Creative Software for the New School Term
- Introducing Notate & Dragon Pathways
 
Teaching music can often feel like a daunting task, especially for the non-specialist music teacher. Clear direction is necessary. ICT is one way of enhancing the way students are taught music; they can be encouraged to learn theory while using their own imagination.
Always keen to satisfy teachers’ needs, Logotron has produced Notate, a ‘music composition’ application offering a means of exploring and composing music using ICT.
Notate provides a simple drag and drop user interface to enable exploration of traditional music notation and the investigation of musical patterns and structures. It is particularly useful for encouraging pupils to vary their composition, be more creative and develop a better understanding of notation.
Notate is designed to support both musical beginners and musically able pupils equally well. It can be used in many ways, but the key features are: a wide range of note lengths & pitches; time & key signatures; and treble, bass and single line percussion clefs allowing for easy notation. Extensive editing tools such as save options; undo & redo; move & copy; as well as repeat facilities including endless loop, offer pupils the opportunity to experiment freely. A sound mixer allows control over the volume & balance and speed & tempo of a track, and users also have the ability to record in real time or step time from an on-screen or external music keyboard.
The beauty of Notate is it can be used effectively to support pupils working individually or in pairs, but is also appropriate for whole class demonstration. With a wide range of display sizes and features, it is ideal for individual use on a PC or collaborative use on an Interactive Whiteboard. Working in a group has the advantage that pupils can discuss ideas, whereas working individually allows pupils to work at their own pace. This enables them to develop individual compositions, without feeling they have to perform in front of the whole class, thus providing an excellent means of boosting individuals’ confidence.
To help teachers plan their lessons a wide range of example music files are provided that suggest composition ideas and offer material for use in other compositions suchas rhythm patterns. There are also blank templates making it easier to get started with typical combinations of instruments.
Extensive FREE curriculum related resources ensure that teachers are quickly able to familiarise themselves with the software, so pupils can begin using it in the classroom and get the most out of the software.
Notate is accompanied by a Program Guide that offers advice on how the software can be implemented to help make lessons engaging and successful across the curriculum.
Additionally resources are available from the companion website www.logo.com/notate including: a downloadable booklet, Making Music - First Steps; Hints and Tips for getting the most from the software; a Music Glossary and much more. These resources provide teachers with lots of classroom ideas with examples, and details of useful links that can be used to support the Music Curriculum.
Building on the established success of Magic Forest at KS1, Dragon Pathways extends the educational possibilities of this new genre of animated modelling environment to KS2 and above.
Dragon Pathways comes with a variety of engaging games and activities to explore, understand and modify in order to develop learners’ problem solving skills.
Key features include: an animated user interface with real ‘wizards’, a simple pictorial icon language, with integrated speech, a multi-page screen organiser to quickly re-sequence and copy screens inside an activity, comprehensive teacher configuration utilities, true multi- screen activities that move characters from one screen to another and much more.
A configurable interface enables Dragon Pathways to be used on an Interactive Whiteboard. This provides a particularly valuable way to focus pupils’ attention and keep them on task. The large space offered by the whiteboard, opens a channel to greater pupil interaction in both teacher-directed and group-based activities and everyone can feel involved. Plus, with a rich set of animated characters to enhance engagement, and beautifully drawn backgrounds as starting points, the imagination of all learners is sure to be stimulated.
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