Skip to main content

JamSkolan Day 2

Today was a very interesting day.  It started out with our presentations of Jam2Jam from our test sights.  Dr. Eva Saether and Per talked about their experiences with the software in Sweden and showed us video clips of the students actively engaged and even fighting over usage of the program.  Dr. Alex Ruthmann and myself presented Pentucket's findings and video clips.  It seemed that the more ownership our students could put into the program, the more successful they thought it was.  The students uploaded photos of the marching band and jammed with them using the software.  They also particularly enjoyed performing real instruments in conjunction with the software being performed.  Lastly, Dr. Matthew Thibeault and Melanie took us through a jam using an arrangement of a John Philip Sousa March and visuals.  This was a very innovative idea that will help us think of more ways we can incorporate Jam2Jam in to the classroom. 

We ended the afternoon with a frank discussion of where we see Jam2Jam headed.  It seems like the next version of the software is going to be even more student/teacher oriented and offer more chances for ownership within the content that can be uploaded.  


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Band Room: A New Design

Just in case we ever get a new or renovated high school (I might be dreaming), I wanted to be prepared for helping input the best design possible for a new band and chorus room.  I ended up attending a clinic by the Wenger group.  Wenger is the company that made the acoustic shells on our high school auditorium stage along with the two "soundproof" practice rooms that were installed back in the 1960's.  The company is now the standard company used in the United States for music room design. I learned many things at this clinic.  Firstly, I learned that most bands and choruses have their own rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, and offices.  We spent a long time focusing on where sound goes after it leaves the instrument.  Our music room has a ceiling that needs to be at least four feet higher.  Additionally all the equipment in the room cuts down on reverberation.  It is suggested that any closets or storage areas in a band room have open grilled doors so that air and sound c...

Learning Theory through Pop Music by Matthew F. Finnegan

Did you know that most pop music has a four beat pattern where the snare drum usually accents beats two and four? Example: "Get a Grip" by Aerosmith! At 8:00 am I attended what I consider my favorite clinic thus far at the MENC All-Eastern Music Educators Conference. Titled "From Simple to Complex: Leading the Listener to Learning," clinician Mathew F. Finnegan gave great examples of how popular music can be used in the classroom to teach music theory. The idea is this: teaching music theory through the old school fashion of notes on a page and through classical music does not work in today's classroom. In order to create the motivation for students to want to learn theory, we need to reach out and use the music which relates to them the most and connect it with the content we want to teach them. I found this clinic to be very inspiring. Here we just focused on the beat, but this clinician has already established how to incorporate pop music with the teach...