Yesterday was the third day of the 2012/2013 school year at Oakwood Elementary. Meet and greets were well underway in a third grade class when one learner shared she had been playing the piano and was writing songs over the summer. She performed one of her original songs for the class and that fostered a discussion on how she was able to write music. The conversation was approached from many perspectives, one of which was the use of technology to enable amateur musicians to create sophisticated music. I asked the learner for an example of this and T-Pain was brought up and his use of auto tune to alter his singing voice. The class became interested in other artists that used alternate means to create music. I offered Lasse Gjertsen, a Norwegian animator, videographer, and YouTube sensation. His video Hyperactive, is entirely make up of one frame video/sound clips organized into rhythmic beats.

After watching the video, a learner raised their hand and asked, “How did he do that?”

In response I asked, ” How do you think he made this video?”

The class turned-and-talked to a neighbor for about one minute to allow think time and to allow the evaluation of one’s ideas before sharing with everyone.

There were many different ideas about how Lasse was able to create this video. The importance is that I valued everyones ideas and we made an anchor chart on the board (which I should have taken a picture of). There were a few learners who brought up that it was video clips strung together.

I asked “What evidence do we see that makes you think that?”

The class took another minute for turn-and-talk

After another discussion of the details of the video, I asked if they were interested in making a video similar to this one. The learners were quite interested and I offered VidRhythm, an iPad app where you record short clips and the app arranges them into rhythmic beats.

The musicians were very proud of their creation. Next week we will continue exploring the essential question “what makes a musician?”