Thinairmusic Summer Workshop 2015

ThinAirMusic: tackling literacy with storytelling and technology

A 3-Day “Score a Story on iPad” Workshop

Join us in Bath, Maine for the first ever ThinAirMusic Workshop for Teachers. Group Two is open enrollment. Group One is reserved for RSU1 teachers, but both groups will work together on Friday, August 7.

This session will provide you with new skills to help your students learn through creative exploration and expression. Spend a week with Master Storyteller, Author and Musician Odds Bodkin as he demonstrates the power of recording audio to engage students and deepen their learning experience.

ThinAirMusic will enable you to take a unit or element of literacy and develop a published audio project using GarageBand iOS. You might want students to demonstrate their reading fluency, understanding of mood or theme, or possibly
take you on a journey through the circulatory system. This session can help you bring these possibilities to your classroom.

Participants in the ThinAirMusic residency will work with Odds Bodkin on Workshop Days to explore the use of music and sound effects to score stories or readings (pre-recorded and ready to work with) using GarageBand iOS. Musical knowledge or talent is not necessary. Participants learn to use “smart instruments” and the sound sampler to gather real-world sound effects and create individualized musical moods and soundscapes. The end result: an original soundtrack that deepens and interprets
the story.

The Group Two program can accommodate approximately 15 participants.

FORMAT

Group Two: (15 or fewer)
- Tuesday and Thursday from 8-3
- Session will include instruction with Odds, group time to explore the topics presented, and to discuss how these new skills may be used in their
classrooms, as well as an hour break for lunch.

Groups One & Two
- Friday from 8-3
- Session will include a final review of projects, mixing, and then sharing out with one another.
- Each participant may present a segment of their finished score and story.
- Finish with an optional discussion in which participants have an opportunity to reflect on the week, and how to integrate the project into their own upcoming lessons.

MORE DETAILS ON SESSIONS

Skills and materials will be presented in 60 to 90 minute segments each day, with time to explore, practice and refine student work between instructional segments. This pace is intended to introduce a concept and skill, and allow the participants an opportunity to experience it on their own. Participants may attend on alternating days (days that they are not scheduled for instruction with Odds) to continue to work on their projects, and to take local “field trips” to gather sound samples. This could involve a trip to the beach, a
walk about town, a park, etc. These informal sessions will have someone present
to help with GarageBand iOS.

Mary Moran, 5th Grade Teacher at Woolwich Central School, will lead sessions on the alternate days, sharing her experiences using GarageBand iOS in the classroom. Mary’s students participated in the ThinAirMusic pilot in December of 2014, and have gone on to use GarageBand iOS with other literacy projects. Learn more about how her students are using recorded voice and expression to develop fluency, while increasing engagement.

Skills we’ll touch on, but won’t be limited to:

ELA Skills
● Interpreting story actions and characters’ emotions by adding original music and effects to a personal sound production project of the story itself.
Each student works on his or her own score and sound effects.

Technology Skills
● Mastering touchscreen techniques in GarageBand iOS, an app for creating,
recording and sharing sounds of all kinds, including self-made music
● Navigating GarageBand iOS, including a wide array of instruments––each with numerous settings––and creating and editing tracks
● Digitally publishing final projects

Math Skills
● Using GarageBand iOS timing bar and numerically mapping story elements––actions,character events and emotions––to create a production map to guide student music and sounds creation

Artistic Skills and Expression
● Creating music in GarageBand iOS using “touch instruments” and “smart instruments” and/or analog performance interfaces
● Layering sounds and effects
● Adding and removing creative materials in editing
● Composing music for emotions and story actions
● Exploring metaphoric thinking
● Hand-making Foley effects by sampling the human voice and working with materials found at school or home (using pre-created sounds and loops is discouraged)
● Learning the thrill of a self-driven creative process

“Is there a pre-teen or adolescent girl or boy who doesn’t want to create a song on YouTube that everybody loves? New creative horizons opened for musicians when the piano was first invented, or violins and cellos first played in the orchestra. Now, with GarageBand iOS, yet another new instrument exists, only this instrument uses touchscreens, and can be learned and enjoyed not only by musicians, but by anyone with an iPad.”

--Odds Bodkin
Creator, ThinAirMusic