The Magic of the Music — from Mobile Learning Services; original posting from Katherine Burdick’s Mobile iEducator blog

Magic of the Music

Features:

  • Audio and video features bring a deeper level of understanding to the text.
  • Fun, interactive geography lesson encourages readers to use maps and scale of miles to calculate distance.
  • Motivating math activities give the opportunity for participation by individuals or pairs.
  • User is able to personalize the story by uploading personal photos and drawings.
  • Recording feature lets readers record themselves singing or retelling a favorite tale.
  • Links to the company website allow parents or teachers to download additional support materials to keep the learning growing outside the book.
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A new type of guitar -- very interesting
— from “Misa digital guitar set for CES launch as the Kitara” at gizmag.com by Paul Ridden

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Music is math [Fubiz]

Music is Math — from Fubiz

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.music0

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Alibris launches marketplace for books, movies and music — from ProgrammableWeb.com by Romin Irani

Alibris, an online marketplace that brings together Indepenent sellers of popular, collectible and bargain books, music and movies has launched a Developer Network. The company is inviting developers to use its API to not only build applications but earn commissions via its affiliate program. The Alibris API exposes most of its data like current books, music and movies on sale, item information, seller information and item/seller reviews.

I have long wanted…er… better make that dreamed of having our own kids enjoy the same energy that I experience when I create something on a computer. Computers can be used as tools for exercising and developing our creativity.

So when our son, A.J., put a song together on Garageband (see link below), I was thrilled! He played the song for me and, to me, it sounded great.

But something inside him wanted to have this music published somewhere — for others to hear it as well. So I told him I would post it on my blog and that — via the Internet — people all of the world could hear this song. Boy was he ever excited! His eyes lit up and I could see the gears turning in his head, wanting to go back and create another song.   🙂

“I could be famous he said!” And I told him, “Yes, AJ, you could be famous.” (That’s not the point, but it’s still motivating to him.)

Even though both he and I have stage fright when it comes to sharing our musical interests and (not even half-baked) abilities, he was still excited to think that this song might be heard by others.

I’m posting it for him, but I’m also posting it to put an “Amen!” to the many folks who have already written that publishing students’ work for others to see/hear is an incredibly motivating event.


So without further adieu, here is the song AJ created on a Mac laptop while on the road, simply entitled, “Car Trip.”


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Nice work AJ!  🙂

Cutting the Pay TV Cord, Chapter 5: Unlimited Internet TVfrom Phil Leigh

philblueheadshot

In short, often there is no reason why modern flat panel TV screens cannot function as giant monitors for up-do-date computers.

Thus a growing number of us are attaching computers to our TVs.  The trend is especially prevalent for WiFi enabled computers because they can connect over a home network and thence to the Internet. In such configurations computers – commonly dedicated laptops – function as Internet gateways for televisions. They transform TVs into dual function devices normally controlled from a comfortable viewing distance with ordinary TV remote units.

Also see:

http://www.jawbone.com/product-jambox-videos

IK Multimedia introduces iKlip: A universal mic stand adapter for iPad

— originally found at Bob Sutor’s blog

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Concept, graphics, idea from Daniel S. Christian:
But free for your taking and implementing!

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What:

  • Choir Practice: A mobile-based method of practicing one’s part

Features

  • The ability for the choir member to go directly to measure ____
  • The ability for the choir member to highlight measures ____ through ____ (like highlighting text in Microsoft Word), then click on the play button to loop through those measures
  • One could speed up a song up or slow it down (without affecting pitch)
  • The application would allow for all of the vocal parts to begin playing upon downloading a pre-packaged song or the application could always start playing with a certain part (i.e. 1st or 2nd soprano, alto, tenor, or bass)
  • The musical notes could be the same color or one could choose to display the notes in different colors
  • Bonus features might include a video of a director directing this song

Why:

  • This type of thing would be a great cross-disciplinary assignment for your institution’s curriculum — Music and Computer Science come to mind for this application
  • Your institution could sell this application on Apple’s App Store to develop a new revenue stream
  • Your choirs could produce the packaged songs / tracks
  • Plus, such an app would help choir members learn their parts — 24x7x365 — in the car, on the road, in the gym, etc.
  • Enhances one’s ability to listen to other parts as well
  • Aids your marketing departments as you point to this as a solid deliverable from your programs
  • Creates “study aids” for your own school’s choirs/students as well as for choirs at smaller churches and institutions (worldwide)
  • Helps those choir members who don’t have access to a piano or don’t know how to play a piano

Have fun whomever takes this idea and runs with it! The choirs of the world will appreciate you — and so will their audiences!   🙂

Along these lines…another win-win here includes:

That students in the future (I hope) will be able to choose from a multitude of potential roles when presented with multi-disciplinary projects/assignments/courses:
  • Vocalists, pianists, and other type of musicians
  • Composers
  • Programmers
  • Graphic artists
  • Videographers / video editors
  • Audio specialists
  • Writers
  • Project Managers
  • Actresses/Actors
  • etc.
As such, students could:
  • Learn to appreciate other disciplines
  • Participate in/contribute to projects that could be published on the web
  • Exercise their creativity
  • Practice being innovative

 

Daniel Christian

iLife '11

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The new MacBook Air

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FaceTime for Mac

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Some of the other items Apple is working on for OS X (“Lion”) — with the idea of bringing these “back to the Mac”:

  • Multi-touch gestures (Note:  This is not on the display/monitor, which is not ergonomically beneficial.)
  • App Store
  • App Home screens
  • Full screen apps
  • Auto save
  • Apps resume when launched
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Musical instruments of the future – Reactable — from David Kusek, VP at Berklee College of Music

There is a lot of innovation happening with electronic music instrument and new interfaces.  Reactable is one of the latest in music technology fusing DJ culture, touch screen topography and electro-pop showmanship. Coming to an iPad near you.  Reactable says their company “is about the promotion of creativity and the mediation of culture through the application of the latest technologies in human computer interaction, music technology, graphics and computer vision.”  Check it out.

Music Instruments of the Future

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Reactable

Using web video to fine-tune student performance — from The Chronicle by Travis Kaya

For three years, faculty and students at Baruch College of the City University of New York have been honing their public-speaking and presentation skills online with the college’s Video Oral Communication Assessment Tool, or VOCAT, which allows instructors to view and give feedback on uploaded student videos.

After finding success with the tool on campus, developers are now actively searching for ways to take VOCAT to the next level, both beyond Baruch and across academic disciplines. They believe video-sharing on VOCAT has potential application in everything from distance learning and foreign-language instruction to performance arts and industrial trades.

“We’re looking ahead to where it might go,” said Mikhail Gershovich, platform designer and director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute at Baruch. “I don’t want this to be just an assessment tool.”

VOCAT allows students to view videos of themselves giving presentations or performances online—all video is taped and uploaded by a college technician—and lets them read and respond to feedback from faculty members. The software also keeps a log of student videos, allowing them to track their progress over the course of a semester…

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