Piano teacher recommends MetaMoJi Note as an ideal cross platform teaching environment
Susan Paradis is no ordinary piano teacher, she is an expert of effective teaching methods that other teachers follow. She came to the attention of MetaMoJi staff following an unsolicited blog post she placed on her popular teaching blog recommending MetaMoJi Note as her favorite cross-platform teaching environment. Susan has garnered a loyal following due to her informative and detailed teaching posts. She was gracious enough to sit down with MetaMoJi staff for an interview of her experience using MetaMoJi Note for teaching.
See her full blog post at the following link: http://www.susanparadis.com/metamoji-note-an-app-for-writing-on-the-ipad-and-other- tablets
“After I posted my blog article on MetaMoJi Note, one teacher emailed me and just couldn’t figure out what in the world to do. I actually asked for her phone number. I called her on Facetime and showed her exactly what to do. She went ‘Oh Wow! Yes, this is so easy’”
MetaMoJi Note is the only high quality note taker on all platforms
Mrs. Paradis told us about her experience testing multiple note takers before deciding that MetaMoJi Note was the superior choice. “I was asked to do a workshop on using the iPad in piano lessons. So I went through all the apps again because they all are changing and that’s when I said ‘well, this is great, this is exactly what I need, this is better than what I need. This is fantastic!’ I did a tutorial for Kitch on my blog and I have also done a tutorial for Jot. But then teachers were always emailing me “can I use this for my Kindle? Can I use this for my Android?’ So when I saw that MetaMoJi Note was going to be available for all those devices I knew that this is the one I am going to recommend from now on. Everybody can use it and it has everything you need for creating and conducting lessons. I have never been able to find another one that is on all the platforms. It is so great to be able to say that you can use it on everything. You can use this on whatever. You can even use it on my Window’s tablet.”
PDF import and export makes creating and distributing homework assignments a breeze
One of the things Ms. Paradis loved about MetaMoJi Note is the ability to import standard documents in PDF or Office for markup and annotation. This allows her go paperless with all of her student assignments. She explained, “Each state has their own test and for that there has to be a lot of writing. So I wanted to find something that I could do very quickly without having to run off pages and pages of worksheets and put them in binders. Actually, if you look at my blog since about 2006, I have been putting material for other teachers all around the world and I have quite a following. And the only way that I can get my material to them is to make .pdf. I was already making .pdf when the iPad came out. So when the iPad first came out, I saw the potential to use the lessons not only for the novelty of it, you know, to do something different. In my one of one, I sit there with my iPad, I say let’s do this on the iPad, let’s practice treble clef on the iPad, that way I don’t have to print out a piece of paper, it is just there. I open it up in my iPad. That’s why I like to use apps like MetaMoji Note, because it doesn’t take a degree in computer science to figure it out or a whole lot of experience in the business world or that kind of thing. It is really for an ordinary piano teacher.”
The expansive canvas in MetaMoJi Note frees up whitespace with the lasso tool
Mrs. Paradis told us she loves how the canvas of the MetaMoJi Note environment does not restrict her to one simple page like other note takers. She found that any object can be shrunk down to free up more white space, giving her the ability to elaborate on the lesson plan and even increase student engagement and interactivity. She said,” After I posted my blog article on MetaMoJi Note, one teacher emailed me and just couldn’t figure out what in the world to do. I actually asked for her phone number. I called her on Facetime and showed her exactly what to do. She went ‘Oh Wow! Yes, this is so easy.’ So for someone like me that has been using Photoshop for years, a lot of this comes a little easier to me because I know about text boxes and that kind of thing. One thing I showed her was how to download a PDF of one of my staff templates, you know it has 5 lines like you see in a music sheet. Download that, draw on it one of the musical notes to fit in a space, then take the lasso tool and select the note to move around on the page – lasso it and that’s it. Now have your student go up and down and identify out loud the name of each note. And she thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Because there she was drawing as if she was drawing on a piece of paper but then it becomes interactive by going up and down. This was the kind of thing I really wanted.”
Low tech meets high tech to increase student engagement
Mrs. Paradis creates personalized blended lesson plans with her students, using a creative combination of hand-on activities and technology in order to keep students engaged. She combines digital instruction of music theory on computer tablets with hands on exercises, thus giving her students the maximum number of tools to retain the lesson. She said, “Some people would think that printing all the games and things I create is using technology since I would have to go to the web, download and print. To me, this is pretty low tech. I make games and hands-on activities and I call them off-the bench activities. I also do things like drawing or catching a ball and say a letter. I use a variety of exercises. I don’t want them to just use one muscle. Really to a piano teacher, the most important thing that I want to teach is how to play the piano beautifully and artistically and that is pretty low tech.”
“Well, this is great, this is exactly what I need, this is better than what I need. This is fantastic!”
Wrist guard functions and View function in MetaMoJi Note help prevent student mistakes
One of the features Mrs. Paradis likes to point out to other teachers using MetaMoJi Note is the wrist guard functions and the View only functions which prevent accidental writing mistakes. She said, “Whenever I have shown it to teachers, I point out the wrist protection. The second thing, after they learn how to use the pen tool, learn how to erase. I always mention that they can lock it down so that you don’t mark or erase accidentally. The View tool is a screen lock or something. The one on the left, next to the pen tool, that keeps you from writing on it. I mention this to them because sometimes students erase or write when you don’t want them to. I always want them to know how to turn this off and on.”
Piano teacher recommends MetaMoJi Note to other teachers
Mrs. Paradis not only recommends MetaMoJi Note to her social media followers, but she also actively creates templates in MetaMoJi Note which she provides to teachers to download and use. Because she is a writer of several piano books, she also speaks at educational conferences to help other teachers also obtain the same success. She sums up, “I teach teachers, I am talking about going to workshops, sessions. I will be a TMTA this year. I go around teachers associations and give workshops. Mostly on how to do hands on activity for piano lessons, that kind of my thing. I also compose, I do my art. I don’t know, I just like to do it all and I write piano music and I have some books for sale. I have one published solo by Alfred Publishing. I did my first workshop on an iPad this last summer when I shared MetaMoJi Note and since then I have been doing a lot to show how good this can be with your lessons. The other day, one of our board members from my music association stayed afterwards and showed me that he had the app as well. I said, ‘I don’t have any connection with this app company at all but I am going to show it to you because it is the best thing you are going to use if you wanted to use an iPad in your piano teaching lessons. This is the one you should have.’ Everybody always goes ‘Wow! It is so easy!’ Find out more about piano teacher Susan Paradis, please see her blog at http://susanparadis.com
