Sunday, June 17, 2012

Using ICT in primary music



Last week I used 2Simple music toolkit with each year group in the school. The children were very excited and highly motivated. Year 1 did extremely well and were able to find their way around 2Explore, recording their work and selecting instruments of their choice. Year 2 didn't get much further but yr 3 were able to save files. Year 5 and 6 were able to compose and save simple nursery rhymes. using the pitched chime bar options they were able to record fragments of nursery rhymes which yr 1 are going to listen to next week. 

Year 4 looked at 2compose. They have just spent a term learning recorders so have most knowledge of notation. They were able to compose simple tunes and were just starting to understand how to use repeat signs.

It is early days and I am learning alongside the children. My first instinct is to keep going through the programmes. It will never be a replacement for hands on vocal based music lessons but it is another way to introduce musical concepts (such as pulse, pitch, rhythm etc) to the children.  Music technology was clearly identified by Ofsted as an area of weakness of many school music departments. I think that  using 2Simple music toolkit is an easy and non threatening place to start for many primary schools.

Will report back on next weeks progress.

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