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Music is for everyone. Play with simple experiments that let anyone, of any age, explore how music works.

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Do You Even Tech, Bro?: Create Custom Art with Google Drawings

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Do You Even Tech, Bro?: Create Custom Art with Google Drawings

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Some people never truly understand how amazing Google Drawings is. From the get go, it seems kind of boring. You just get that blank checkboard background. The tools aren't conducive to drawing. It's sterile.

All of that is true. But that simplicity is always what makes Google Drawings sooooo amazing. One thing I use to teach students how to get familiar with design and the functions of creating drawings is to have them create their own derivative art using images in Google Drawings.

The secret sauce is this guy:

The Polyline Tool! (you should be imagining that with a big, deep, echoing voice because this thing will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.) Let me show the ways.

First we are going to open up Google Drawings and just drop in any ordinary picture from the internet.

Now we are going to use the Polyline tool to "mask" over the image. This will give us a rough version of the picture that we can then start to touch up with our own personalization.

For this car, I'll use some circles to complete the wheels. I'll also flip through the layers to get the window shapes and some of the trim. After working for a while you'll have a whole mess of shapes that will soon become your own pretty little creation.

The final step is to go in, color it up, adjust your shapes, and add any extra details. This car needs a sweet lightning bolt down the side. You'll also want to delete your original starting image from behind your new creation.

Finally you'll want to group these shapes together to create a cohesive whole. This will let you move, stretch, resize, copy, paste -- all sorts of other things like it was any other image.

So that's it! This is such an amazing hack -- I have used this for countless classroom applications -- creating characters for stories, objects for animations, original images for presentations, I use this at home to have my daughters design their own princesses and castles. I have even used this exact technique to help my wife design a shirt for the staff in her office. There are truly thousands of applications for this, in and out of the classroom.

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Some people never truly understand how amazing Google Drawings is. From the get go, it seems kind of boring. You just get that blank checkboard background. The tools aren't conducive to drawing. It's sterile. All of that is true. But that simplicity is always what makes Google Drawings sooooo amazing.

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Flat for Slides - Music notation - Google Slides add-on

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Flat for Slides - Music notation - Google Slides add-on

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Flat for Slides - Music notation - Google Slides add-on

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Add music notation to your slides using Flat's editor in Google Slides.

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Fast drawing for everyone. AutoDraw pairs machine learning with drawings from talented artists to help you draw stuff fast.

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Public voting has begun! Young artists across the US created doodles of what inspires them, and our judges have selected the State and Territory Finalists. Now we need your help to choose the five National Finalists. Check out the gallery of submissions and cast your vote before May 18th, 2018 at 12:00 am PDT.

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With our service you can quickly create a Cartoon of Yourself directly online without any software installs and for free! Use our free avatar maker now!

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Portrait Illustration Maker : Free Cartoon Avatar Generater!

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Portrait Illustration Maker : Free Cartoon Avatar Generater!

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Portrait Illustration Maker - Free Cartoon Avatar Generater!

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Applying Technology in Physical Education Class: Lots of Possibilities | Emerging Education Technologies

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Applying Technology in Physical Education Class: Lots of Possibilities | Emerging Education Technologies

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For some time now, using technology to facilitate learning in K-12 classrooms has been a growing focus in many schools. From art classes to science projects, the technology tools have been increasingly instrumental to enhancing the learning process. But how can technology be applied in physical education classes? In this article, we'll take a look at some way in which P.E. classes may be improved by using technology.
Benefits of incorporating technology into physical education classes
One of the of incorporating technology into physical education classes is that learning can be enhanced beyond strategies, skills, and rules between individual and team sports. It becomes possible to align physical education with other areas such as maths or geography, and physical activities can be individualized to create optimal challenges for students.

PE Tech Tools
Physical Education Apps
The boom in mobile technology has provided physical educators with a wealth of tools. There are numerous apps that can be taken advantage of, with some allowing for movement tracking and nutritional help, while others assist in enhancing athletic activities like basketball. Apps involving video and picture analysis can be used to examine athletic movements, and ultimately help to improve physical skills.

Physical educators should not shy away from trial and error while thinking of new ways to use apps in and beyond the classroom. Apps like MyFitnessPal, Coach's Eye, and Team Shake show the breadth of offerings available and can get you thinking about many different possibilities.
Wearable Tech
Wearable technology has changed the way we collect and evaluate personal data. With increasing awareness in physical education departments about the importance of feedback from daily activities, technological tools such as pedometers , smart watches, and heart rate monitors are increasingly being used. With wearable technology, students will be able to track and analyse their heart rates, activity levels, or the number of steps to take within a time frame.

With a pedometer for instance, during a 3 vs 3 basketball game, students may be asked to make predictions on how many steps they think they can take during the game. Once the game is over, they can then chart the steps and do some problem solving into ways to add to their steps for the next game. The open-mindedness and enthusiasm that many students have can be leveraged to not only to improve their physical well-being at this stage, but also to impart lifelong lessons about taking responsibility for their own health.
Virtual Connections
Effective learning involves two-way communication where students are able to engage in discussion and challenge the teacher's ideas in order to achieve a deeper understanding. Many classrooms have already started taking advantage of the online world by creating classroom blogs or websites. A classroom website is valuable for encouraging discussion after class, or enabling communication for students applying PE techniques or working on sport practices or exercise outside of classroom.

Another awesome way to leverage virtual connectivity is to invite guests into your classroom via video chat programs such as Skype and Hangouts.

Studen ts can also be encouraged to get involved with online courses about nutrition, exercising, and fitness principles, or web quests geared toward purposeful inquiry.
Gaming Systems
Interactive video games such as Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Fit, and Wii Sports, can be invaluable in promoting physical activity of students and are already in use across many physical education centers. They serve as a reasonable alternative to exercising in bad weather and produce results similar to those seen with outdoor physical activity. Physical education teachers can easily tap into students' love of video games to foster interest in physical education. Video games are extremely engaging and immersive, and can be taken beyond the school environment and continued at home.
Video Resources
As a result of advancements in technology and faster internet becoming available today, it is now possible to stream videos on YouTube and Vimeo. Physical education teachers can take advantage of this and recommend workout videos to students, as well as other types of content which provide useful demonstrations for skill development.

Whether they are dance or yoga videos, students may become so entranced with some YouTube channels that follow them, encouraging them to do even more than the teacher asks. No matter the level of the class, teachers will be able to find age-appropriate videos to share.

Last, but most certainly not least, PE teachers can consider flipping their classes with the help of videos they make demonstrating technique, freeing up time for more application and review in class!
So many possibilities ...

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Applying Technology in Physical Education Class: Lots of Possibilities

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For some time now, using technology to facilitate learning in K-12 classrooms has been a growing focus in many schools. From art classes to science projects, the technology tools have been increasingly instrumental to enhancing the learning process. But how can technology be applied in physical education classes?

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

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Curriculum

4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing

New tech tools that give students control over their music also inspire them to create and innovate.

Integrating technology into the music classroom can be a real challenge. For one thing, students don't have desks, so any device with a keyboard presents a logistical problem. Nevertheless, the potential payoff is big. By introducing virtual instruments and digital composition, teachers are empowering students to innovate in ways that were unimaginable 10 or 20 years ago, and are making their classes more engaging and interactive.

Yet some teachers still teach music courses much the same way they were taught in the 1950s. According to Christopher Russell, director of choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, MN, "Those teachers can be very successful and have very good programs, but they are missing out on tools that could help their students become better musicians." On the other hand, he added, "You can't force it on anyone, and if you do, it ends up being a tremendous failure."

When Oltman Middle School introduced a 1-to-1 iPad program in the fall of 2013, Russell was a step ahead of most teachers in other disciplines. He had already been using iPads in class for three years on a limited basis. "I already had the pedagogy figured out and I knew which apps I was going to use," he said.

Using Tablets Instead of Paper Music
Russell said he believes that the number one use for a tablet is as a substitute for paper music. Having the music in digital format has many benefits, including the fact that students no longer lose their music. "Talk to any music or band teacher, and they will tell you that is a huge issue," he said. With the music in digital format, students can access apps to annotate their scores. Russell can send students audio recordings that they can play along with as they practice. His students can use a music-writing app such as Notion to make their own practice tracks and compose their own songs. "That is a complete redefinition of what you do with students," he said. "It was inconceivable before they had these devices."

Russell said he is also excited about a relatively new app called NotateMe, which allows him to write musical notation and convert it to digital notation. The app also allows you to take a picture of a score and convert it to digital music. This means that music teachers can now scan music without expensive software and scanning equipment, he said. "I have used the app with students to compose music and also to dictate what they hear," he explained. "The free version allows a student to scan a single line. That might allow band and orchestra students, who get music with one part, to scan their music and edit it, either to hear what it should sound like, or perhaps to create their own music based on their own part."

You can see more great feature articles in the latest issue of our monthly digital edition.

Although he knew what he wanted to do with students, Russell admitted that there have been challenges with the 1-to-1 iPad program. Last year, the biggest issue with sixth-graders was students getting distracted by playing games such as Minecraft. "There is no teacher that can always be as exciting as Minecraft," he said, "so at some point, kids are tempted to make bad decisions. The tools we have to deal with that are getting better. Apple has done a lot at the back end to fix those problems, and so have the mobile device management companies. Ours is Casper, and it allows you to lock students into a specific app."

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Curriculum New tech tools that give students control over their music also inspire them to create and innovate. Integrating technology into the music classroom can be a real challenge. For one thing, students don't have desks, so any device with a keyboard presents a logistical problem. Nevertheless, the potential payoff is big.

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Soundtrap for Education - Make music and podcasts online

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Create a podcast or use the beat maker for music or math. Soundtrap is a safe online tool for teachers and schools. Start your free trial now!

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Collaborative music learning app from theory to composition

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Collaborative music learning app from theory to composition

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Music Theory Worksheets

Pick a subject, choose your settings, and in the blink of an eye you'll have saved hours of class prep by generating as many quiz exercises as you like. And it's all graded automatically!

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Collaborative music learning app from theory to composition

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Flat for Education is a powerful, easy-to-use, cloud-based music notation platform that helps engage your students both in and away from the classroom.

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Music Resources at Internet 4 Classrooms

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Music Resources at Internet 4 Classrooms

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Music Resources at Internet 4 Classrooms

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Find Art and Music Resources for High School and Elementary at Internet 4 Classrooms, internet resources for teachers and students, children and parents.

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Primary Resources - free worksheets, lesson plans and teaching ideas for primary and elementary teachers.

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12 Student-Approved Tech Tools for the Elementary Music Classroom: Part 1 (#1-6) | Music, Education & Technology -MusTech.Net

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12 Student-Approved Tech Tools for the Elementary Music Classroom: Part 1 (#1-6) | Music, Education & Technology -MusTech.Net

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Music, Education & Technology -MusTech.Net

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Recently, there have been many elementary music educators sharing their student work that involves technology in the music classroom. This prompted me to write this post, which will be given in two parts, because when one considers having their students use tech tools in the music classroom, many questions arise:

What do I do if I have one device?

What do I do if I have multiple devices? A set of devices? 1:1?

Why should I use tech? The kids get enough of it at home.

These questions are valid and when I present on the topic of technology integration in the elementary music classroom, I continuously state that in my elementary music classroom we sing, create music, perform on instruments, respond to music through such ways as listening and moving, and connect music across the curriculum. Technology is another tool I use to reach my students. In addition, it is not something I use every day in my elementary music classroom. For me, if I can use technology as another tool to reach my students, and it relates to them in ways that other tools cannot, and it can make some aspects of music more successful for them, then the question becomes, "How could I not use this tool in my music classroom?"

Here are tech tools (#1-6) that my students love to use in the elementary classroom and how we use them:. Therefore, these are student-approved tech tools for the elementary music classroom.

1. Monkey Drum App: Price: Free. Grades: PreK/K. Activity-Rhythm Names: You can use this with one iPad that you pass around the room, or one iPad projected onto a screen (through Apple TV, Reflector App, or a Digital HDMI Adapter (Lightning for current models and 30-pin for older iPad models). My youngest students love to perform the rhythms of their names. When you launch the app, press "Play", have a student tap his/her name, have everyone repeat and clap the name, then the monkey will perform the same rhythm pattern on his drum.

2. Music Tech Teacher: Price: Free. Grades: 2 and up. Activity-Instrument Family Assessment Game: You can perform this activity with one computer projected onto a screen or if your classroom is 1:1, grouping two students together per device. After performing activities and lessons that teach the instrumental families (I use listening, moving, manipulatives, etc., to teach this), I divide the class into two teams and perform one of Karen Garrett's quizzes she created on this wonderful and free website full of lesson plans, worksheets, activities, quizzes, and more. I launch musictechteacher.com and click on "Quizzes/Piano". I then click on "Instrument Family Quiz". I click "Next," then click the arrow to create 2 teams. Click "Next" and your teams can click an avatar to represent their team. If you do not want to create an avatar, click "Next". The program shows the two teams on their ships (very much like Pirates of the Caribbean) and begins with the first of ten questions. I have team Blue answer questions 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, and team Yellow answer questions 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. The questions' points default to 100 for #1, 200 for #2, 300 for #3, 400 for #4....1000 for #10. If you click on the teams' points, you can change them. Depending on the class size and my students, I will play this in two ways: 1) One student from each team comes up to the computer or interactive white board and answers the question or 2) the team works together to answer the questions together. When the game is finished, the team with the most points stays on the boat while the team with the least points loses their boat and is now swimming in shark-infested waters.

3. Virtual Instruments: Price: Free and up. Grades: PreK and up. Activity-Virtual and Acoustic Ensemble: One of the first things I loved about the iPads was that there were virtual instrument apps that could enhance your classroom. There are instruments I do not have the budget to cover, like timpani, or world instruments I would not access to, like a pipa or erhu, but I would love to have them in my classroom. Or, an autoharp that is always in tune. In addition, there are times when the students cannot successfully play an Orff instrument due to injury or their fine motor skills are still progressing. Finally, virtual instruments can enhance an acoustic ensemble. If you plug your iPad into a good set of speakers, you can have some students perform on virtual instruments. It produces a nice sound, enhances your Orffestrations, and all of your students feel some sort of success in performance. In this performance, my 3rd graders are using Orff instruments, a recorder, tubano drums, and virtual strings being played on the iPads and amplified through speakers. The video has a special effect placed on it so the students' faces cannot be seen.

4. Noteflight: Price: Free and up (for subscriptions). Grades: 2 and up. Activity-Music Composition: Can you change the E Song? By second grade, my students are singing and reading the notes in a pentatonic scale (Do Re Mi Sol and La). Though numerous students can utilize a pencil and paper well at this point, I have come to find that when they compose with a program as opposed to pencil and paper, more elementary students feel successful. The students can relate to technology well and when they compose with a program such as Noteflight, they can place the notes on the staff well and they can comprehend meter better. In this activity, I used five laptops and divided the students to work in groups. Each student had a measure in the melody that they could compose. I created an "E Melody," by launching noteflight, clicking "New Score", clicking "Lead Sheet", and pressing the E key on the computer's keyboard. After I had three measures of E quarter notes, I pressed the E note again in measure four and then clicked on the half note. I did this once more and created two half notes for the fourth measure. The students logged in and launched this E piece. They clicked on the first note and then used the arrow keys to make the melody pentatonic using the notes C, D, E, G, and A. When they finished, they added their first names as composers and a title to the piece. Some groups wanted more of a challenge, so they added lyrics and some added colored notation. Once finished, we continued the project with using SoundTrap or Soundation4Education or GarageBand. For the continuation, see #5. This procedure is for computers. You can also compose using iOS and tablets. Chrome Books could use Noteflight or Flat, a google app for notation that is very similar. In the video below, you will see what was stated above.

5. Soundtrap: Soundtrap is a digital audio workstation (DAW) accessible directly in your browser from a variety of devices, such as Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Linux, Android phones and tablets and iPads. Use Soundtrap by yourself to create your next hit or collaborate in the music making with people from all over the world. Price: Free and up (for subscriptions). Grades: 2 and up. Activity- Extension to Music Composition: Can you change the E Song? In years' past, I have done this extension lesson using GarageBand, but this year my second graders were greatly successful with a SoundTrap Education subscription. You can create a free educational account for yourself to try it out for 30 days, which will then revert you to the basic free version, which is not useful for students but could be useful for you. The students were divided into groups and used five laptops (though it does work on mobile devices but not as stable) and given a genre to create an accompaniment to their melodies. As one student told me, "The melody is the meat of the taco. But, I also want to create the shell which are the drums, the tomatoes which are the guitars, and the lettuce which is the keyboard." My students loved working with Soundtrap and were extremely successful. Why use Soundtrap when you could use GarageBand? I chose Soundtrap because you can collaborate with other students from outside your school. Are there still kinks to be worked out? Yes, because I feel that their education version is good, but it is pricey. I also feel that the collaboration tool needs to grow more where there could be a listing of schools and countries and you could click and choose to contact them, as opposed to sending a general email out through the collaboration tool. I am not sold on Soundtrap yet, but my students loved using it. Here is an example of this extension activity from one of the examples shown in #4.

6. GarageBand: App for iOS (Price $4.99) or GarageBand for MAC. Grades: 2 and up. My good friend and one of my music technology professors, Dr. Scott Watson (author of Using Technology to Unlock Musical Creativity), has taught a course to music educators titled, GarageBand Does It All, for years. Why? Because the GarageBand app and program for MAC can do it all. Your students can create, record, mix, master, and share music, create EDM and Hip Hop beats, watch tutorials on how to play an instrument, record vocal assessments, create live beats, create sampled music, create accompaniments, utilize smart instruments, have students use the virtual instruments to enhance an ensemble, utilize their new feature of Chinese instruments for a cultural music study, and so much more. But, how can we use it in the elementary music classroom? Activity-Create a song with an ABA form. After studying ABA form through singing, moving to music, and creating/performing a B section to a song using Orff instruments and movements, I divided the students into five groups and had them use iPads to launch the GarageBand app to create a guided ABA song. They clicked on "Create New Song", clicked "Audio Recorder" (make sure you are in "TRACKS" and not "LIVE LOOPS"), and then the screen will appear with an audio recorder. To access the loops, press the tracks button at the top left of the screen, two away from "My Songs". The screen will change and a loop button will appear on the top right of the screen, three away from the end. It looks like the old matchbox loop for matchbox cars. Click the loop button and set each group up with a genre because this will limit choices and gives you a teaching moment about musical genres. You can choose the genre or let them select, depending on your students. For this activity, I had them use only four tracks (2 for the A Section and an additional 2 for the B Section). Once they have auditioned loops and created an A section with two tracks that were not stacked on top of each other (they had to listen and adapt them by making them longer or shorter), they pressed the "+" button after measure 8 and a new menu appeared called "Song Sections." They clicked "Add", and Section B for 8 bars appeared. They doubled clicked on that and created a section with two additional tracks. Once finished with the B Section, they clicked the "+" button, clicked on "Section A", clicked "Duplicate" (which duplicated Section A, but unfortunately calls it Section C), and finally clicked on "All Sections". They now have created an ABA piece that they present to the class and their classmates answer the following questions: What instruments do you hear and what musical genre do you think it could be? Here is an example from a group of third graders:

Want to see more wonderful activities that involve iPads in the music classroom? Check out these three great resources:

1. Check out my free ebook, Help! I am an Elementary Music Teacher with One or More iPads!: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/help!-i-am-elementary-music/id910037233?mt=11

2. Katie Wardrobe's iPad Projects Book: https://midnightmusic.leadpages.net/ipad-projects-ebook/

3. Cherie Herring, an elementary music educator in SC who teaches in 1:1 iPad school, has excellent activities created for the iPad using a variety of apps. Her lessons are revered and when you see her present, you see videos from her classroom of engaged music students who are loving everything she is teaching. http://www.cphmusic.net/

Next week: 12 Student-Approved Tech Tools for the Elementary Music Classroom: Part 2 (7-12)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Amy M. Burns is an elementary music educator, clinician, author, and musician. She currently works at Far Hills Country Day School in Far Hills, NJ teaching PreK through Grade 3 general music, grade 5 instrumental music, and grades 4-8 instrumental band. She is the author of Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom, Help! I am an Elementary Music Teacher with a SMART Board, and Help! I am an Elementary Music Teacher with One or more iPads! She is also an author for Online Learning Exchange™ Interactive Music powered by Silver Burdett. She has given numerous presentations on integrating technology into the elementary music classroom as well as being a keynote speaker for music technology conferences in Texas and Australia. She is the recipient of the 2005 TI:ME Teacher of the Year Award and the 2016 NJMEA Master Music Teacher Award. TI:ME . You can find out more about Amy at her website: amymburns.com

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12 Student-Approved Tech Tools for the Elementary Music Classroom: Part 1 (#1-6)

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Recently, there have been many elementary music educators sharing their student work that involves technology in the music classroom.

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Music Tech Teacher, Music Lessons, Projects and Activities

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Music Tech Teacher, Music Lessons, Projects and Activities

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The Music Tech Teacher site includes quizzes, games, lessons, worksheets and other resources for teachers and students interested in using technology to enhance music education.

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Curriculum

4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing

New tech tools that give students control over their music also inspire them to create and innovate.

Integrating technology into the music classroom can be a real challenge. For one thing, students don't have desks, so any device with a keyboard presents a logistical problem. Nevertheless, the potential payoff is big. By introducing virtual instruments and digital composition, teachers are empowering students to innovate in ways that were unimaginable 10 or 20 years ago, and are making their classes more engaging and interactive.

Yet some teachers still teach music courses much the same way they were taught in the 1950s. According to Christopher Russell, director of choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, MN, "Those teachers can be very successful and have very good programs, but they are missing out on tools that could help their students become better musicians." On the other hand, he added, "You can't force it on anyone, and if you do, it ends up being a tremendous failure."

When Oltman Middle School introduced a 1-to-1 iPad program in the fall of 2013, Russell was a step ahead of most teachers in other disciplines. He had already been using iPads in class for three years on a limited basis. "I already had the pedagogy figured out and I knew which apps I was going to use," he said.

Using Tablets Instead of Paper Music
Russell said he believes that the number one use for a tablet is as a substitute for paper music. Having the music in digital format has many benefits, including the fact that students no longer lose their music. "Talk to any music or band teacher, and they will tell you that is a huge issue," he said. With the music in digital format, students can access apps to annotate their scores. Russell can send students audio recordings that they can play along with as they practice. His students can use a music-writing app such as Notion to make their own practice tracks and compose their own songs. "That is a complete redefinition of what you do with students," he said. "It was inconceivable before they had these devices."

Russell said he is also excited about a relatively new app called NotateMe, which allows him to write musical notation and convert it to digital notation. The app also allows you to take a picture of a score and convert it to digital music. This means that music teachers can now scan music without expensive software and scanning equipment, he said. "I have used the app with students to compose music and also to dictate what they hear," he explained. "The free version allows a student to scan a single line. That might allow band and orchestra students, who get music with one part, to scan their music and edit it, either to hear what it should sound like, or perhaps to create their own music based on their own part."

You can see more great feature articles in the latest issue of our monthly digital edition.

Although he knew what he wanted to do with students, Russell admitted that there have been challenges with the 1-to-1 iPad program. Last year, the biggest issue with sixth-graders was students getting distracted by playing games such as Minecraft. "There is no teacher that can always be as exciting as Minecraft," he said, "so at some point, kids are tempted to make bad decisions. The tools we have to deal with that are getting better. Apple has done a lot at the back end to fix those problems, and so have the mobile device management companies. Ours is Casper, and it allows you to lock students into a specific app."

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4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing -- THE Journal

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Curriculum New tech tools that give students control over their music also inspire them to create and innovate. Integrating technology into the music classroom can be a real challenge. For one thing, students don't have desks, so any device with a keyboard presents a logistical problem. Nevertheless, the potential payoff is big.