Adults need to encourage, support, and play along with the kids.Īnd after your kids have been focused on learning for a little while, don’t forget to give them time and space to play by themselves, without rules. But parents also need to remember that no app can do the job of teaching on its own. Parents should totally encourage their kids to interact with these apps, both the good ones and the mediocre ones. Granted the majority of these games and apps are unimpressive, but so are the majority of books. There has never been another time in history when so many inexpensive tools for learning were so readily available. In both the Google Play Store and the iOS Appstore there are thousands of digital tools for learning. They can’t integrate new content into their lived experience unless we give them the space to play. No matter how well structured, spectacular, or exciting the instruction is, kids still need free, unstructured time to experiment with new skills and ideas. Most importantly, watching my eight-year-old reminded me of the importance of “sand box” time. Our experience with Piano Maestro also reminded me of some lessons that should be applied, in a general way, to the world of education. Some parts of learning just aren’t fun but they can be more playful. Games and apps can make that process a little easier and more efficient, but they probably won’t be able to make it more fun. Real mastery might be all about crossing the threshold of proficiency in the most boring parts of a given skillset. In fact, all subject matters have boring parts. But I recognize how much more fun the instrument became once I gained the ability to read music. The truth is that reading music is the most boring part of playing an instrument. So I give him the freedom to do whatever he wants at the piano bench, but I remind him to practice the songs assigned by his instructor, or to practice note reading with Piano Maestro if he hasn’t done anything structured for a while. I suspect this is the perfect ratio of structure/play for an eight-year-old trying to learn an instrument. The rest of the time he’s learning “music sense” by fooling around with the instrument. But only five to ten minutes of that time is focused on formally learning specific skills. With or without an app, he practices about thirty minutes a day. New melodies, new harmonies, new rhythms. But the majority of the time he spends in front of the keyboard involves experimenting with new combinations of sound. My son has been enthusiastic about playing the piano since his very first lesson. Kids also need time for unstructured experimentation. In addition, remember that adult support is not the only thing needed to supplement digital learning. An app can be a really effective teaching tool, but it can’t work on its own.
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You can’t just expect that your kid can download skills through a touch screen. But remember that apps will never automate the teaching and learning processes. If you want to teach your children basic piano skills, Piano Maestro will work. I realized that reading music is a perfect thing to teach through digital play and this app does it well. Our experience with JoyTunes’ Piano Maestro made a few things obvious.
He doesn’t jump at the opportunity to use it, nor does he resist when I suggest he uses it. It is not his favorite app, nor does he dislike it. A week later, he’s still using it, but only when I push him to do it. Later that day, I encouraged him to use JoyTunes some more and he did. On day three, he sat down in front of the piano, but didn’t turn on the iPad. The player’s job is to read music, in time, and play the melody’s correct notes in response to the app’s prompts. The staff and the notes move as the app plays background music. Using the iPad’s microphone to listen, JoyTunes asks players to perform what’s written on the music staff. Then the app introduces one new sheet-reading skill at a time. First, you prop up the iPad somewhere near a piano or keyboard. It works kind of like the video game RockBand, but with real instruments and real note reading.
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JoyTunes’ Piano Maestro is an iOS app that teaches kids how to play piano and read sheet music.
I recently tested an iPad app designed to teach music and I was reminded of a few key things we should all keep in mind about learning through digital play. So there’s a race on to build the best apps and games to teach each and every subject. It seems pretty clear that learning through digital play can be extremely effective. These days, developers are trying to create video games to teach just about everything.
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