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.
This 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.
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This was a challenging process to create a play-along video with a live recording and scrolling music. Read more to find out about the process.
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I created this Wakelet that includes multiple activities to use in your elementary music classes on Valentine’s Day. It is labeled in five categories:
Rhythm play-along videos
Boomwhacker videos
Valentine games
Play-Along Videos with body percussion of iconic notation
Lessons
Enjoy! And Happy Valentine’s Day!
“Mom…you know what is ironic? When the characters sing the song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno (no no no)” and they are literally talking about Bruno for the entire song!
And so it begins. This is how I was introduced to Encanto, the movie about the Madrigal family from Disney with music written by acclaimed singer, songwriter, and Tony Award Winner (among other well-deserved recognitions) Lin-Manuel Miranda. After listening to the music on YouTube and Apple Music, my daughters went over every detail of the plot with me and I was hooked. From there, I went down the rabbit hole and read the numerous deep-dives about the movie from how the movie represents dysfunctional families (Arianne Brown, 2022) to how Luisa’s song had to have a cool sound (Julia Dzurillay, 2022).
Inspired by Cameron Moten’s Elementary Groove Tracks, where he uses words for rhythm patterns and he repeats a phrase numerous times before moving on to another phrase, I decided to use the characters’ names for rhythm patterns and repeat them multiple times before moving on. The result was an Encanto Medley Rhythm Play-Along.
When choosing the songs, I looked no further than my living room. I listened to my daughters belt out, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” to “Surface Pressure”. When I asked them to sing more, they were happy to oblige. From listening to them more, I added, “Family Madrigal” and “What Else Can I Do”. I wanted one more song and chose the upbeat, “Columbia, Mi Encanto” because I felt it completed the medley beautifully.
I first heard of Lin-Manuel Miranda when I went to Broadway in March of 2008 to see his freshman musical, “In the Heights”. I loved it. I saw it with the understudy playing Usnavi, Javier Muñoz. Javier was amazing (and he went to understudy and eventually play the lead role in “Hamilton”). I came back to see it again with Lin-Manuel Miranda playing Usnavi. From there, I must have listened to the soundtrack over 1000 times. When I now listen to Encanto, I hear so much from “In the Heights”. When they sing “Isabela” in Family Madrigal, I feel like I am hearing “Vanessa” from In the Heights. There are more similarities I hear each time I listen. It reminds me how much I enjoy Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs and arrangements.
My younger students will use the manipulatives to recognize, read, and perform the rhythm patterns. My older students will be given the names to see how they decode the rhythm patterns. Then, they will find their favorite instrument and perform it with the video.
This medley includes five songs from Encanto. It uses the rhythms of quarter and eighth notes and quarter rests, as well as repeat signs because many times the rhythms reflect the microbeat and not the macrobeat. Therefore, it can be a bit challenging to perform. However, with some preparation and practice, it can be achieved.
Enjoy the rhythm play-along and come back for the body percussion and manipulatives in the next couple of weeks.
Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). The Family Madrigal [Recorded by Stephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz & cast of Encanto]. On Encanto. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtrskpOehdQ.
Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). Surface Pressure. [Recorded by Jessica Darrow]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErY3eeRFTFg.
Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). Colombia, Mi Encanto. [Recorded by Carlos Vives]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L74W7Ml9Yww.
Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). What Else Can I Do? [Recorded by Beatriz & Guerrero]. On Encanto. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBeZSuHI4Qc.
Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). We Don't Talk About Bruno. [Recorded by Adassa, Beatriz, Mauro Castillo, Rhenzy Feliz, Carolina Gaitán, Diane Guerrero & cast of Encanto]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWRMAU6V-c.
Resources:
Arianne Brown, K. S. L. (2022, January 15). Parents react to Disney's 'Encanto,' call it triggering and healing. KSL.com. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.ksl.com/article/50328971/parents-react-to-disneys-encanto-call-it-triggering-and-healing
Julia Dzurillay. (2022, January 13). Disney's 'Encanto': Why it was important for Luisa's 'surface pressure' to have a 'cool' sound. Showbiz Cheat Sheet. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/encanto-important-luisas-surface-pressure-cool-sound.html/
This past year, many items that are usually paid for, became free for us to use, especially during the lockdown. Some of them were Denise Gagne’s Musicplay Online and MusicFirst. As we started back to school in the States in August and September of 2020, many of us came back to budget cuts or even, teaching a whole new subject. As we now return to the classroom in 2021 (or a concurrent teaching scenario) we find ourselves using and needing free tools more often than not to accommodate the ever-changing learning environments.
There are amazing music education tools that have limited free editions or trial periods, but eventually, give you more bang for the buck with the paid versions. As mentioned above Musicplay Online, MusicFirst (MusicFirst Jr is for the younger grades), Quaver, Noteflight Learn, Soundtrap EDU, and others, fall into that category. Having tried and used all of the products mentioned, they are worth every penny for the elementary music educator who uses them in their classroom often and for supplementing the curriculum.
However, if you need free tools, here is a list that many elementary music educators used this year that can continue to be used in a more traditional elementary music classroom.
Wheel of Names – Add text, emojis, or pictures to create various wheels to use in your classroom.
Uses: You can use it to choose students, or add pictures for students to name notes. You can add pictures of rhythm patterns for whole class assessment. You can also use emojis to promote arioso singing or improvising short melodic phrases.
Rhythm Randomizer – This site creates rhythm patterns in various meters and note values.
Uses: Use this site to assess various rhythm patterns. Or, use this site to take a quick screenshot of a rhythm pattern needed for your manipulative, or Google Slide, or Seesaw Activity, etc. You can change the settings so that your rhythm pattern can be set in various meters and note values.
Note Image Generator – Bret Pimental created this site to capture pictures of notes on various staves.
Uses: This site is wonderful to collect quick pictures on a staff. When you use this site, you can download the pictures that you need and upload them to wheel of names.
Solfasinger – This site is wonderful as it gives you a digitized solfege Curwen hand signs with a child singing the syllables. It also has moveable Do.
Uses: If you are teaching virtual, concurrent, or need a resource for the students to be able to access solfege, hand signs, and a recorded voice singing the syllables, then you can use this site to enhance your teaching or to share with your students.
Solfege Hand Signs – Ms. Lambert gives you a free pdf of solfege hand signs with the boomwhacker colors as barriers.
Uses: You can use these to print out and hang up in the classroom, or add to your virtual classroom. If you do not want the barrier, you can export the pdf file and crop out the barrier in each picture by exporting each picture from the pdf.
Transpose ▲▼ pitch ▹ speed ▹ loop for videos – This Extension allows you to change the speed and pitch of YouTube videos or online videos.
Uses: You could find karaoke videos and change the pitch and speed of them to assist your students’ practices and rehearsals.
Playxylo – This site has been amazing this past year. The creators listen to music educators’ suggestions and improve their virtual xylophone often. It currently has diatonic, chromatic, and pentatonic scales, as well as xylophone, boomwhacker, and monotone colors.
Your students’ devices can be transformed into instruments for in-person learning with restrictions, in-person learning with limited instruments available to the students, concurrent learning, and remote learning.
Bongo Cat – This site is so much fun.
Uses: Use it as a virtual instrument for your students since they all might have devices, or use it as a stress relief for yourself.
Scratch – A free coding website.
Uses: Need a virtual instrument? Place the name in the search tool and see if someone has created one for you to use. Level this up by asking older students to code instruments for the younger students to use.
Chrome Music Lab – At this point, this site is so well-known that it is now a “go to” for music educators and their students. There is so much that one can do to create music and for arts integration.
Uses: One can have students create their own music in Song Maker. Arts Integration can be achieved by using Ocsillators to integrate Science with Music and Kandinsky to integrate Art with Music. To see a music and art integrated project we did this year, click here. There is so much more that this site can do. Want to also integrate music making with math? Try Groove Pizza and talk about the angles that are used to create various drum grooves.
Incredibox – “An oldie but goodie”, as I heard a music educator describe this site the other day. This site has four demo versions that you can use with your students for free. They can arrange the cartoon beatboxers to make music, as well as unlock some new grooves within the site.
Uses: I love to use this site with my students to integrate writing with music. My students will write a poem as a part of their poetry unit and then turn it into a rap that they use Incredibox to create the background accompaniment track. We have also created the classroom expectations and used this site to create the accompaniment when rapping those expectations.
Beepbox – This site is a wonderful way for older elementary students to create music that can be shared and saved.
Uses: It is a wonderful tool to use to create video game music (especially ones from a few decades ago). This site can also promote creating music with guided form and instrumentation.
Bandlab EDU – Bandlab EDU is a digital audio workstation (DAW) that is web-based and promotes collaboration as students can create music together while working on multiple devices. Soundtrap EDU and GarageBand are very similar as Soundtrap EDU is a web-based DAW that allows collaboration, but is not free. And GarageBand is a DAW, but only accessed with Apple devices and is not web-based.
Uses: Explore this tool to create accompaniments and record students’ performances for assessments and to create a virtual performance audio recording. Plus, if you can, create accounts for your older elementary students to make music together when they are not in the same class, grade, or school.
Pear Deck – Pear Deck, and it’s Chrome Extension, can turn your Google Slide presentations into interactive student assessments, exit tickets, and more. It is similar to Nearpod, but Nearpod has more items. Both have free versions.
Loom – Loom is a screen recording tool, much like Screencastify and Screencast-O-Matic. These screen recording tools can be used in our traditional classrooms as they are great ways to create play-along videos. By creating rhythm or melodic patterns in Canva, you can bring those patterns into Google Slides, Powerpoint, or Keynote, add the soundtrack to the slide show, place the slide show in present mode, and record yourself moving the conducting tool across the screen. From this, you are creating your own play-along videos that enhance your curriculum as opposed to using one on YouTube which might not follow the curriculum you teach.
Wakelet – Wakelet is free and allows you to create a list of links to share with your students. If you are lacking any sort of Learning Management System like Google Classroom, Schoology, Seesaw, Canvas, or others, then Wakelet can help you share many of your items with your students in a safe way.
Canva – Canva for educators is a game changer. To see more, check out Episode 2 of this series.
Flipgrid – Flipgrid is free and can be a wonderful tool to capture assessments, capture videos of students performing, promote digital citizenship, and learn more about students, their interests, and how they pronounce their names.
Seesaw – Seesaw is a game changer, especially for an elementary student. To check out more, click here.
Easy Virtual Choir – Creating a virtual choir when you lack the tools or experience is challenging. Easy Virtual Choir is an alternative. You can upload the accompaniment track and have students privately login to record themselves with the accompaniment track. Once all have done that, Easy Virtual Choir creates the video for you so you do not need to access or learn a video editor. For some educators, this was a viable and successful alternative.
With our current teaching atmosphere in an ever-changing status, these free tools can be so beneficial for this coming year.
Check back as we count down to 2022 with #1 tomorrow!
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.
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.
Having your elementary students create music with Chrome Music Lab’s Song Maker is a wonderful activity within itself. However, this google site I created levels up the activity all in one place.
This google site, https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/home, has four Song Maker Activities for older elementary students. However, they can be adapted for younger elementary students, as well as work in a 1:1 environment, concurrent, remote, or asynchronous teaching atmospheres.
https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/home
With this activity, your students will learn the song, see it played on Song Maker, see a video of it being played with Song Maker and playxylo.com, and then create a percussion line to the song. This activity gives the students opportunities to create and perform music using virtual instruments.
https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/home
In this activity, the students can look over the melody and perform two Song Maker projects. The first one is to complete the melody because it has missing notes. The second one is to add a drum line to the melody. Though students can copy the melody to be successful, I would encourage those students who are working on ear training to figure out the melody in the first project.
I also added the playxylo link so that the students can perform it with the F# that is in the melody.
https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/home
This project is similar to Doggie Doggie. I also added the playxylo link to this activity as well so that the students can perform it with the F# that is in the melody.
https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/teddy-bear
This activity focuses on the tempo. The students listen to the Song Maker file that contains the introduction and adapted melody. From there, they create their own simple melody with a tempo of largo and chords to accompany it. This is for older elementary and would be a part of the practice portion of prepare/present/practice approach where the students would be working on practicing how to create a simple melody with a guided tempo and chords.
https://sites.google.com/view/songmakeractivitiesforelmused/home
Check back as we count down to 2022 with #3 tomorrow!
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!
In this play-along video, the students will practice half notes, half rests, quarter notes, and eighth notes in duple meter. This is a great tool for the practice portion of Kodály's prepare/present/practice approach. Here is a link to the process of creating this video using free tools: https://youtu.be/IrEfOhZK-1w
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
Here is the YouTube episode to accompany this post: https://youtu.be/SEaRPVOe0Qg
In the States, the last Friday of October is usually one close to Halloween, or close to a full moon. In many areas, either of these events is bound to cause your elementary students to have extra energy, especially if they are having some sort of celebration right before your music class.
If that is the case, here are five YouTube musical activities (plus a bonus) you can do to promote the following concepts:
Ensemble playing
Listening
Following a conductor
Learning how to trill on a boomwhacker
Pitch
Rhythm reading
Accidentals or key signatures
Finding patterns in music
Performance skills
Melody
Harmony
Bass lines
Tempo
Coordination
Cross-curricular connections of reading words and how syllables relate to rhythm
Compare and contrast thinking map
Triplet rhythm patterns
Moving to music
Comparing body percussion to rhythm patterns
Fun!
Musication YouTube Channel
Musication has become a staple in many elementary music classrooms. From their popular boomwhacker play-alongs to their percussion videos, my students find them so much fun. I like that I am having them experience and practice skills mentioned above. Two of my students’ favorites are Skeleton Dance (they loved the melody and learning how to trill on a boomwhacker with a triangle) and Ghostbusters (learning the difference between melody and the bass line).
Rhythm recess came out this week with two videos involving the song, I Want Candy by Bow Bow Bow. One is for body percussion and one is for rhythm reading. Both emphasize steady beat, coordination, and creativity. If your students cannot stop talking about candy, these will be beneficial and fun.
Cameron creates wonderful play-alongs that involve him conducting the music as he plays it. This is amazing as it includes multiple modalities for your students to perform. They can watch him play, or follow his conducting, or perform rhythm patterns by reading notation or the words. He updated his popular Halloween Percussion Play Along and just added an Autumn Themed Percussion Play Along. All with originally scored music by Cameron.
Back in 2017, Pequeño Mozart created a rhythm practice (Lectura rîtmica) video to Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. To this day, my first and second graders (current and previous) ask for this video and a pair of rhythm sticks. When I use this in my classroom, I take screenshots of the five rhythm patterns and have the students perform a retrieval practice with that before they perform the song. This play-along is basically the students performing the rhythm of the melody, which I believe, is what they like so much about it. Level it up by having them compare and contrast the song with Trolls Hair Up (found here), and then watch the line rider video to reflect on how that video showcased the song.
Abby Watson is an elementary music teacher who created her YouTube channel for her students at the beginning of the pandemic. She loved creating the videos so much, that she created more for any teacher to share with their students. What I love about Abby’s videos is that she teaches the musical concepts throughout the video and then ends with the play-along portion. Her bucket drumming videos are excellent. They are wonderful to leave as a sub plan.
Bonus: My students have liked the October Rhythm Play-Along and the October Body Percussion very much. This is a mashup (30-second audio clips) of The Addams Family by Vic Mizzy, Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr, The Munsters by Jack Marshall, Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter by John Williams, Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers, and Werewolf in London by Warren Zevon. This can be used to read and perform rhythm patterns, body percussion, compare the two, and for fun.
I wish you much luck this week if you are experiencing the full moon, the anticipation of a certain day, the sugar highs, and anything else that might come your way this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=586_P69fdZA
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:
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.
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.
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.
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
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).
For the past few years, we have explored and studied Mind Brain Education (MBE) through reading Neuroteach, written by Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kellener, through various webinars and conferences, took online Neuroteach Global (NTG) courses, and participated in a four-day deep dive provided by The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL). The latter is one that I have not had the opportunity to take. Many of my colleagues, who have taken all of the above, had advised me that once I took the four-day intensive training, all of the other pieces of the training would fall into place. I hesitated on participating in the four-day course for two reasons: 1) It is a four-day course in the summer that makes it challenging for a working mother of school-aged children to attend. And 2) I felt that a focus on elementary MBE would be more applicable. When I learned that this summer the CTTL would provide online elementary-focused training, I jumped at the opportunity to attend.
After the morning session focused on the learning environment and student well-being, I began to immediately see how the four-day deep-dive in MBE would fill in the gaps of my studies. Some quick takeaways from day one as an elementary music educator:
Cognition and emotion are Interdependent.
When children feel safe, they learn better. I think about this alot, especially if music was the subject that made a child feel safe, gave them a sense of belonging, and their school took out the arts due to the pandemic. I am proud to say that most schools where I am located understood the importance of the arts and kept them offered and running all this past school year.
Pleasant emotions are where we strive our learning environment to be, versus unpleasant emotions (like students feeling judged, they notice others progressing and they feel that they are not, the nonverbal body cues from teacher, etc). In music class, how do we correct a student who makes a mistake and plays a song incorrectly? Do we tell them how to correct it or do we give them opporunities for them to own the song and correct it themselves?
“Promising Principle 1: Understand the link between emotion and cognition – dedicate time to activities that are shown to increase well-being, such as read alouds, singing, journaling, art, and movement.“
I love that singing is included in this!
When students who don’t feel like they belong are questioning if they are safe, then their active, working memories and their executive functioning skills are attacked first.
From The Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning ©2020 https://www.thecttl.org/
One of the best quotes to hear from your student is, “My teacher gets me”, not “my teacher likes me”. Though the latter is a nice feeling, the former means that the student understands why your music classroom is a place where they feel safe and will thrive.
Memory is the residue of thought – Prof. Dan Willingham
Lessons – who is doing most of the thinking? Me or the students? Am I taking away of their memory being fully functional if I am doing most of the thinking?
Learning happens when you think hard. So where in your lesson will your students think hard? And how do you get thinking hard at the top of your agenda? In music class, I attribute this to my youngest of students when I remember that when they are learning, I am not to sing with them. They need to have that independence as they learn to sing. When they have mastered a simple song, then I can sing with them.
What does the research point for the cultivation of habits for lifelong learning?
Value – is it worth the student’s time to learn?
Expectancy – Can they do it?
Costs – What are their barriers when learning and how can they overcome them?
The latter is why we learn how students learn. No matter what subject you teach, having and understanding this knowledge will help your classroom be a learning environment for student well-being as well as helping students develop habits for achievement and lifelong learning.
I will continue blogging my thoughts on this deep-dive. However, the best place to begin is to check out https://www.thecttl.org/ and to read Neuroteach. Finally, if you can ever catch a session presented by Dr. Missy Strong about music and neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend attending it. I have attended a few of her sessions on this topic in the past, and it helps me to understand how students learn music from the youngest of ages.
The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) continued its elementary academy for the second day, with us further diving into Mind Brain Education (MBE).
We started the day by deciding whether statements about the brain and how children learn were true or false. This was done in small breakout rooms and it was a lot of fun. Trying to discuss and determine each statement was challenging and surprising. The CTTL has a deck of 52 cards with statements (Photo source: https://schoolstore.saes.org/shop-cttl/face-the-mbe-facts-a-neuro-mythbuster-activity-card-set). Out of the 12 that we worked on, we had two where we determined were one way but were actually the other way. The two that surprised some of us were, “Adolescents are better at multitasking” (this is proven to be true) and “In the always-connected-to-technology world students are now growing up in, attention spans are getting shorter” (this is proven to be false). It is an interesting game to play with your colleagues as it leads to healthy debates and discussions about the statements.
One of the best parts of today was listening to a variety of students, ages 6-11, talk about how they learn best in their classrooms. Many of them, regardless of age, had concurred that these items were essential:
They liked it when the teacher made learning fun (this was perceived as games or projects).
Hands-on projects were a lot of fun (the two kindergarten twins liked art as well as math because they could make things with their hands).
They did not like it when other children were loud in class as it distracted them and then, distracted the entire class.
They liked breaks in their schedule.
They liked knowing their schedule.
They liked having time to get the work done.
If you are reading this as an elementary music educator, you are probably not surprised at all by this information. The elementary music classroom is a hands-on classroom, with a variety of learning styles used like movement, hands-on playing of instruments, singing, etc., it does have a routine and pacing, and it gives the students the opportunity to work as an individual, as well as an ensemble.
However, our biggest challenge this year was that what we knew the students needed (all listed above), is what we could not give them in the traditional sense due to the pandemic. Therefore, we adapted and I feel like we succeeded to the best of our abilities. The only way an elementary music educator could not succeed is if the school took the arts program out of the school due to the pandemic. If that happened, let’s hope that the arts are coming back because, as I heard from our students today, they crave a time where they can move, where they can work in a group, where they can have music in their day, where they can use their hands to produce something fun and cool, and music classes and the arts check all of those boxes.
I will continue blogging my thoughts on this deep-dive. However, the best place to begin is to check out https://www.thecttl.org/ and to read Neuroteach. Finally, if you can ever catch a session presented by Dr. Missy Strong about music and neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend attending it. I have attended a few of her sessions on this topic in the past, and it helps me to understand how students learn music from the youngest of ages.
The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) continued its elementary academy for the third day, with us further diving into Mind Brain Education (MBE).
Dan Willingham led an excellent deep-dive session titled “Everything Scientists Know About the Teaching of Reading.” This talk was divided into Decoding, Fluency, Comprehension, and Motivation. Dan spoke to how children learn to read and the myths about reading.
As an elementary music educator, I had the following takeaways:
Aural language is observed everywhere in every culture. And, children learn it without any instructions. So, spoken language is a natural process.
If you replace “spoken language” in that sentence above with “singing”, I feel that we have read the research that it too, would be a natural process.
Fluency develops through practice.
Again, there is a connection of singing and learning to read. And singing to a beat with patterns enhances the fluency.
Teaching reading is not just a matter of teaching the mechanics of reading…background knowledge fuels comprehension so curriculum matters!
This was a very interesting statement and eye-opening one for me. It reminded me that the students needed a connection in order to comprehend what they are reading.
This can translate to bringing in more supportive reading activities into music class to reinforce and enhance the skill.
It also reminds me that music for my students is similar in the way that when they understand the song, and the lyrics they are singing or the show/movie the song comes from, they have a better connection to it. When my fourth graders study the Revolutionary War, and then we learn the educational version of “My Shot” from Hamilton, if I address the lyrics in a way that it relates to what they are learning in their classroom, it means something more to them. Plus, they perform it with a lot more feeling and heart.
Consistency of the curriculum is key across schools because of student mobility.
For the music classroom, this means that how reading is being addressed and taught in the classroom, should be consistent in the music classroom.
Dan ended the talk by answering questions that the teachers had about reading. There were some answers that made me stop and think more about the topic.
When asked about ebooks versus textbooks for students (tech vs text), Dan felt that though the tactile cue of placing a bookmark into a book is meaningful to a child, having an ebook does not affect their comprehension.
When asked about if learning to read at a young age is better than an older age, he states quite matter of factly that if your child learns to read at the age of six and another child learns to read at the age of seven, then your child will be reading one year longer than the other child. However, that will not affect them when they are 12 or 15 years old. Plus, it also means that they might have missed out on something at the age of six because they were focusing so much on learning to read at that moment.
Finally, learning to read at an earlier age does have the benefit of the possibility of seeing a struggle that can be intervened sooner than later.
I will continue blogging my thoughts on this deep-dive. However, the best place to begin is to check out https://www.thecttl.org/ and to read Neuroteach. Finally, if you can ever catch a session presented by Dr. Missy Strong about music and neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend attending it. I have attended a few of her sessions on this topic in the past, and it helps me to understand how students learn music from the youngest of ages.
The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) continued its elementary academy for the fourth day, with us further diving into Mind Brain Education (MBE).
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Music-brain.jpg
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/post/To-what-extend-a-musician-needs-to-know-mathematics-and-acoustics-Dose-mathematical-knowledge-discourages-his-her-pure-inspirations
Since yesterday’s focus was a deep dive into reading, it was a natural process to have today’s focus be on math. Our presenters explored research for instructional practices that improve outcomes in mathematics. They spoke to purposeful mathematics, meaning actively cultivating math through inquiry and applying mathematics in multiple settings. Plus, the teacher should also bring a supportive mindset to math. If the teacher struggled with math in school, be honest about it, but show how they overcame that mindset.
Listening to the experts of math research, one can easily have the fixed mindset of, “this doesn’t apply to me and my subject.” However, just as we encourage our students to have a growth mindset, we too, should look at a math professional development topic and take what we can to apply to music. Here are some of my takeaways:
Grappling and struggling are so important for the learning process.
Find the “sweet spot“. This is where you can challenge a student, but they also have the tools to be able to overcome the challenge.
Meaningful Integration: Christine Lewis, Lower School Teaching & Learning Specialist at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal School, spoke about how the PE teacher in her school has a strong knowledge of the math thresholds of each grade level so she can incorporate it into PE. This gives math context. This is a great opportunity for students to understand math and athletics. Making math meaningful and useful!
Natural Integration: With that, music has a natural integration of many subjects. I have always felt that math and music are intertwined. When my kindergarteners are learning about patterns, I take that time to have the kindergartners learn about musical form. We move to it. We use tactile objects to visualize musical form. We then create music to a musical form where A is a rhythm pattern played on classroom instruments, B is a movement portion, and C is a simple sol, mi, la pattern. We put it together to create a Rondo form of ABACA.
You can look at your music curriculum and the goals, SLOs, SGOs, TEKS, Core Arts Standards, etc, and you can quickly discover where other subject’s thresholds fit in. Bringing them into music does not take away from teaching music. Instead, it makes the students realize that school is not a day where they go to a room for math, a room for art, a room for music, etc., it a place where learning comes to life, and all of the subjects come together, throughout the school day.
Source: https://modules.ilabs.uw.edu/module/early-music-experience/music-training-and-executive-function/
No matter what subject you teach, when you work with elementary students, you will be molding their executive function skills for years to come. Here are some takeaways from a great presentation by Adele Diamond, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, where she is currently a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Music Books: Storytelling is great for working memory. Think about how we read our musical stories or sing our songtales to our young learners.
Songtales: Storytelling vs Story Reading (Read Alouds) – Storytelling is when we read with inflection, lots of eye contact, and not show the pictures on the page for too long. Story Reading is when we read the page and then show the picture. When we storytell, the vocabulary is recalled better and it improves the student’s attention and focus. When we sing songtales to our students, this research reminds us to not use visualizations of the songtale when we first sing it. Bring in the book or manipulatives after one or two times singing the songtale.
Music Classroom Management with Young Students: Buddy Reading – Adele spoke to giving a picture of an ear to one of the buddies so that they know they are listening to the other buddy. After a while, the picture of the ear is no longer needed as they have learned to work together. With young students, many want to sing over the other student, or they want to tell a story, which can lead to a very loud and chaotic classroom. By placing a picture up of an ear to remind the students it is time to listen, or to use the traffic light so the students know when to listen and when to sing, or the puppet comes out (they listen) and when it hides (they sing), helps young students with their executive functioning skills.
Classroom Decor with Various Grade Levels in One Room: Adele spoke to the room environment and though decorating our rooms for young learners can make it look nice and fun, if there are too many items on the wall that do not pertain to the lesson, then it becomes a great distraction. We, as music educators, have a challenge as we have a variety of age groups that we teach on one day and our room reflects that. How do we keep it less distracting? Adele suggested panels and moving items on the wall between classes. That is probably not feasible for many of us as we struggle with time in our schedule. Some other participants throughout the week suggested that specialists get a “pass” on this topic. There is a place in between for us where we can display items that we know will be addressed throughout the various age levels like solfege chart, rhythm values, singing posture, xylophone chart with removable bars, class expectations, ukulele fingering chart, recorder fingering chart, and more, while keeping our classroom organized with less distracting elements.
After four days, I now need to process it all. That is one of the reasons I blog daily at a conference. It helps me to process and to organize many of the ideas, theories, etc, that I learn throughout the conference. I loved the elementary focus of CTTL’s four-day deep dive. I learned a great deal and am looking at the school year with tremendous possibilities.
The best place to begin is to check out https://www.thecttl.org/ and to read Neuroteach. Finally, if you can ever catch a session presented by Dr. Missy Strong about music and neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend attending it. I have attended a few of her sessions on this topic in the past, and it helps me to understand how students learn music from the youngest of ages.
Episode 7 features an item that has been around for a long time, but many of us explored it greatly when having to teach in various teaching scenarios throughout this pandemic. I am speaking of the play-along videos. These are videos that include a song, various rhythm, melodic, or body percussion patterns, and a moving conductor so that the students can watch and actively “play along” with the video. It is very similar to “follow the bouncy ball” karaoke videos.
YouTube Episode: https://youtu.be/Lacn-5FfRRE
There are many reasons these play-along videos have worked so well:
You can find numerous videos to a variety of styles of music on YouTube.
You can create your own with tools such as Canva (to create beautiful slides), a recording of a song, a presentation program (like PowerpoInt or Keynote), and a screen recording tool (such as Screencastify or Loom).
You can utilize body percussion so the students can move in their spaces when socially distanced.
You can utilize classroom instruments, virtual instruments that they can access on their devices, classroom objects like desks, or body percussion to actively make music. This was very beneficial since music class can have an enormous amount of restrictions when teaching in-person during the pandemic.
You could assign this as an activity on a choice board for asynchronous atmospheres.
You could implement this nicely into a concurrent or hybrid teaching scenario.
You could also assign these videos on a google classroom, Seesaw, Schoology, or other learning management systems or platforms with the students using various tools to record themselves for a playing or movement assessment.
Katie’s Video Creation Course
Elementary Groove Play-Alongs
Katie’s podcast with Cameron
Ukulaliens
UkeStuff
Music Class with Ms. Watson
Dr. Missy Strong’s YouTube Channel
Wentworth YouTube Channel
Body Percussion Play-Along Videos
Musication YouTube Channel
Mr. Henry’s Music World
Virtual Musical Minds YouTube Channel
Katie’s Video Creation Course
Elementary Groove Play-Alongs
Elementary Groove Play-Alongs
There are so many wonderful play-along videos available on YouTube for you to use in any teaching scenario. Some of the ones that I have seen and used:
Elementary Groove Tracks – This channel is created by Cameron Moten, an elementary music educator. Cameron’s videos feature the arrow, but also him conducting as well. He explains his process to Katie Wardrobe on her podcast here.
Ukulaliens – This channel is created by Rachel Webley and has many ukulele play-along videos. This past summer, I started teaching ukulele to students in our school’s Summer Adventure Experience and they loved the videos!
ukeplayalongs – This is another channel that we loved for their wonderful ukulele play-along videos to current pop songs.
Music Class with Ms. Watson – This channel is created by Abby Watson, an elementary music educator and the daughter of Dr. Scott Watson (music educator and popular composer for school band literature). I personally love Abby’s bucket drumming videos, but she has quite a variety of play-along and movement videos on her channel.
Dr. Missy Strong – Her YouTube channel has two move-its that my students cannot get enough of! Accompanied by her son, check out Bright Suns (Oga’s Cantina) and Trombone Shorty: Hurricane Season.
Jennifer Wentworth – Jennifer has two excellent body percussion play-alongs that my students adore! She also has many read-alouds which come in very handy on days when you need to rest your voice, or for any remote, concurrent, or asynchronous learning.
Irene Smykowski – Irene has multiple body percussion videos to various popular songs for upper elementary students.
Musication – It would not be accurate if I did not mention this wonderful channel as a source for play-along videos. Musication features numerous boomwhacker play-along videos that my students cannot get enough of. And you are not confined to boomwhackers. My upper elementary students have successfully used the videos for tone chimes as well.
Mr. Henry’s Music World – I discovered this channel through Katie. He has a variety of videos for elementary music, including play-alongs and so much more.
Visual Musical Minds – Nathan Walby’s channel is phenomenal. It is well-made and executed so you can grab a video and intuitively implement it into your teaching day and your curriculum. He also created the “The Everything File” where he explains how to use his free resource of play-along items so you can create your own videos.
Video Creation Course – Katie ran an excellent course titled “Video Creation for Music Teachers” that covered how to create a play-along video in-depth.
Loom: Use System Audio
Keynote Formatting Shapes
Powerpoint Formatting Shapes
Keynote: Moving the conducting box across the screen
Powerpoint: Move the box across the screen
Keynote: Adding a Soundtrack
Powerpoint: Adding.a soundtrack
Loom: Use System Audio
Keynote Formatting Shapes
Keynote Formatting Shapes
Episode 7 goes into these steps in more detail.
Choose your goal. Is it to practice a steady beat movement? To experience movement with form? To read and perform certain rhythm patterns as a part of the practice portion in the Kodály approach? To play as an ensemble like in the boomwhacker play-along videos?
Choose the music. Does the music have a strong beat that you can feel well or does it have a lot of subdivisions in it? Are you going to use this in your classroom or publish it publicly where copyright will need to be addressed? Is the music an appropriate length?
Create the patterns. Are there resources already available for this part so that you do not need to recreate the wheel? Like Katie Wardrobe’s free notation files which also include a collection of 36 Free Guitar Chord Images and a collection of 22 Ukulele Chord Images? Or if you are a member of her community, the boomwhacker and body percussion files? Or Nathan’s everything file?
Use the free educators version of Canva to create beautiful backgrounds for the notation, boomwhacker, ukulele chords, boomwhacker, etc slides.
From here, I export the Canva file as individual .png files and bring them into Keynote or Powerpoint.
Using the program’s shapes tool, I create a “conducting box” to go around the first beat.
Keynote: Shape>Square. Then click the Format tab to click Fill>No Fill. To change the weight of the border so that it is a thicker box, click Border>Line>10pt
Powerpoint: Insert>Shapes>Square. Then click on the screen to place the square. Then click on the Shape Format tab, click Shape Fill>No Fill. Then Outline>Weight>6pt
Using the program’s animation tool, I use the “move” animation to move the box to the second beat. I continue until I have moved the box to the end of the measure. Each program is different, but I usually have the box moving at .5 or less per second so that it moves quickly with the music.
Keynote: Click on the box you created. Click the Animate tab. Then, click Action>Add an Effect>Move>.2s>click “Align to path” and then physically move the box to the next place on the screen. Next, click Add Action>Move>.2s>click “Align to path” and then physically move the box to the next place on the screen. Continue until you have all of the boxes you need for this slide. I do not add any slide transition animations if I know that the song has a quick tempo. Finally, test the slide to see if it worked.
Powerpoint: This is trickier for the version I am using on a Mac. Click the box you created. Click the Animations tab. Then click Path Animation>Lines. Then click Effect Options>Right. Then move the box to where it should end up (this might move the original box as well, so you will need to move it back). Then, change the timing to .5 seconds. Click Exit Effects>Disappear and change the “On Click” to “After Previous”. Copy and paste the box to the next place on the screen. You will need to add “Appear” to that box and change the “On Click” to “After Previous”. I did not find this to be intuitive on the version I am using on the Mac. This is probably much easier on another version of powerpoint where you can access a menu called More Motion Paths.
If the pattern is going to be repeated multiple times, I copy and paste the box with the animations and place them on each slide with the same pattern.
I continue until I have finished the conducting box on each slide.
In Powerpoint or Keynote, I can add the soundtrack to the slideshow.
Keynote: Document>Audio
Powerpoint: Insert>Audio>Audio From File, then when the icon appears, click on the audio icon and Playback tab will appear. Click on “Play in Background”.
I launch a screen recording tool such as Loom, Screencastify, or Screencast-o-matic. I make sure that the screen recording tool can source the audio, as Loom shows in its preferences menu. I turn off my microphone, click record, play the slide show in presentation mode, and move the box with the soundtrack.
When I accomplish a recording that worked well, I will trim off any extra footage in the beginning or end of the video.
When completed, I show my students.
What are some of your favorite play-along videos?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Create an account at bookcreator.com
Click “+ New Book”
You can begin with a blank book or choose a template
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.
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.
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.
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).
By using the “i” tool, you can change the look and design of each page, font, etc.
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.
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
