Summer Break: Music Apps, Multimedia, Kinect, My New iPad2, Tech-reading, Google+, Dancing...

I'm on summer break, which for me, means that I spend an increased amount playing/creating music and doing all of the other fun stuff I don't have much time for during the school year. I'm still exploring what I can do with my new iPad2 - there are so many music apps!  My favorite at this moment is Garage Band. It keeps me engaged for hours, and I can take it with me anywhere I go.  I'm also exploring iPad apps for education and students with special needs, since many of the young people I work with have autism spectrum disorders.  They all really love music.


Today, I came across turntable.fm, a "social-djing" website, from a link shared by Dimitri Diakopoulos.  I think it would be fun to play with.

Turntable.FM, The Fastest-Growing Music Service You're Not Using
William Fenton, PC Magazine, 6/23/11
Social DJing with Turntable.FM
Andrew Mager, 5/28/11

I'm still plowing through technology journals and zines from previous months - I had to skip over my stack to read the cover article of the most recent Communications of the ACM:

Algorithmic Composition: Computational Thinking in Music

Michael Edwards, University of Edinburgh, 2011

I LOVE the design of this cover. It would make for a nice interactive interface for an iPad music app. Or a larger touch-screen display. Or even a SMARTBoard! (BTW, My first computer-related course was Computer Music Technology, in 2003. My undergraduate honors research (psychology), years ago, focused on constructive cognition and music recognition/memory. This topic is dear to my heart.)

I've spent some quality time with my first grand-baby this summer.  Although his "screen time" is limited, given his age of 7 1/2 months, he enjoys playing with music on my iPad.  He likes the drums found in the iPad GarageBand application.  Here he is playing with NodeBeat, an app created by Seth Sandler and Justin Windle:

Most of his time is spent off-screen:





Over the last few months, there has been a surge of interactive touch-enabled apps for education, including some for young people with special needs.  This will be the topic of a few of my future posts.

Plug for Computer Science in Education Week: Informative series of short video clips, resources, and links to promote understanding of the importance of computer science and related fields

This week is Computer Education in Education Week, part of an effort of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association) to promote awareness of the importance of computer science education in K-12 education. CSTA developed a series of short videos to share with students as part of this effort. The videos highlight the multitude of ways that computer scientists impact our world. In my opinion, the videos would be appropriate for sharing with parents, teachers, school counselors, school administrators, and school board members.

Computer Science and Entertainment


Computer Science and the Environment


Computer Science and Communications


Computer Science and Medicine


Computer Science and Empowerment


To dig deeper into this topic, read Running On Empty: The Failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age (pdf)

RELATED
CSEd: Computer Science in Education Week
Computing in the Core
Computer Science in Education Facebook Page
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
ACM/CSTA's Recommendations
A Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science (PDF)
Google: Exploring Computational Thinking
ACM Computing Careers Website

Cross-posted on the Tech Psych blog.