Source: iTunes

Twitter's new Vine app has gained a cadre of followers, but it has flown under the radar in educational circles. The application allows users to create six-second video clips. Just like Twitter's defining limit of 140 characters, the time constraint on Vine is meant both to encourage pithiness and to conserve bandwidth.

We haven't yet experimented with Vine in the classroom, but already we can imagine a range of uses for future projects and lessons. Just as some educators were slow to embrace Twitter's open platform, they may gradually enjoy toying with Vine's easy-to-use interface and immediate gratification. For 1:1 iPad schools, the free app could prove particularly useful.

Source: Social News Daily

To be fair, Vine is not the only video capture service. It could just be a knee-jerk offering for a more grown-up version of Snapchat or a more dynamic Instagram. But at its best, Vine might be the next virtual playground for creativity. Ideally, it will become one of those applications where teachers cannot preconceive of the inventive directions that students will pursue.

Source: CIO

As with all unregulated social media applications, schools should be careful about letting students run rampant through all of Vine's content. Recent articles have pointed out that some of the early postings have been smutty in nature. Until Twitter adds filters to block offensive content, educational institutions should be guarded about allowing Vine's unfettered use in classrooms. In fact, a 17+ age restriction could be temporary or permanent.

Here are some of Vine's possible future uses for education:

Applications:

1. Pair with information on a class website or blog
2. Announce homework to students and parents
3. Model how students should execute a task
4. Market a school's upcoming events to followers
5. "Tease" new units for kids and families
6. Record student reactions to texts
7. Think-pair-share in a virtual field
8. Grab "preview" or "exit interview" understandings
9. Offer parent testimonials for admissions
10. Build advisory or homeroom unity

Projects:

1. Design mini-book trailers
2. Film solutions to math problems
3. Identify symbols and silent metaphors
4. Recreate drawing or painting methods
5. Document science labs
6. Capture instructions for computer tools
7. Create "real-life" Vokis
8. Animate stop-motion characters
9. Recite famous quotations
10. Impersonate historical figures

Source: Clint Stephens

Even though iPads offer a lot of flexibility in learning, finding the right app can sometimes be a frustrating barrier to using them in the classroom. Often, as this article from Edudemic explains, schools focus only on "content" or "subject-specific" apps, without realizing that open-ended tools such as Visualize or Educreations can be incorporated into any curriculum.

One of the most helpful and illuminating resources for identifying appropriate educational apps is this mind-blowing Prezi from Regional Technology Integration Specialist Clint Stephens of the Southwest Educational Development Center. Entitled "60 Educational Apps In 60 Minutes," this visually stunning layout offers a full tour of relevant iOS tools for teachers. Organized into four categories of "Fun Time," "Productivity Time," "Core Time," and "General Ed Time," each recommendation includes an image, a description, and actual screen caps from the interface. Even if you have no interest in tablets or 1:1 devices, this Prezi is worth a look as an epitome of both information design and painstaking preparation.


Another targeted site with suggestions of iPad apps is "Teach With Your iPad." This wiki offers a thorough list of possible tools, organized clearly by subject and grade level in an easy-to-read table. It also includes a few recommended "starter" apps at the bottom.

"15 iPad Skills Every Teacher And Student Should Have" also presents a roster of recommended resources. For each of the 15 categories, the article offers the best apps to use with students in the classroom.

Source: NodeBeat

These days, an iPad and five minutes are all you need to experiment with trippy, light-bending music interfaces. Anyone can become an instant composer. The proliferation of interactive sound apps has opened up countless lesson ideas for music instruction. Schools blessed with 1:1 tablet capability can set their students free to explore and create. Other options include BYOD meet-ups or group sharing. Even without hand-held devices, a teacher could show the functions on an interactive whiteboard to inspire children outside of the classroom. At the very least, the apps featured below are fun for anyone, whether serious musician, techy gear-head, or occasional fiddler.

Visual Music Apps

NodeBeat - iOS Music Sequencer from AffinityBlue on Vimeo.

NodeBeat 

NodeBeat is a visual music app from AffinityBlue where the user manipulates nodes and clusters to create cadenced tunes. Self-described as "intuitive and fun," the app is certainly easy to use. Check out the video above to hear a sample of the tunes.

Source: Orphion

Orphion 

The Orphion app combines string and percussion elements to express feelings and polyphonic music. The experience was created by a German jazz saxophonist with the Rowling-esque name of Bastus Trump. As Fast Company's Co.Design blog noted, "it's a Venn Diagram that you can play."

An Incredible Way to Teach Music Using iPads in the Classroom 

This is not an "app" per se, but Neil Johnston of Store Van Music used a combination of tablets and traditional instruments to generate an upbeat, commercial anthem from a room full of students. This article from Edudemic features a catchy video of the kids in action. The resulting song is now even available for purchase.

Source: Interval Apps

Thicket  

Thicket triggers sounds and images by swiping fingers across the screen. It is equal parts toy and performance tool, with stunning modes such as "Cut Whispers." You can check out a demonstration by watching the preview video.

Finally, this Leo Burnett television ad, called "Love Unlimited," does a beautiful job of showing the potential of interactive apps in a human ensemble. We're not promoting (and have no affiliation with) Sprint as a cellular network. The visual choir of devices, though, is inescapably uplifting.



Check out our other posts about teaching with visual music.

Source: Abstract Bird

One of our school's traditions invites each senior class to offer a song during its graduation ceremony to bring voices and camaraderie together for a final time. Watching the nostalgic singers recently stand together in melody reminded us that the visual experience of song can add a rich element to musical interactions.

Users' interfaces with music have changed radically in the past five years. Hand-held devices, apps, and software are pushing the evolution of composing and listening. Music education in K-12 schools, however, has remained remarkably the same for generations. Some progressive teachers do encourage students to experiment with Garage Band or MIDI-connected keyboards and synth pads. But most children still stand near a piano and repeat familiar tunes in chorus.

A host of terrific resources exists to teach with visual music. This seemingly oxymoronic experience can invigorate those children who often shrug during music class but who spend every waking minute tethered to their iPods with ear buds blaring. Below is the first in a series of posts about tools for visualizing sound. The blogs below feature interactions that would be inspiring in teaching music, creating projects, enhancing lessons, or augmenting classroom routines. A good background on potential lessons and graphics comes from a slideshow called "Using Visualizations For Music Discovery."

Visual Music Blogs

 

Source: Ethan Hein

Ethan Hein's Blog - Visualizing Music

Ethan Hein's blog is the first and best place to start for a comprehensive introduction to sound optics, music politics, and tune imagery. As a writer, teacher, and producer, Hein presents a tour de force in visual music theory. His syllabus offers novel ideas for music notation, time frequency games, pitch space pictures, waveform graphics, chord progression maps, song structure visualizations, and other aural conceptions. As a disclaimer, we do know Hein from his days playing mandolin in Garman House, but that doesn't lessen the educational lessons of his blog.

Source: Visualizing Music

Visualizing Music - Finding Music With Pictures

This Visualizing Music Wordpress blog appears not to be recently updated, but it still establishes a strong resource of diverse posts about graphic representations of songs and symphonies. In particular, it shares eye-catching maps of pop artists and mp3 sharing sites.

VC Blog - Music Visualization: Beautiful Tools to 'See' Sound

The Visual Complexity site always highlights stunning graphics and data imagery. In this guest post on the VC blog, Portuguese applications developer Ricardo Nuno Silva showcases the many challenges and successes in rendering music into a visible show. Silva lays out an important litany of visualization types for teachers and students alike.

Live Granades - Visualizing Music

On this family blog, physicist Stephen Granade attempts to represent larger, deeper elements of sound through diagram displays. The videos show live examples of musicians at work.

Source: Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings - Synesthesia Spotlight: 3 Visualizations Of Music

In this post on Brain Pickings, one of our favorite sites, prolific curator Maria Popova shares three different mental amalgams of hue and sound. Her choices center on animations and "sonic color." By the way, if you're not following @brainpicker on Twitter, you really should.

Boring Like A Drill - Visualizing Music

This engaging write-up about exhibiting a score and adding graphic interactions to concerts comes from Cooky La Moo, the work repository of artist and musician Ben.Harper (there are lots of "Ben Harpers" out there).

Stay tuned for more posts in our series about teaching with visual music.