iMusic = iExcitement
Monday, August 27, 2012 at 05:51AM 
It's the kind of moment that educators live for - when excitement and possibility suddenly fill a room. When there is the realization that what one is learning is a game-changer. The cliché "ah-hah" moment. And while I had no personal responsibility for that moment, I reveled in it nonetheless.
It happened last week among a small group of elementary music teachers in our district. An iPad for each of them had been purchased as means for storing and playing a recorded music series available only from the iTunes store. I had grudgingly gone along with upgrading the hardware from an iPod to an iPad for this project. Why spend $500 on a device, I asked, when one for less than $100 could do the job? Happily, I was over-ruled.
I attended the training led by members of my brilliant, young department mostly to see how issues of iPad management were being handled. Instead I learned that the original purpose of the iPad was the least exciting thing about using the device in elementary music classes.
The music teachers immediately saw the iPad as a powerful recording device for doing performance-based assessment. They were excited about using it to teach music composition and to use it as a musical instrument. Oh, and it could be used to play songs too.
In an educational era of test, test, test; Racing to the Top; Common Core; one right answer; fiit every kid in the same expectations mold; drill and kill and programmed computer instruction; disappearing libraries and disappearing art, music, PE and elective offerings, it's fun to see that creativity, innovation, and excitement have not been completely extinguished in the teaching profession. I don't think educational bureaucrats and politicians know just how damn tough teachers really are.
All teachers are back today in our district. This will be the best year of my 36 years in education. I just know it.
Reader Comments (5)
It always warms my heart when students and staff pick something up and dream up dozens of different ways to use it that you NEVER would have thought of. I think the most important role of technology staff is to start/facilitate the conversation...not dictate it!
Happy new school year to all Blue Skunkers!
A really good aspect of the iPad is also you're giving them a device that they can easily be using a home while relaxing on the couch. Being something they find handy, easy to use and hopefully fills a personal need means it's no longer seen as technology but something that becomes part of their daily routine.
My husband is fairly hopeless with technology and when I bought my first iPad his initial thought was it was the dumbest thing I ever brought. Within days he had taught himself how to use it and now tells everyone it was the best thing I ever brought. Now his iPad is an important part of his morning and night routine. With a strong desire to use he has taught himself how to connect to wireless and use Skype. While it may have taken me all these years to convince him that an app is generally better than the Safari -- he has finally started using Flipboard within the past few weeks and become a Flipboard fanatic.
Over here in the UK iPads are starting to emerge in the classroom as a creative tool. Looking across the pond, I see lots of references to the ability to search for information, yet very few talk about the power it gives for mixing and remixing information allowing students to create their own 'view' or construction of concepts ideas etc. However the pure creativity, the simple act of making something original is, as you say, the "ah ha" moment.
I was using the iKaossilator app with some 6 year olds (on iPods) just to see what they would do with it, and every child was able to make a piece of music (loop) using the wide range of touch activated instruments. The 'Ah Ha' moment was when a little chap piped up "Listen to mine, it sounds like Mario Carts!" - It did! It sure beat my music lessons as a six year old when I was given two small brass 'Indian Bells' linked by a piece of string and told to clink them in time to a beat.
Hi Nathan,
Yeah, I call that "planting the seeds." Most teachers are far more inventive than I will ever be. Thank goodness.
Doug
Hi Sue,
It seems both ends of the spectrum of technology users - the gadget geeks and the tech avoiders - both like this silly iPad. Glad your husband is getting into it.
Doug
Hi Steve,
Very cool!
This is especially ironic since the iPad was dismissed by a lot folks here when it first came out as primarily a device for "consuming" media. I've seen more creating with it than I have with a regular computer! Must be the small size.
Thanks for sharing this.
Doug
I hope you have a great time with these!