I’m back!

Hello Friends! It has been several years since I’ve kept up with this blog, and after many requests from families to keep up with the musical scene at CFS and beyond, I’m reviving it. Here you can still find my beginner ukulele tutorials (wow, do I look young!) and information about the Recorder Interactive beginning recorder method, as well as all my older posts. Soon I’ll be posting activities and lyrics from 2023-24 music class, local and virtual music resources, and odds and ends from my life as a music director and performer. I’m also excited to share ideas and activities inspired by my Mindful Schools and Breathe for Change mindfulness and yoga teacher training, especially ways to integrate mindfulness into music class and music-making in general.

If you’re looking for my writing blog, check out my personal website: http://josiskpurvis.com. 

Keep on singing! 🎵❤️

Life has not been boring: my 13-year old pets a shark in August 2023!

Oops, I Did It Again...

Disappeared from my blog, that is! I have no excuse for not finishing out last school year, but I do have a pretty good excuse for 2012-13:

"Davey Jazz"

That's right, little musician number three! David Jasper was born on April 4, but due to preterm labor (again!) I had to leave school in late January. I'm on maternity leave (mostly) for the rest of the school year.

The Fall was pretty exciting, and I'll be writing several blog entries to catch up before I start updating my iPad app lists. Here is a visual sneak preview!

NCMEA Annual Conference Links and Notes

This weekend, I attended the North Carolina Music Educators Association annual conference in Winston-Salem. In addition to attending some inspirational workshops, exploring the exhibits (and making quite a few purchases for my program), and hearing various all-state ensembles and choirs, I presented three music technology clinics as a part of NC TI:ME. Below are some notes and links from the presentations.

iPads in General Music

Here is a link to the Prezi I created for this workshop. In it, you'll find the names and prices of all the apps we discussed, and some ideas for integrating iPads into your curriculum.

Please also visit my iPad App Mega-Lists to read more about apps and see some screenshots.

Using iPads to teach a composition-based curriculum

Many of the ideas in my Prezi are for composition-based projects. I frequently write about my students' composition projects on my blog.

Using What You Have: Technology for the Imperfect Classroom

The best resources for the online music educator: the Music Educators' Personal Learning Network, and the National Association for Music Education

Two of my favorite tools for the classroom, planning, and personal use: Curio (Mac only), and Evernote (works on any platform including mobile)

For flexible, paperless lesson planning on the Mac, PC, or iPad, I use Jeff Hellman's Planbook

To keep a database of my students and their work, I use Bento

The eBeam Edge, a less expensive interactive whiteboard option

For the handy type, create your own interactive whiteboard with a Wiimote!

Portable, affordable, and durable MIDI entry keyboard: the Akai LPK 25

My favorite USB microphone for podcasting or performance: the Blue Snowball

RC Trackpad--turn your iOS device into a magic trackpad for your computer

Sibelius Groovy Music suite

Noteflight--free, web-based music notation software.

Indaba Music--free, web-based DAW, for audio recording and/or MIDI, with social networking features

Soundcloud--share audio tracks in the cloud

The Petrucci Music Library--a huge collection of public domain scores and recordings

ArtsEdge--activities and lesson plans

Ricci Adams Music Theory Net

Morton Subotnick's Creating Music site

Explore the orchestra at Play Music

I'll be putting my recorder and ukulele Keynotes online soon. In the meantime, you can check out my beginner's ukulele tutorials on YouTube.

And, finally, I must put a link to my incredible school, a magical place that encourages teachers and students to explore their passions!

iPad apps Mega-Update part 7: Non-music creative apps, social media, and readers

Edited 6/15/13: I see these posts are still getting a lot of traffic, two years later! Much of this info is outdated. However, I am working on updating my iPad app pages for 2013! I'll post to my blog as updates are completed, or you can check the page directly.

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Creative apps:

• Drawing Pad: There are many excellent drawing and painting apps available for the iPad. I chose Drawing Pad for this list because it is extremely easy to use, even for the youngest students. It offers a wide array of drawing tools, virtual stickers, and easy file saving and sharing.

Sometimes my daughter writes backwards...

• iMovie: It is so much fun to edit movies on the iPad! iMovie for the iPad is similar in functionality to the desktop software. A must-have if you or your students make movies.

 

• Toontastic: This is another recent purchase. I played with it at my sister's house and I had to have it! Toontastic allows you to easily create original stories with animated characters. You can choose music, narrate the story, and customize the animations. Designed in partnership with Stanford's Graduate School of Education, Toontastic teaches principles of storytelling and the relationship between words, images, and music in an incredibly fun way. You can share your stories and watch stories from around the world via the integrated "ToonTube."

The Story Arc helps you organize your story, and learn the principles of storytelling.

The introduction to my masterpiece, "Space Shark."

 

 

Social Media and Reader apps:

• Blogsy: Though I still do most of my blogging on my laptop, this is my favorite on-the-go blogging app.

It's this page, on Blogsy!

• Flipboard: Flipboard is a great showcase app for the iPad. It turns your Google Reader feed, Twitter, or Facebook feed, or numerous curated Flipboard feeds into a gorgeous virtual magazine. You can flip through stories, tap on them to read the full text, follow links in an integrated browser, and share stories in a variety of ways.

My Twitter feed.

• Read it Later/Instapaper: These apps both allow you to save articles or other media for later, offline reading. They integrate with many popular apps and browsers.

Read It Later.

• Reeder: I organize the blogs and news feeds I read through Google Reader. Reeder is an elegant, no-frills app for browsing and reading your Google Reader feeds. It makes good use of multitouch gestures, and has many options for saving or sharing articles.

Minimalist, and highly functional.

• Tweet Library: Tweet Library is a unique app for Twitter users who would like to permanently save their Tweets. If you use Twitter a lot, especially if you use it to record your daily life or for professional development, Tweet Library is worth its rather hefty price for an iOS app.

Saving the tweets for the great-grandkids.

• Twitter: Twitter's own free app is my favorite app for browsing and posting tweets. Some find the interface too busy, but I love it.

I love the way you can layer columns, and pull them in or out of the screen. Very intuitive.

Posted with Blogsy

Twitter Twitter Tweet Tweet

I'm becoming more and more a fan of microblogging during my maternity leave. I've just started a new Twitter account for little updates about music, teaching, the brain, and cool links. You can follow at http://www.twitter.com/dr_motley_muse. Warning: Twitter seems bizarre until you try it... then it can be horribly addictive!

Meanwhile, it's been wonderful being back at CFS to teach First-Year Music Rotation in the Middle School. While you're exploring Twitter, be sure to follow the new CFS feed: http://www.twitter.com/CarolinaFriends.

Happy Spring!