Author: Miss Abercrombie

MathsBot: online teaching resources

What is it?

MathsBot.com – a series of free online tools, created by Maths teacher Jonathan Hall, which can be used to support teaching mathematics. There are tools to support mathematics teaching at all stages whether primary school or high school. These are designed to be used in a teaching situation where a teacher is using the tools directly with learners to help explain concepts, or to provide interactive activities with a class, a group or individual learners.

Read more

Get Going with Green Screen film-making in the classroom

So what is green-screen?

Essentially it’s using software or an app to combine different images or video so that one appears as if part of the other. The green screen part makes use of chroma-key feature of the app so that anyone standing in front of a green screen will appear in the video with the green screen not seen at all, but replaced by another chosen background image or video. Wikipedia gives a much fuller explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key.

But how do I create a film in the classroom with green screen?

With an iPad, and a green screen app (such as the Doink green screen iPad app) and with anything in the background which is green (whether frieze paper on the wall or green sheeting, or specially made green screen fabric on a frame) you are ready to go.
Have a look at the Sway below for examples of videos created by pupils using the DoInk green screen iPad app, along with how-to guides to starting to use it yourself. And then it’s creativity on the part of your learners in the classroom – for further inspiration have a look at the DoInk green screen app blog  to see how others have shared about using green screen film-making in the classroom.

Chrome Music Lab

Google wanted to help make learning about music a bit more accessible to everyone by using technology that’s open to everyone: the web. They built a set of experiments that let anyone explore how music works.

 

What does it do?

Chrome Music Lab is a free online music creation webtool from Google. It is described as “a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments” and can be used on any web-connected device through most Internet browsers, so it will work on desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone (just note that it does not work on Internet Explorer).

The YouTube video below gives an overview of what Chrome Music Lab is.

.

Why is it useful?

You can exploring different features of music and link these other areas of the curriculum. The tools can be used in open-ended ways but direct links can be made to the science and mathematics of sound/music through practical activities looking at sound waves, vibrations, oscillations, or to artists like Kandinsky and relationship to shape. Explore the different tools to see the possibilities.

.

How does it work?

You don’t need to sign up for any account, you can just start creating right away by going to Chrome Music Lab on your browser of choice.

There are a range different tools: Song Maker, Rhythm, Spectrogram, Chords, Sound Waves, Arpeggios, Kandinsky, Melody Maker, Voice Spinner, Harmonics, Piano Roll, Oscillators, and Strings. Open any of these tools from the launchpad and simply click on the “About” link on each one to find out the straightforward guide to using each tool. Or just play about and have fun with each one – and then have a look at the “About” link to see what you’ve just been learning!

Each tool is visually very user-friendly and younger users could simply explore by trial and error and still gain a lot from experimenting. For those who wish to explore further they will find each tool has a wide range of permutations to be adaptable for different ages, stages and learning outcome desired.

.

Where can you learn more about Chrome Music Lab?

You can find out more about Chrome Music Lab on their about page but the easiest (and most fun) way to get to know the experiments is to try them out for yourself!

This YouTube video from Google gives a quick start guide on creating your own songs with Song Maker.

A quick YouTube search will also throw up loads of tutorials for replicating famous/popular songs in Song Maker.
.

Educator Voice