As many technologically advancing educators know, Promethean boards come in very handy when designing engaging lessons for the class. The boards are globally interactive. Also, they can be a great assessment tool. Information is readily available before students eyes.
So, since I'm a music educator, I've been looking at ways to specifically integrate technology into my music curriculum. One of the newest ideas I had just today, was to use a thinking map for learning how rhythms relate to each other mathematically. The tree map comes from the thinking in maps series from Promethean Planet.
The things that are great about the maps, is that they are all available as templates in Promethean Planet to be used with the active board, they allow students to be visually engaged and interactive, and they encourage higher level thinking. There are several kinds of maps, but the tree map struck me as the one most conducive to a music lesson.
The tree map allows students to organize information by starting with a micro figure and adding components until the macro figure is realized, or vice versa. Its a way of seeing both the "trees" and the "forest" in one planar view. I thought this would make a perfect oportunity to think about rhythm critically. Since rhythms are all based on either triple or duple, it would be easy to make those two entities a category on the map and then continually divide the rhythms by two's or by three's all the way down the map. Then, the students will see how the notes may speed up while the tempo stays the same. I think it could potentially be a "oh, I get it!" moment for many students. I can't wait to try it out this year!
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