2011-2012

Hello there!
Last school year was very exciting. It was the first year I was working in your school (yay!), it was the first year you had 12 iPads for the grade 6s and 7s to use, and it was the first year that we removed the internet filter on social networking sites. The whole world opened up for our teaching and learning and we did many great things. But now it's the summer, and you know what teachers do in the summer? They think about next year. They think about what they are going to do in September and how they are going to do it. I'm thinking about what we did last year and how we can make it better for next year, and the year after that. I'm thinking about what you all are interested in and how we can put that interest to work in the classroom.

What we did last year
1.) In the first week of school, I started a [|class blog] . Because I'm lucky enough to teach every single one of you, I move around the school a lot. I needed a way to bring all of my music and videos and lessons with me around the school so that I could access it all anytime and anywhere. I first created the **blog** so that I could access all of my teaching stuff from anywhere, as well as for your parents to be able to see what we were doing in class. Then, I put some interactive polls and links on. We all started using the Fine Arts blog as a place where we could go for "safe" videos and information. I hooked up the blog to our school wiki and you showed your homeroom teachers some of the resources such as songs and dances. Your teachers started to use the Fine Arts blog, and some of you started up your own blogs at home, just for fun, and shared them with me.

2.) The grade 6s and 7s wrote and recorded songs on the iPads with the ** GarageBand ** app. Here's one example from Kevin C.:

media type="file" key="kevin song 2.m4a" align="center" width="300" height="50"

As a class, we developed a rubric for marking your songs, and changed the rubric for each song you wrote and handed in. For each row of the marking rubric, you told me what the criteria would be for each box. As you wrote your songs, you had a copy of the rubric in front of you and you were able to check off each section to make sure you would have all the elements we were shooting for. Here's an example of the rubric below:

You all played your songs for the class by putting your iPad under the AVerVision so we could watch your multi-tracks recordings, and you hooked up sound to the classroom speakers. You all handed in your songs by emailing them to me. Every single one of you was able to create a multi-track song that included playing the app instruments, using samples, and recording your own voices or sound effects, and every single one of you was able to email me your song for marking. For example, here's Justin's song below. On the left hand side of the iPad you can see icons for all of the different instruments, samples, and recordings he used. As the song plays, you can see the counter bar move across the screen from left to right and how it matches where different instruments are playing and at rest.

media type="youtube" key="w2FwiZFFYbM" height="315" width="420" align="center"

3.) We had a school **Talent Show**. This was the first talent show our school has ever had. We held auditions for more than 40 acts, and we ended up with about 80 performers doing everything from singing and dancing to stand up comedy and magic tricks. Two grade 7 MCs hosted the show and the bleachers in the gym were filled with family members.