Technology+Lesson+Plan

Technology Lesson Plan Idea

With this idea, it is assumed you have access to computers with Garage Band and Sibelius installed on them.

Every year, the practical arts team in our school (art, music, tech., computer apps) comes up with a theme. This year’s theme was “around the world”. We did a project in which all the kids of the 6th grade were grouped into countries. There were 8 members per group. The groups divided themselves into which room they would be working in….2 in art, 2 in technology, 2 in music, and 2 in computers. Their task was to create a “worlds fair” showcasing their individual country. In art, they created a banner and display about their country…in technology, they developed and built a game to go with their country…in computers, they did a movie presentation about their country…and in music, they researched folk songs from their country.

So, in music, the kids found folk songs from their country along with the notes. They learned to input the songs into Sibelius, and from there added simple harmonies to make it sound a little better. From there, we exported their song to Garage Band where the students could do more with manipulating the original folk song. They came up with varying accompaniments and also used traditional drum kits from their country to record their own drum beats to their song. The end result was a number of different variations on their original song. These songs were also used for the soundtrack for the video made in computer class.

The end result for all of the classes was a large group “world’s fair” held in the gym in which all the students could visit each others “exhibitions”.

From Jason Stier