Karaoke in the Classroom?

My partner Mary Frazier and I are always looking for innovative ways to engage students and teachers in learning. When we were planning for a teacher workshop a few days ago, Mary noticed her stack of karaoke CDs and had an aha moment! We could have teachers perform karaoke as part of a Keynote (or PowerPoint) slideshow. Mary created a fabulous version of DoWahDiddy for use in the iPod workshop. Of course, she told me that I would be the one to lead the karaoke activity, which means that she was delegating the job of looking silly to me! Oh, well. It was fun and we knew we wanted to try it again in other situations and for other purposes.

Last week, then, when I was preparing to present Google Docs to the Buhler High School staff on our PD day, I knew that I could liven things up by creating a song for us to share. I decided that Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" could be adapted easily into "I Love Google Docs," and I enlisted a few wild and crazy BHS gals to help me lead the singing. They got the staff going, too, clapping and sharing a few laughs.

Couldn't we do this easily in the classroom? Students could create new lyrics for any content, from explaining a scientific principle to encapsulating the storyline or characterizations of a story/novel. Why not have them develop songs for learning and remembering math concepts? Or they could present information about historical figures in social science classes. Foreign language students could translate the original lyrics or abandon those completely and create any second-language content they choose.

I think this would be an awesome (and EASY!) way to engage students in learning, and we know that music is a powerful learning and memory tool. What ideas can you add to my list of possibilities? Please share by posting comments on the blog page Remember, Aerosmith tells us to "Dream On," John Lennon urges us to "Imagine," and Extreme reminds us that it's ALL "More Than Words." I have lots of songs to share! Have fun with karaoke in your classroom...

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