and you can retrieve it at any time. Plus, many of these tools allow you to format and organize them in ways so that you can quickly present the data to administrators.
Here are two ways to collect data about the students’ knowledge of the five voices: speaking, singing, calling, whispering, and inner voices. This can be done at the beginning of the year and then done again at the end of the year to be able to see and record the learning data.
If your students are using Seesaw, then you can assign the activity to the students. This activity has pre-recorded instructions and examples so that you do not need to recreate the wheel. However, you can make a copy of the activity and add your own voice to the instructions and examples. To create this activity:
1. Launch Seesaw and login
2. Click +
3. Click “Assign Activity”
4. Click “Create New Activity”
5. I then add the student template.
6. I use Canva to create the template so that it looks good and pleasing to the eye. In Seesaw, I added the words, “Speaking, Singing, Whispering, Calling, and Inner Voice”. I did this separately so that I could add the audio to the word.
7. I can record up to 20 audio examples onto one slide in an activity. When I do this, I can record directly by clicking on the … and the 🔈 and record directly into the slide. I can also use a free online digital audio workstation like Soundtrap and record myself singing and speaking. I then can download the audio and upload it to Seesaw. I like doing it this way because if you are using the web-based version of Seesaw, and you record directly into the program, you hear the clicks from turning on and off the microphone.
8. Once finished, I like to place my bitmoji onto the slide and use the shapes tool in Seesaw to create a speech bubble. That is where I will write the instructions.
9. I click the green check to save the activity template. I then add the same instructions to the “student instructions” box and name the activity.
10. I click save and I can assign the activity by assigning it to a class or by sharing the student link to their LMS.
The process is similar as I download the Canva slide and upload it to google slides as a background. I take the audio files I created in Soundtrap and add them to my google drive. I then click “Insert” and scroll down to “Audio”. From there, I choose the audio files I need for the file.
Since there is no drawing tool in google slides, we use the line tool to match the voice with the word.
Everything is set up for young readers to be successful as they can click the audio tools to listen to the instructions, to hear the word of the voice, and to hear the example of the voice. I would highly suggest exampling the activity first with using the “Sample Student” in Seesaw or creating the forced copy in Google Drive.
Tip: Since sharing audio files within google slides can be a slippery slope, I have included the folder with the audio files in the shared links below.
Check back each week during the months of June-August as I will be giving quick PD tips on how to take the “Best of the Pandemic Tech” and use it practically and intuitively in your teaching scenario for this upcoming or current school year.
YouTube Episode: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdoSkMqMVUzTsiWdj3HN5Ug
Seesaw Activity: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=81ch5Pu_T2-UYpN6dqLFYQ&prompt_id=prompt.03abfe3c-15ee-474d-ac2b-85bc6dc453c1
Google Slides Forced Copy: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SVbmaLRDJbxJIl2y8IMWWd4PncxMP4eRjS7HOf0BLNE/copy
Google Slides Audio Files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KMn0rrbld6EVQVYR9SjKcwWCdsBVnZaF?usp=sharing
Seesaw for #Elmused Self-Paced Course: https://midnightmusic.com.au/seesaw/
Create Beautiful Teaching Resources with Canva Course: https://midnightmusic.com.au/cbtr-enroll/
