This week’s first input consisted of looking at Garageband as a potential resource in the classroom. Garageband is an example of sound editing software, and using this was something that I was quite familiar with. In teaching music, I was hoping that I would be able to find a way to integrate sound production/engineering into the classroom. I hoped for this to be a possibility as while I personally have little musical ability, I currently hold an HNC in Sound Production and found this to be an aspect of music education that I engaged well with and really enjoyed. I believe that providing this sort of diversity in music education in the classroom might also appeal to children in the same way. While I was not always comfortable being asked to perform, being behind the desk allowed me to be expressive in my own way, and I hope that making children aware of this aspect of music education – and the music industry itself – will be a good step in encouraging children to engage with music and to consider music and its different aspects as more than just hobbies.
A fun aspect of this exercise was also being allowed to play around with the idea of foley effects – adding sound effects to video. There are a lot of soundless clips out there, and letting children work to create their own work, maybe even down to creating and recording their own sound effects if the equipment is available, lends a depth to music education that we might not normally consider. It might be a grand idea at the moment, but I particularly like the idea that teaching children music in this manner could lend itself to greater integration of the arts in other areas – if schools have sound engineering equipment, why not allow children to be the sound engineers for their own schools shows, or have fundraising “open mic” nights where the children can showcase their music as well as engaging in the technical aspect? As someone who has had theatre experience, I am keen to not only teach the arts in this way, but to perhaps push it in the direction of a whole school or whole class approach to productions. It may allow children to find aspects of the creative arts that they engage with and are invested in, while allowing them to share their learning experiences with each other.
Returning to the subject of foley activities, the children could even take it as far back as creating their own short films, then producing their own sound effects and using Garageband and its available loops to create soundtracks. There are a multitude of opportunities for arts education using Garageband as a base, and using the shared skills and experience of other teachers and pupils. I think approaching the arts in this way, returning to a point in a previous post, can also enable children to take a sense of pride and ownership of their own work, that they have created a finished product which is entirely their own.
Our second workshop was Visual Arts, in which I was able to undertake an exercise in printing. The aim of the exercise was to create a tile from an image using polystyrene and a given picture, in order to reproduce the image a number of times. I have included some examples of my print.
I believe this would be quite an enjoyable activity to undertake with a class. It was quite a time-consuming activity to undertake in one sitting, but it could be easily extended through a number of art slots, building up to a completed product. Taking time over it would allow children to take care with their work and to become more invested in it. If I were to undertake such an activity with a class, I would try to allow for diversity of materials in terms of available paint and paper colours, allowing children to select their own colour combinations, which would allow for a sense of diversity in the end products, as children will have some free reign in choosing the eventual look of their work. This ties into the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s (GTCS) Standards for Provisional Registration, which stipulate that teachers must be able to appropriate plan and implement lessons using a variety of resources and teaching methods. I believe an activity such as this, with a blend of practical elements and potentially some theory behind printing and its origins, is an excellent example of this diversity of teaching styles.
I did enjoy this activity, and it was beneficial to consider what this printing could lead onto. Possible further use of their own prints could see children using one of them as a stimulus for drawing or adding to the image using a different medium – perhaps drawing, as mentioned, or even potentially collaging, printing with different tools, or even painting.
References
The Standards for Registration: Mandatory Requirements for Registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland. (2012). [ebook] Edinburgh: General Teaching Council For Scotland. Available at: http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/the-standards/standards-for-registration-1212.pdf [Accessed 4 Dec. 2017].
