Hey guys
I thought this week I would share with you my top 5 Online Sources that I have found to be so helpful with my teaching. They come from a variety of platforms so I hope you find them useful.
The first was originally for my guitar students but with the added instruments of piano, ukelele and bass, it has so many more options.
It is available iTunes and the Google Play store. Unfortunately we can’t seem to access it at our school but many of my students use it at home. It is a lot like guitar hero where you can use your own acoustic guitar and play at the ipad or phone. The technology will record your effort and tell you how much of it you got right. I have personally been using the free version which gives me a 30 min lesson per day. Once the 30 minutes are up, I can still access the things that I have already played but it won’t register my effort. But it still allows me to practice.
For those of you who run Jazz Orchestra’s or study jazz in your classes, this is a fantastic online resource. Not only has the website got an amazing array of class resources so useful for flipped learning, they also have this amazing catalogue of videos on YouTube. Their channel is definitely worth subscribing to. Many of their videos are 5 to 7 minutes long, which is perfect for the flipped classroom.
The Flip Side with Jon Bergmann
I listen to the Flipped Learning Podcast with Jon Bergmann. This is a wonderful podcast with a whole range of useful interviews, tips and tricks on how to introduce a flipped approach to your teaching. If you are someone who is embracing the student centred classroom and an integrated teaching approach, then this podcast is one that you would definitely find to be very useful.
Have you ever wondered what is trending worldwide in K-12 schools? Never thought about it. Well I have and was so excited when I was introduced to the Horizon Report. A body of 61 experts collaboratively research and produce this report every year. They consider which trends and technologies will drive educational change and then they put it into simple terms. They look at what is solvable, therefore possible to achieve in 12 months, what is difficult that may take us 3 to 5 years and what will need further investigation to strategize effective solutions.
This was something we were recently shown at a Professional Learning Session. Mentimeter is an easy-to-use presentation software used by more than 8 million people. With Mentimeter you can create fun and interactive presentations. We help you make your events, presentations, lectures, and workshops innovative and memorable. I used the “word cloud” function the other day to see what the students thought about the performance of another student. They were asked to enter three words that best described the positive things that were happening during the performance. It was very interesting to see how some words were repeated and therefore became more prominent in the word cloud. Once they had seen the response, I asked them to enter 1 emoji that supported their thoughts. This was a cute way to end the session.