My String Orchestra class didn't go exactly as planned this week, and it's all OneNote's fault. On Tuesday we were supposed to continue in our method book, working on playing in the key of F Major. We were going to get to the next page and play one of my favorite songs, Waltzing Matilda! Alas, it did not happen thanks to that cape-wearing purple program called OneNote, and her little sidekick Office Lens.

It started when a couple of my violins came into class, talking about their new roles in the school play. They play the "music kids" and have to perform a song on stage during the performance. They handed me a copy of the song, and a conversation started. "The song is way too easy" was heard, as well as "what are those letters on top of the notes?" 

Boom! That was it. That was all I needed. "Lesson's over kids, it's time for a teachable moment!"   <-- I didn't actually say that ;-)

My 8th graders received a heavy dose of music theory instruction last year from me, and what a better way to start off this year's new theory season than with:

1) A review of last year's theory instruction.
2) Opportunities for critical thinking and application.
3) The creation of a new assignment/project for my students.

It took me less than 60 seconds to set it up. I pulled out my Lumia phone and snapped a picture of the song my violin student had in her hand using the Office Lens app. Two things then automatically happened behind the scenes. Office Lens saved that picture straight to my OneNote notebook on my Surface Pro 3, and it saved the picture as a PDF file into a designated folder in my OneDrive. Within 60 seconds of snapping the picture, I have the song plus some music staff paper up on my whiteboard-wall using OneNote. Then the magic started. 

I tackled the letters first, explaining how they represented Major and minor chords that went with the melody. I could tell some of my 8th graders were a little rusty, so we reviewed intervals and triads, which was fine since it helped with explaining the A7 chord. After that we tore up the song, analyzing every bit that the class time allowed. By the end of class, my OneNote page looked like this:

By the end of class, my two violin actors & the rest of the class received a new challenge from me. "If the original melody is to easy and boring for you to play, then write a harmony line to accompany it! Every bit of information needed to write one is already listed on the page." I offered extra credit for trying, and the coveted "Student of the Month" award for the best arrangement. My challenge was accepted :-)

The teachable moment was great. My 8th graders applied knowledge they had previously learned, I was able to introduce some new concepts, and my 7th graders were involved. This couldn't have happened without the help of my daily tech tools:

Surface Pro 3 - I love this machine! I project my screen onto my classroom wall by wirelessly connecting my Surface to the projector with its built-in Miracast functionality. This enables all my students to see my "whiteboard" aka computer screen. It also allows me to freely walk around my room with my Surface, enabling me to use my proximity for classroom management purposes, engagement with particular students, and to use my classroom piano for reference, all without losing immediate access to my whiteboard. Using the pen and OneNote as my classroom whiteboard, I have unlimited whiteboard space and can annotate on PDF documents and pictures. The best part is when I hand my Surface and its pen to students and give them tasks to complete. The "Wow!" factor sets in and my students are completely engaged. 

OneNote - ….is awesome because of how adaptable it is to various educational situations and settings.    In my classroom, it's my whiteboard, my overhead projector, my document camera, and my lesson planner, all nicely packed into one sleek program. I'm not limited by space constraints, I don’t need messy markers that always get lost, and I don't need to worry about poorly lit documents. OneNote has become the visual canvas of my classroom instruction. 

Office Lens - OneNote's little sidekick is a must for OneNote users. It's ability to capture images and save immediately into OneNote is simple, easy, and quick. For example, I use it to capture and display student's classwork for reference, analysis, and immediate formative assessment. The process is fast and seamless, and is great for those "teachable moments." Office Lens' continued development has introduced some great features lately. Not only can I quickly save an image of something to OneNote, but Office Lens will also translate the image and save as a Word doc, PowerPoint slide, or PDF file. This is great if I want to save, edit and use a document I receive at a meeting or conference. 

This trio of software and hardware has changed my daily pedagogical routines. I'm able to present more material to my students quickly in an effortless manner. As a teacher, I experience the "teachable moments" every day I go to work. Now, using OneNote, Office Lens, and my Surface Pro 3, I can easily turn a teachable moment into a visual interactive lesson for my students. 

I've been using Sway more frequently as a go-to tool in my classroom. As my multimedia students create digital artifacts, aka "their assignments," I'm taking advantage of the opportunities to incorporate some school-wide goals.

Backstory: Some of the teachers at my school (me included) are currently involved in a research study. A byproduct of the study involves our school focusing on our students' use of academic vocabulary (hello CCSS!), in particular 10 words that the teacher/participants chose last spring. 

Me being the music teacher that I am, my pedagogy and lesson planning mindset isn't exactly focused on getting my students to write in the English language. However, because of my school's academic vocabulary focus, I've been on a quest this year to step outside my comfort zone, brainstorm, and create some authentic and meaningful writing activities for my students. 

Back to the multimedia kids. I've been doing my best to teach them (this is my second year), and they've been creating stuff for me using the programs we have access to in our computer lab. Lately, after assignments have been turned in,  the next task I ask of them is to critique each others work. This is for various reasons.

• Our school-wide 10 academic vocabulary words include Analyze, Evaluate, and Critique.
  
• They're writing(!) using tier 2 and tier 3 academic vocabulary.
  
• They're typing! <--- 21st century digital skillz :-)
  
• Blooming like crazy! "Analyze each others work applying the design concepts I've taught you. Tell me how they successfully applied the concepts, and what they can do to improve their final product." 
  

I'm keeping my multimedia class paper-free. We're saving trees, and also the printers in my classroom NEVER EVER WORK. So, after my students have turned in their assignments, I need a method to share their work with each other.  A tool that will let me easily put their work on display, and is easily accessible for them to get to. 

Enter Sway. 

Sway has been exactly what I need time and time again. It's still a beta, but it works, and its been working great so far. Using Sway I'm able to consolidate, organize, and present various mediums of media using the web as my canvas. A canvas that I can put out on the internet for anyone to see and interact with. It has all the typical features of uploading graphics, inputting text, and embedding YouTube videos, but lately they've been adding some seriously cool stuff. Take a look.

My students recently had to create a picture that expressed this year's Education Celebration theme, "College and Career Ready, Set, Go." After they submitted their work, I was able to quickly create this Sway and share it with them, so they could complete their critiques. Cake and Pie. 

A couple things you'll notice about the Sway above this text. First, it's embedded into my blog post because Sway gives me the iframe to do so. You can even get it yourself if you hover your mouse over to the top right corner. Second, I embedded an active excel chart that displays the results of my students' voting. Think about that for a second....

My students vote for their favorite on the linked critique form. I created the form using the online Excel app in the Office Online suite. Using the same Excel file on my computer (thank you OneDrive!), I was able to  create some formulas to tally the results and show them visually with a quick chart. Here's the real treat, Sway & OneDrive not only allows me to embed the excel file, but I get to chose what part(s) of the excel file. For instance, my neat little voting results chart :-)

That is some serious awesomeness. All of this I was able to do with my Surface Pro 3 on loan from the Microsoft Store (Thank you MS!). This machine is an absolute dream. I'm using an i5 with 8 gigs of RAM, and it handles everything I throw at it. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, ZebraZapps.....running at the same time! 

I think I'm only scratching the #surface with the Sway/OneDrive collaboration too. Recently I gave Sway a real stress test, and although it took me some time, I was able to discover some very cool features, which I will talk about next time......