Examples from the Smart Jams Math Music Video Project

Here are five samples from our first time through the Smart Jams music video project. I highlighted our work in detail on my Music in the Classroom page. I also included video tutorials for the entire process so teachers or students could do similar work.

Due to privacy concerns, we did not get permission to post the full videos online. The versions here will give you a great idea of the quality of the songs. The videos have been modified (mostly with panning and zooming) so that students cannot be identified.

These are a few of the songs I'm most proud of for reasons noted below.

Best singing performance - Multiplying Fractions - Most students opted for a rap when they performed. It is a lot more work for all involved when they choose to sing as these girls did, but the performance turned out very well.

Best rap performance - Rounding Like a Hero (Rounding to the Tens Place) - This is a great example of how a short, simple rap can focus on the content and give students a chance to let their talents shine through.

Best songwriting - Truckin' Like a Tractor (Reducing Fractions) - I liked the similes and rhymes in this short song a lot. The quiet girl who did the rap really came to life when I started recording!



Example created using just the iPad - This is remix of the first song. After I got the chords from UJam, I created the music using Smart Instruments in GarageBand for iPad. I also played a guitar track using the iRig adapter. Next, I created the video using only still pictures and iMovie. It's a good example of what can be accomplished relatively quickly with all content creation on this amazing device.


Example of WeVideo - Long Division - These students were a joy to work with and they put a lot into their song. It's one of our best, but I also share it here because I finalized this version in WeVideo. All other videos were done with iMovie, but I wanted to see if WeVideo could be used as a simple, free alternative on a PC. My conclusion is yes, but I had to publish this twice before the published version matched the sync of the edited version I worked on. I can't say how common that is, but it was somewhat frustrating.

I'll be glad to hear any comments you have on this project and the final products!

The Big Question Before the Learning Starts

Last week I was planning for teacher professional development and something like the picture below came to mind. I sent it out on Twitter asking if it had value. There was no response at first, but I sent it again a few days later and it received a lot of attention. Now I want to elaborate on the underlying idea and consider how to develop it. 

First, I see this being used before a learning activity for adults on down to younger teens. I know the wording and presentation can be improved, but I believe it captures the most important question regardless of the topic and technique that awaits the learner. 

I think the main point of the question is clear, that the desire to learn is a perquisite for learning. The scale from 1 - 10 implies we rarely will find ourselves 100% at one extreme or the other. 

My problem with this is that the question has value when I answer it for myself, but when I have to answer it to someone else or because someone else raised it, I'm not likely to think about it in a meaningful way. The "right" answer will be quickly given or maybe in resentment or defense, I won't think deeply about where my attitude toward learning actually falls. 

But can the question be answered in a useful way only in self-reflection?  Is discussion necessary, at least in some settings or with some topics? If so, how can that be done without making this come off as accusatory?

I'm drawn to this activity because it requires the teacher and learner to narrow the focus on the purpose of the learning to come. It draws the learner to consider that purpose and his or her relation to it. 

And to me, the beauty of this is an honest answer of 1 or 2 on the scale is of great value. Teacher and learner can gain so much from admitting it or realizing that's how the learner feels. It's like we can all start on level ground, open to each other and the reality of the job we face together. 

Teachers, or administrators running professional development, need to encourage the learners to express this honestly and in appropriate ways. How much real learning is prevented because we all forge ahead without meeting here first? Is it because we assume everyone wants to learn or we don't know how to respond if they don't?

There is a reality that in every learning situation the learner must give something in order to learn. For those of us teaching teens or older, how often have we said, "You will only get out as much as you put into it"? Certainly the teacher must carry some of the weight, probably most of it for any planned learning situation, but as learners mature they need to recognize their own responsibility in the matter. This attitude check reminds everyone of this.

Some questions that I still have as I consider using this:

• What should I do as a learner if my honest answer to the question is a low number? Do I leave? Do I just do the bare minimum required? What would it take to make real learning more important to me?
• Should learners discuss their answers among themselves? Or is this a reflective writing warm-up activity? 
• Should I as the teacher see the responses of the learners?
• As the teacher or leader in this activity, what is a good response when I find some learners in the group are honestly saying they just want to get it over with? Do I try to move them further up the scale by convincing them of the importance, or do I give less myself?
• What research exists that relates to this?
• How can I improve the wording or presentation? What changes will be necessary for specific learning situations?

Smart Jams Music Video Project - Outline and Video Tutorials

These are my video tutorials and outline for the Smart Jams Music Video Project. If you have any questions about this process, don't hesitate to contact me by email. I want to improve this page so many teachers and students can create a similar project.

All information about the project and our pilot can be found on my Music Creation in the Classroom page on this blog.

It will help to see and hear some examples first:

• Some examples of videos from the Smart Jams project
• Audio for all 24 songs we created

The process can vary depending on complexity, but the heart of the project involves songwriting, recording the song and then creating a full arrangement using UJam.com and GarageBand.

Step 1:  Write the lyrics

The first step is to write a short song. When we do these, they are really just choruses of about four to eight lines.

Step 2:  Record vocals

Next, make a recording of someone singing or rapping the song. We do those by playing a beat in headphones for the performer and just his or her voice is recorded. For the beat, I use Smart Drums in GarageBand for iPad. You could also use Easy Beats LE for a free option. On a computer you could use DrumBot.

To record, we use Audacity on a computer and export the track to mp3.

Tip:  Name the file with the song's tempo in it.  For example, if the beat the performer sang to was 90 beats per minute, save the file as mathsong90.mp3.  This will help greatly in later steps.

Step 3:  Adjust timing of audio recording (if necessary)

If the recording is perfect, you can probably skip these first two tutorials and go right to the UJam step below, but I have found most student recordings need some cleaning up to adjust timing.

This short tutorial shows how to transfer the file to your iPad so you can adjust timing using GarageBand for iPad.


Then this next tutorial shows how I would split the tracks into segments (sometimes as small as a syllable) and move them to adjust the timing. You can do this with GarageBand on a Mac, or any other program that allows for easy trimming and moving of audio tracks. I prefer GarageBand for iPad because I can work on the audio files whenever I get the chance.

In case you're wondering about the time it takes to fix up a file, it depends how rough it was. For short songs that were performed well, this would be done in less than two minutes, if it was necessary at all. In other cases I would work for an hour or more over a series of sessions to polish them up.

As a general rule, have students practice ahead of time as much as possible and get a good recording. Short songs are better than long ones! This process will not be able to do much to fix a really bad recording.

Step 4:  Export to mp3

Next you need to export the file in mp3 format. This will be easy if you're using most programs that work with files on a computer, since they usually export to mp3. On the iPad, I exported from GarageBand to Voice Record Pro. From there I could convert to mp3 format and email the file to myself for the next step. (Note: If your program will not export to mp3 you can also use wav format.)

Step 5:  Get two or more arrangements from UJam

This next tutorial is about what makes the project truly impressive. It shows the steps I would usually do to create at least two different background tracks with full instrumentation using UJam.com. This is an amazing online resource and with some practice I could usually put together two background tracks in about 10 minutes. The trick is to not get distracted by all the options!


One suggestion when letting the students do this part of the process: Share the audio file(s) on Google Drive and let them work on the song outside of class. That should allow them to stick to a deadline in class, knowing they can always explore other options at home.

Alternate approach:
As another option rather than UJam, just download one of our Smart Jams Song Starters from SoundCloud and improvise a melody over it. Import the Song Starter into Audacity and record your vocal track separately. Let me know if you like the Song Starter idea, but need more styles and variations.

Step 6:  Mix tracks and arrange

The final tutorial shows how I combined the background tracks from UJam with the vocal performance using GarageBand. I did this on a Mac, but you could easily do the same thing with GarageBand for iPad. Audacity would also work, though it's not as easy to adjust right to the measures and loops aren't as readily available.

Step 7: Make the video

At this point you will have a good audio version of the song.  If you want to move on to video, you can tackle that in a number of ways. Here are some general tips.

Quick videos using Video Star:
The Video Star app for iPad is a fun (and free) tool that allows you to play a song while you record video. None of the sound you make while recording will be in the video. Only the song will be heard. It's ideal if you want to lip sync, but the many effects can make an entertaining music video even if you're not singing along with every line.

To use this method, once you export the song from GarageBand, send it to iPad (even if it's already on the iPad) by email. Check your email with the iPad app. Tap and hold the attachment link for the file in the message and you should get an Open With... options. One of those should be the Video Star app. The song will open in Video Star and you can begin recording right away.

Video slideshows using the iPad or computer:
Students can make great videos combining pictures. These styles of videos usually play the pictures in different ways over background music, which in this case would be the song the students created.

iMovie is a great option on the iPad. If you don't want to buy it, Splice and Loopster are good options that will accomplish the same thing.

If you are using a Mac, use iMovie to combine the pictures. For a PC, try Movie Maker or WeVideo. In all of these cases, you can easily add text and effects to the pictures as well.

If you want to edit the pictures ahead of time, I can't say enough good about Pixlr. It has a website (use the Express version), iPad app and Android app.

Another option is to create a full video made up of video clips, pictures, effects and text. This can become very time consuming and the details are well beyond the scope of this outline. I may add some more tips or another post about this process. For now, I will just suggest using iMovie on a Mac (which is what I used for almost all the Smart Jams examples) or Corel VideoStudio (which I used for The Area and Perimeter Song and The Quadratic Formula Song).

If you have questions or comments about the process, please include them below so I can improve this series of tutorials.

Results from the Smart Jams Math Music Video Project

Through November and December I worked with our upper elementary music teacher on a math music video project with fifth graders. Our goals were to integrate math in the music class, to encourage some creativity and to make products that might help other students learn the math skills and concepts. You can find all related posts about this project here.

It was a grant funded project from MACUL and part of my proposal included some pre- and post-tests as well as opinion surveys from students. Here are some results and observations.

To measure the effectiveness of the math integration, I gave pre-tests to half of the students before we started writing the songs. Each quiz was given to the group responsible for a video on that topic. When we finished recording video and capturing pictures I gave those same students the same quiz. Here are the average scores by math topic:

• Reducing Fractions: Pre-test:  25%   Post-test:  37.5%
• Shapes: Pre-test:  57.1% to Post-test:  67.1%
• Multiplying Fractions: Pre-test:  55% to Post-test:  57.5%
• Adding Fractions:  Pre-test:  48.4% to Post-test:  59.3%
• Place Value:  Pre-test:  69.5% to Post-test:  82.9%
• Long Division: Pre-test:  66.7% to Post-test:  70.8%
• Rounding: Pre-test:  40.5% to Post-test:  38.9%

I would have liked to see higher averages at the end in all areas, but scores did improve at least slightly in all areas other than rounding. While even some of that improvement is so slight that I can't say it was a success for all involved, I was encouraged by the opportunity this gave us to talk about math in music class. I had good conversations with some students about concepts as I helped them plan and write their songs. This focus on content simply would not have happened if we hadn't done the project and I know with future attempts we can improve this focus.

Some other observations are worth noting here: 

• Once I saw the scores on the pre-tests I knew I had misjudged the skill level of students from the start. Because of this and the requirements of the project I narrowed the scope of a topic when it came to the songwriting. For example, for the topic of rounding I had them round to many different places, with all possible cases covered, but the songs I asked them to write only focused on rounding to the 10ths or 10s. Then when it came time to do the post-test, I still felt I should give students the same test. Consequently there were questions on the tests that we never did talk about.
• The pre-test and post-test for reducing fractions were slightly different for half of the students tested in that group due to a last minute change in topics.
• We only met with students two times a week for 45 minutes each time, so it took us five weeks to complete our work. It is possible that time in their regular math contributed to some improvement we saw.
• Fractions need a lot of attention. My initial thoughts after seeing their mistakes is that we should focus more attention there next time and also on songs about multiplying and dividing skills and concepts.

After recording the pictures and videos, but before students saw completed videos, I gave an opinion survey to just over one-third of them. Here are some results that I found interesting:

• When asked which part of the process they liked best, the most popular parts were writing the song (30%) and making the signs they held in the video (27%).
• When asked about their least favorite part, 30% again said the songwriting! I guess we can't please everyone. Another 30% said working with others in their group was what they liked least. We created the groups based largely on math skills and the resulting mix led to some disagreements between group members throughout the creative process. This has a lot of potential for learning, but it needs some more attention from us as teachers to make this a more positive learning experience.
• I asked them to rate how much they liked the project on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best. Sixty percent of them chose a 4 or 5. Only 13% picked a 1 or 2. 
• Looking at our goal of having them practice creativity skills, a full 83% of them agreed this helped them practice creativity skills. 
• Only 49% said it introduced them to new technology skills. In looking over the project, I realized the students didn't end up using the technology much themselves this time around. We showed them what we were doing with UJam.com and they obviously were a part of the recording process, but now that we have improved the process I expect we will have the students be much more involved in the recording and editing.
• Fifty percent of the students surveyed agreed they would consider writing a song now that they have worked through the process. As one who has always loved songwriting as a rewarding hobby, I consider that to be an important success.

I haven't yet measured how well we accomplished the third goal of helping others with the videos. I plan to do that over the next month while I complete the other parts of our presentation for the MACUL conference in March.

Stick Around App - puzzles for learning

Image from Tony Vincent's website: http://learninginhand.com/

I was glad to receive a promo code for Stick Around from Tony Vincent, the app's inventor. I had heard positive things about it from others on Twitter. I also was excited to see it because it was developed by the same team that made Explain Everything, one of my favorite apps creating tutorials. I installed it right away and tried out a few of the sample puzzles that came with it.

The educational value of the puzzles is immediately evident. Each puzzle requires the user to move the "stickers" to the correct place on the background image. As an example, a sticker in the one sample has the term "cell membrane" on it. The goal is to move it, as well as the other 10 stickers in that puzzle, so all parts of the pictured cell are labeled. Some stickers have an arrow so you can easily point to the correct area of the background image.

The action of positioning stickers also allows for "sort in order" questions and for arranging items in Venn diagrams.

When a user thinks the stickers are in the right place, he or she can press the Check button. The app indicates whether or not it is correct. If so, a badge is displayed and the user can save a picture of the completed puzzle to the Camera Roll. From there it would be easy to send to the teacher or share in other ways.

To me, the big benefit of Stick Around is the ability to create your own puzzles and share them with others. While this obviously will let a teacher make puzzles that fit her students' needs perfectly and quality puzzles will be easily shared among all users, it also makes for a great project option. Students can create puzzles as a final stage of a PBL activity. One of my favorite types of assignments in technology classes is to have older students create content for younger students. This app will be perfect for that and I hope to try it with some students in the near future.

I took some time to explore the puzzle creation features. Most tools are intuitive and anyone who has used Explain Everything will recognize similarities in the interfaces. Whether you've got the app or you're still considering it, be sure to check out Tony Vincent's tutorials. They are well done and I learned some things about setting up stickers that I might have missed at first glance.

Here are my favorite features so far:

• Imported pictures can be used as backgrounds or as stickers and you can trim them to any shape. Having your picture or photos of the classroom in the puzzle adds to the fun for students. You (and they) can make the learning relate to their world and their personal interests.
• Stickers can include additional text notes or hyperlinks to web pages so students can find related information. 
• You can even record audio on a sticker. Stickers with recordings have a small Play button that users can tap to hear what you recorded. This makes it easy to add short comments to a sticker that might be helpful for completing the puzzle or maybe for additional information.

And here are a few things I noticed that were negatives or possible obstacles. I'm sure all of these can be easily addressed in an update if enough users also find them worth mentioning.

• Answer regions (where the stickers have to be for correct placement) cannot be touching. That makes sense, but I found in my custom puzzle they actually had to be spaced apart more than I expected. Since my puzzle was based on an photo, I didn't have a lot of choice as to where two of my regions were. I had to move them apart more and more until the app would finally accept them. This is not a big deal, but you need to keep it in mind before spending a lot of time on a puzzle only to find your regions will be too close. In the future, I'll make and test any regions that might be close, then finish the rest of my puzzle once I know those work.
• I'm normally not into the bells and whistles of educational apps, but I was surprised there weren't more sound effects for actions while a puzzle is completed. Sounds of picking up and placing stickers would have been a nice touch, though obviously not essential. Also, when a puzzle is checked, there's no sound for correct or incorrect submissions. In fact, the message for an incorrect attempt looks like a system dialogue box, simply indicating the puzzle was not solved correctly. There is an image of a medal for correct solutions, but compared to most interactive learning experiences the students are used to, these features didn't seem to get much attention from the developer.
• I want to work with this more to see how much of a problem it is, but the one sticker I made from a photo did not seem to work right when I added an arrow to it. It was fine at first, but when I came back to it later, the arrow was missing. When the app checked for a correct solution, it didn't seem to matter any longer where I placed that sticker in the puzzle. When I edited the puzzle and added the arrow again, it then showed up behind the information/edit box, so I couldn't even tap or drag it to stretch or position it. I need to experiment with that more to see if it happens frequently with image stickers or if something else caused it.

All things considered, I'm very happy to have Stick Around as another learning tool for my students. I plan to share this information with all teachers in my district, since I'm sure the app can be useful in all grades and subject areas.

I will be working with a high school Digital Media class next week and I look forward to having students create puzzles and share them. I will update this post as I see the app in action, both for solving and creating puzzles.