100+ Google Tricks for Teachers

This link was sent to me by my teacher cohort:

http://www.teachhub.com/100-google-tricks-teachers-0

It has many great pieces of google-related advice!

iPad vs. Sheet Music: Pros & Cons

In a recent gig, I tried using my iPad as a music reader in place of traditional sheet music.  I mainly did this as an experiment, but during that time I found there were many advantages to using the iPad vs. sheet music.  The app I used was forScore.

In Favor of the iPad:

• Wind gusts (or room fans) will not blow an iPad off a music stand
• No need for a stand light
• Power-outages will not affect the iPad (those with sheet music were left in the dark during a circuit breaker failure)
• You can carry your entire music library within the iPad
• An iPad won’t give you a paper cut (don’t judge, those things can HURT)
• No pencil, pen, white-out or highlighter needed – tons of annotation options built in to forScore (The white marker was great for erasing music, which was a preferred alternative to using a pencil and scribbling over the music we don’t play)  Plus, there is a huge array of stamps which include almost every musical symbol and accidental, not to mention the blue and black pens and much more.
• forScore includes a built-in touch screen piano to help with pitch accuracy and a metronome, which can be used to simply pulse the music rather than make the clicking/beeping noise.

In Favor of Sheet Music:

• If sheet music falls off the stand it will not break
• You can lay out about 3 sheets of music across the music stand, whereas the iPad requires page turns every page
• It is faster to annotate the sheet music with a pencil (but with many less options)
• Page turns on the iPad can be difficult when there is no place to rest in the bottom half of the page (all page turns are done by touching the right side of the screen while playing).  Since I play trombone, this can be difficult!  For an instrument such as trumpet, it would have not been as big of a deal, since the trumpet could have been played with one hand to allow for easier page turns.  Since I did not have the AirTurn Bluetooth foot pedal, I had to touch the screen with my finger, which proved quite difficult at times, even with the ½ page turn feature.  Areas in the music which called for continuous playing meant that it was quite difficult to find that brief moment needed.  Despite this, I did get to a point where I was able to get through the entire show w/out issue....but the pedal would have been nice.

Conclusion: I will definitely be using the iPad as a pit musician in the up coming school musical... as long as I can get a hold of the AirTurn foot pedal.

2 More Fantastic iPad Apps

This is a video tutorial showcasing an example of the iPad app ShowMe.   (not me in the video)  It is a very easy to use app that allows video recording of your voice while you draw on the screen.

The second is an app that is simply fun.  MadPad HD is the application, and this video pretty much sums it up:

Happy Creating!

Connecting the Physical to the Digital

Have you ever seen these things, and wondered "What are they?  What do they do?"

Microsoft Tag

They seem to be showing up on many different types of print-based medium, such as posters, magazines, and even church bulletins.  The image you see to the left here is a Microsoft Tag.  I have mostly found them in issues of Entertainment Weekly, where I used the image to pull up a movie trailer using my Android smartphone.  (I had to download the free microsoft tag app from the Android Market)  Creating these is easy, just goto the microsoft tag site and get started.  The site guides you through the creation process with almost no learning curve.

This other black and white code image comes in a few different types, but usually looks like what you see here.  They are called QR or Datamatrix code.  They can be generated by many different online free sites, such as Tag.cx or this QR Code Generator site.  They are super simple to create - just insert the URL of the website you want to link, or the youtube video, etc... Then embed the image in some sort of printed media, such as a concert program or concert flyer, band handbook or concert poster.  By using a smartphone or tablet, such as an android phone, iPhone or iPad using the camera and an free app, the user can scan the image to instantly bring up the desired link or video.  However, these do not work with the Microsoft Tag reader, and vise versa.

This makes for easy access to your school band webpage using a smartphone without having to type in any long, complicated URL.

Give it a shot, generate your own code/tag, and put it on your next concert program or flier!