Lesson Planning with Technology
The setup of the music classrooms:
Classroom 1 - a projector (VGA connection), stereo speakers connected to a mixing desk, whiteboard (no smartboard), two pianos (one each end of the room), one MIDI keyboard per student (one big table in the middle, rest of the tables facing the walls/windows), an electric drum kit.
Classroom 2 - a projector (VGA connection), one Windows desktop computer, stereo speakers connected to a mixing desk, whiteboard (no smartboard), one piano, tables lined up facing the whiteboard, an acoutstic drum kit in the far corner.
Classroom 1 had a more appropriate setup for learning and experiencing music, so I tried to use it whenever possible.
Film Music with Year 8 and Year 10
Film Music as a topic lends itself to all of the "learning experiences" quite easily, but particularly composition, since the concrete stimulus of plot, characters and setting entrenched in films serves to make the abstract nature of music less, well, abstract - something that can hinder students in their composition process. However, since film scores are usually scored for full orchestras or jazz bands, composing in a classroom full of keyboards can be difficult. While they were helpful for small composition and improvisation activities, it was more effective for longer compositions when students combined these keyboards with a DAW on their computer (since most students had Windows or Linux OS's, they used Soundtrap).
Year 8 had come from an education centred around notation and 'theory', so removing this barrier in a short composition activity involving the creation of a short soundtrack to portray a chosen setting was interesting, and wasn't as smooth sailing as I planned. Most students excelled with the lack of notation and enjoyed the process of exploring their chosen DAW as well as playing/composing music through listening and experimentation. (I had given them a scale to use depending on their setting so they had some structure, but the way they used the scales were interesting). However, by flipping the compositional process that students were used to (notation - performance vs performance - notation), some students struggled to start and were scared to explore. For these students I had to scaffold the composition process more. But overall it was interesting to see the general increased engagement and enjoyment for composition through this method.
The same principle applies for Year 10 film music. While they were working on their long-term composition for the topic, they completed multiple tasks on soundtrap to help them explore the program and various ideas to do with film music (and music generally) that they could implement in their long term projects. One thing to note is that I had to stop myself of falling into the trap of following the same 'formula' each lesson (listen/perform, explain why/what, compose).
Side not: using bit.ly and google drive was a helpful way to get around youtube being blocked on students' computers (when students needed access to videos ).
Singing with Year 7
After one lesson of singing with a class of self-conscious Year 7's I was placed in a non-music room for a lesson on short notice. Since there were no pianos, I asked students to use the piano app (garageband or otherwise) on their phones to complete the group singing tasks. It was effective, but I had to be diligent about keeping them on task (more behaviour management work).
GoogleClassroom
While I only used this a few times (I didn't have a login), it was very useful and I see the benefits.