Week 5 Review: One Best Thing
From Pachelbel to iPad:
Student-Performed GarageBand Concerts by Daniel J. Laubacher See it in the App Store (it's Free!) |
For this week's review I wanted to turn to a more music-specific resource, and so I chose "From Pachelbel to iPad: Student-Performed GarageBand Concerts" by Daniel J. Laubacher due to the immediate-application opportunity presented by the project.
Laubacher is a Swiss-American composer and teacher whose work is largely composed of educational projects. He has written several school musicals with topics ranging from fun ones like the circus to more important matters like saving the whale, climate change and global warming, and sustainable renewable energy. He currently teaches music and technology at a 1-to-1 iPad school, the Institut International de Lancy, just outside of Geneva, Switzerland.
This resource is a part of Apple's One Best Thing iBook series, designed to demonstrate how Apple technologies can be used to support teaching and learning. In this book, Laubacher shares his process and experience of preparing a student-led iPad orchestral ensemble to perform Pachelbel's Canon in D Major live at Apple's Education Summit in Geneva (2012). He shares what led to this awesome opportunity and then describes in detail how he taught his students to perform the piece.
As I read about this project, all I could think was, "Wow! That is amazing and a wonderful idea." One of the challenges about educating students in music is the amount of time that goes into it and our increasingly short attention spans with so much technology all around. However, if students can be hooked by the opportunity to create music with relatively little training, it can increase their motivation to learn elements which may take more effort and time. This project hits on the principle of celebrating small wins – though I could hardly call this a small win as students are creating BEAUTIFUL music. Further, in today's world students don't have to use an acoustic instrument to express themselves musically. This project teaches students how they can use GarageBand to express themselves musically and engages their creativity early on, again without the requirement of deep study before being able to do so.
What I was surprised with by this is how truly simple it is to learn about and engage in music performance through GarageBand! My mind is boiling over with ideas of how to use this to teach music arranging, chord progressions, harmony, and how this can be used to give students the opportunity to actually create instead of solely performing music.
I'm glad to have been introduced to the One Best Thing series through this project. So many creative ideas!
I'm glad to have been introduced to the One Best Thing series through this project. So many creative ideas!
Other arts-related iBooks in the series include:
Inventing a Better World: Design Thinking Through STEAM Education by Theresa McGee
https://itun.es/us/5VxBY.l
Urban Orchestration: Environmental Sound Mixing with iPad by Mark Shillitoe
https://itun.es/us/XTkNY.l
Three Little Notes: Musical Composition on iPad by Kelly Janzen
https://itun.es/us/-c3GY.l