So I am very excited to share this next post! It is a mini-issue focused on two music activities with two of my favorite people: my daughter and my former student-turned-student-teacher Veronica Boccardo!
Loopimal
Every year my daughter participates in the annual STEAM Fair at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Leander ISD. We engage in a discussion to find a topic that she is interested in researching and then we look for the way make sure we can encompass 1 or more of the STEAM elements in her process and product. As a teacher that strives for creativity and thrives on adding technology, I always help expose her to options of integrating technology into her lesson. Just like our students, they may not always know what is out there or how to use it, but as facilitators of learning we can help lead them both to it and through it.
In the past I have exposed her to Thinglink and Shadow Puppet. Both of which were so user friendly, my little smarty-pants was able to complete her project after a tutorial for grades Kindergarten and 1st respectively. This year she headed more towards the Art strand after 2 years of primarily Science. (#proudmama) Her idea was to incorporate art and dancing together. She wanted to create art while dancing...aka feet painting? To take it up a notch, I suggested she use an app to create her own music to dance to so that she had even more art and some technology. She loved the idea. I went to find 4beats, an app that I had used previously and it was no longer available in iTunes, which does happen as technology changes. I tried a few others but we were not happy with them so I sent her to bed with the promise that I would research a good one for her. That night I settled into my hobby of blog-browsing to find the best fit and came across Loopimal. I fell in love instantly and knew she would love it and that it couldn't get anymore user friendly. It is a paid app however costing $3.99. Not always cost effective for a classroom, but fun to share within family groups for projects or to entertain. Although she encountered some bumps in the road and ended up brush painting, she still created her own music, made a name for her songs, specified the emotion the dance would have, decided what color should represent that emotion and then created a painting. She then wore that color and improvised a dance to her music. Next, she used the app Green Screen ($2.99) to put her music, dance and art together. All of this got explained on Google Slide presentation. At the fair, she showed her video and her slide show and also had the app and paint available for attendees to have a try at her project. And yes, she is 7. And yes, if it is set up and explained a child this age can complete these objectives on their own! Enjoy the results below!
Upside: I do give a 5 star rating to this app! My 4-year-old could do it and my high school students thought it was "so cute" and "so cool." It is so easy and entertaining with variety and the incorporation of dance in the music too (the animals dance :)
Downside: If you make a song and close the app it does disappear. My solution to it was for Kailey to screenshot her songs once she made them so that she could super quickly recreate them the next time she used it.
Loopimal
Every year my daughter participates in the annual STEAM Fair at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Leander ISD. We engage in a discussion to find a topic that she is interested in researching and then we look for the way make sure we can encompass 1 or more of the STEAM elements in her process and product. As a teacher that strives for creativity and thrives on adding technology, I always help expose her to options of integrating technology into her lesson. Just like our students, they may not always know what is out there or how to use it, but as facilitators of learning we can help lead them both to it and through it.
In the past I have exposed her to Thinglink and Shadow Puppet. Both of which were so user friendly, my little smarty-pants was able to complete her project after a tutorial for grades Kindergarten and 1st respectively. This year she headed more towards the Art strand after 2 years of primarily Science. (#proudmama) Her idea was to incorporate art and dancing together. She wanted to create art while dancing...aka feet painting? To take it up a notch, I suggested she use an app to create her own music to dance to so that she had even more art and some technology. She loved the idea. I went to find 4beats, an app that I had used previously and it was no longer available in iTunes, which does happen as technology changes. I tried a few others but we were not happy with them so I sent her to bed with the promise that I would research a good one for her. That night I settled into my hobby of blog-browsing to find the best fit and came across Loopimal. I fell in love instantly and knew she would love it and that it couldn't get anymore user friendly. It is a paid app however costing $3.99. Not always cost effective for a classroom, but fun to share within family groups for projects or to entertain. Although she encountered some bumps in the road and ended up brush painting, she still created her own music, made a name for her songs, specified the emotion the dance would have, decided what color should represent that emotion and then created a painting. She then wore that color and improvised a dance to her music. Next, she used the app Green Screen ($2.99) to put her music, dance and art together. All of this got explained on Google Slide presentation. At the fair, she showed her video and her slide show and also had the app and paint available for attendees to have a try at her project. And yes, she is 7. And yes, if it is set up and explained a child this age can complete these objectives on their own! Enjoy the results below!
Upside: I do give a 5 star rating to this app! My 4-year-old could do it and my high school students thought it was "so cute" and "so cool." It is so easy and entertaining with variety and the incorporation of dance in the music too (the animals dance :)
Downside: If you make a song and close the app it does disappear. My solution to it was for Kailey to screenshot her songs once she made them so that she could super quickly recreate them the next time she used it.
So not only do I have the fun of helping my daughter have educational exposure to the benefits of technology, but I got the added benefit this year of having a student teacher in my NextGen classroom. After adapting to our online journals, vocab, presentations, and testing it was time to help encourage her to integrate technology into a lesson. We found the perfect fit as she designed a Rhythmic Exploration with an African influence as a way to explore the roots of jazz dance vernacular. After a few days of movement based classes, Ms. Bocarrdo had the students use the app AfroLatin Free (there is a paid one with additional features) to work in pairs to create their own drum beats. They then used the movement vocabulary from the previous two lessons to make a movement phrase to their personal soundtrack. The app was user friendly and this entire integration was not only engaging but took less than 5 minutes to create a piece of music, and only a few minutes more to create their dances. Yet the memories of the fun they had doing it will last even longer than the lesson itself! I was so proud of her adventure and her lesson and I know she was thrilled with the resulting experience of the students. She is graduating this may from the University of Texas-Austin Dance Department and couldn't be more proud. Enjoy the results below!
Picture Credit: Lawrence Peart, UT-Austin
Picture Credit: Lawrence Peart, UT-Austin
Picture Credit: Lawrence Peart, UT-Austin
So get out there, move to the beat, and inspire those around you!
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