iPad trial with Prep Performing Arts classes

This week has been an extremely exciting one in my Performing Arts classroom. A flock of teacher and parent volunteers from Prep classes came into each lesson this week, bringing their own iPads with them (six Prep classes, two lessons each).  Most classes had five or six adults with iPads for twenty students. There were no more than four students per iPad. First some photos of the students in action, then a rather lengthy first reflection about how it went!

http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1322709959&f=mAl0wLhLZsdkoZk4D0q2bA&d=259&m=a&r=360p&volume=100&start_res=360p&i=m&options=

Focus

First I need to make clear (for myself) exactly WHY I wanted to use iPads in the Performing Arts class and what LEARNING I hoped the students to gain from it. We have been working on a stand alone Music unit around the following central idea:

A rhythm pattern can be repeated to create an ostinato.

We have been focusing on rhythm patterns and the concepts of Form, Repetition and Prediction. Students have been listening to and identifying various ostinati, copying and continuing ostinati and composing their own ostinato rhythms using untuned percussion instruments. In a nutshell:

I wanted to use iPads to create another dimension to the students’ experience of composition and to enhance their understanding of pattern and repetition. 

GlowTunes appealed to me as it is extremely visual and kinesthetic, allowing students with a variety of learning styles to be catered for. There is also no need for the students to be able to read standard music notation and the app is constructed in a way that virtually every student’s composition will be a success… there is no real ‘fail factor’.

As I began the week I wondered so many things:

1. would the students be interested?

2. would I be able to explain everything clearly enough?

3. would the app actually WORK with these five and six year olds?

4. would the students just ‘play’ rather than try to complete the task at hand?

5. would using the iPad in the classroom actually enhance learning?

I was slightly nervous during the first lesson. Just having all the extra adults in the room watching me was a little daunting (in one lesson there were eight!), let alone the fact that I was teaching something still relatively new to me! But once the students were there and I got started, I was well focused on what I wanted to accomplish…

Here are some of my initial thoughts (in no particular order):

Positives

1. students were excited about using the iPads, even though almost all of them have one at home (when I asked the students to indicate who had NOT seen an iPad before I had one or no hands go up)

2. the buzz and atmosphere of the students working collaboratively in the classroom was awesome!

3. most students were well focused on the task and talking about their learning

4. students VERY quickly worked out how to operate the iPad and the GlowTunes app – they were also NOT afraid to take risks and try new ideas out

5. roughly 90% of the students were on task 90% of the time – not bad in my book!

6. extra adult support meant that students had help close at hand if required (although most did NOT need it!)

7. LONG battery life – far better than a laptop! 480 minutes (8 hours) and no charging required!

Negatives

1. waiting for turns! Having said that, while 1:1 iPads would certainly have pleased the students a bit more, I doubt that the collaboration factor would have been so high. Students really needed to work together for this to work and under the guidance of the parent or teacher they were being supervised by this seemed to work well

2. some parents seemed to find it difficult to ‘let go’ (not physically!) and actually let the students PLAY so they could find out by themselves… some parents were just telling the students what to do… do they not trust that these little minds are capable of GREAT things? (pet hate of mine!)

3. there were some parents who took iPad time away from the students because they wanted a turn themselves!!!! 

PYP links

I’m just looking at the IB PYP Learner Profile and thinking about which of the attributes might have been developed through this learning engagement. The students certainly had to be inquirers as I did not spoon feed them, so they had to explore and find out for themselves the various features of the app. The majority of students were risk-takers, approaching the task with confidence, experimenting with GlowTunes and were not afraid of making mistakes along the way. Some students were already knowledgeable about iPads, already using one at home, although this seemed to be more for games. I am not sure that many of them had actually been creative composers on an iPad before! Some students were eager to be communicators, sharing their ideas about functions of the app with the class. At the end of each lesson there was an opportunity for the students to be reflective, sharing their thoughts about what worked well (or not) in their group’s composition. The students also needed to be open-minded by listening to, and respecting, each other’s ideas.

How did the learning engagements cater for the PYP Attitudes? Creativity, Cooperation, Confidence, Curiosity, Enthusiasm and Appreciation spring immediately to mind. Wow – that’s alot! 

About the GlowTunes app

All in all a pretty good app that served the purpose of the task at hand. Students were able to create/compose their own ostinato. Definitely appropriate for this year group. It is, however, a little limiting (but at 69p who can complain really?). Some extra features that were not available but that I feel would have made it even better:

1. ability to export the sound and/or video file of the composition – I would have liked a way to save the students’ compositions other than just on the iPad on which they were created. I did discover something that I didn’t know before (yay! am still learning!)… that I could take a screen shot of the visual image. However with a total of 120 students, all in groups of three or four, I am not sure how manageable that would be, especially as you cannot give each file a name directly as you take the shot. 

2. ability to assign a different instrument for each colour (this was actually a great suggestion from one of the parents)

3. an ‘undo’ button – for students who made a small mistake, so did not want to completely wipe the canvas to start again

Perhaps there is a different app out there that will do those things – please let me know if you know of one!

I did notice that during the first of the two lessons, most students focused on how the pattern looked rather than how it sounded… this is something I tried to talk to the students about during the second lesson and encouraged them to think more about making a sound pattern. However, I was very aware that I did not want to restrict their choices too much. I gave them some extra examples for the students to compare and challenge them to find ways of making the pattern SOUND more interesting. Most of them were still only interested in making it ‘look’ beautiful though!

Now for the BIG important questions:

Was it ENGAGING? Yes. Students were extremely interested and were actively involved in their learning.

Was it RELEVANT? Yes. It was a perfect supplement to the current unit of inquiry. It linked really well to the students’ instrumental compositions during the previous week and their existing understanding of patterns.

Was it CHALLENGING? This is a tricky one, but I think on the whole… yes. It seemed that if students had already used an iPad before it was only for playing games. They had not used it in a classroom setting before and some seemed quite surprised that we were using it for ‘work’!

Was it SIGNIFICANT? Yes. I believe that it was. It helped to further (or at the very least, consolidate) the students’ understanding of patterns (visual and musical). It was seemed to be a great opportunity for the students to work collaboratively. Also significant enough that I have received emails from parents who were not part of the Parent iPad Team saying that their child has come home raving about the iPad!

Things that hadn’t occured to me during the planning stage

1. The biggest thing here for me was just how TRANSDISCIPLINARY the learning engagements turned out to be. In the end it wasn’t really a Performing Arts or Music lesson at all! Most obviously mathematics (patterning) and technology (duh!) and even visual arts. I noticed that the iTunes preview describes the app as “a one of a kind application… that combines light and sound to create stunning works of art“. I think, though, it was the amount of language activity happening in the classroom that  was so incredible to watch. Students talking to each other were, on the whole, extremely focused on the task at hand. Students were challenged (in a ‘safe’ platform) to take risks, having a go at reading the different functions on the screen, explaining their learning to the adults. Some students were learning new technological vocabulary – ‘app’, ‘functions’, ‘options’ as well as reviewing the musical vocabulary from the unit.

2. And all the while developing critical and creative thinking skills. 

3. I also began to wonder how much my own (and the other adults’) enthusiasm and excitement for technology was rubbing off on the students (like it does on my son when I start talking about Christmas!). 

4. I hadn’t left enough time for the students to just play with the app. I realised quite quickly into the second lesson that they actually did need more time to just play and explore by themselves (without an adult!) so they could understand better all the options and functions of the app. From then on I devoted the last ten minutes of the second lesson for the students to just play for plain good old fun. They were discovering amazing options by themselves; how to change the background colour, how to change the circles for composing into squares. The room was ALIVE! Students were SQUEALING!

Reflections for Improvement

I need some thinking (and brewing) time on this one. Next week I will be asking the students for feedback. I have also created a questionnaire on Google for the parents and teachers who came into the lessons, so I look forward to hearing their feedback too. I’m sure to write another post in a week or two! Initial Conclusion When I reflect on all I have written above I think that yes, it was a worthwhile engagement to present to the students. An extremely successful first try with the iPads and something that I would probably repeat. I am 100% sure that iPads and Prep students in schools are a great combination, providing the apps chosen actually help to facilitate learning.

OK, so… this is the first post of my own that I have actually put ‘out there’ to the world… if you got this far – thank you! I started writing this on Monday and am publishing it today (Thursday)!

#iPads