Welcome. My name is Andrew Dickie, Education Specialist. I’ve worked in music education for the past 25 years in various roles including class teaching, curriculum design for government, assessment design and verification for qualification authorities and in Music Technology. In this, and successive blogs, I aim to to take you on a journey to fully explore the potential of Skoog in your classroom.

Coming from an education background, I fully understand the ever-increasing pressures on teachers to cover so many new aspects, including technology, in the creative curriculum. So naturally when I discovered Skoog, I could immediately see the potential to take away the heat with its incredibly approachable interface. Skoog allows creativity to flow more naturally from young people.

Confidence needs to be built in young people if they are to feel encouraged to progress – having a Skoog in the classroom allows a measured and scaffolded approach to creativity in music where everyone can succeed and feel a real sense of achievement. It also allows for young people with different skill sets and abilities to work alongside each other, and it’s this level of inclusivity that I want in every classroom.    

Skoog does not demand any real instrumental skill to play and it is because of this, allows virtually anyone to play and make meaningful music instantly. Pre-set scales (which can be linked to music on Spotify) allows you to improvise alongside your favourite tunes – music making is getting its fun back!

The real trick is the versatility and the way in which children react with the instrument. Skoog offers young people an unrivalled palette of sound because of the way the interface connects with everyday programs such as Garageband and Soundtrap. It is the access to this vast array of sounds that children react so positively to and want to create their own work from.

Throughout a series of webinars and blog posts you can join me in exploring the many ways Skoog can be incorporated into the mainstream curriculum both in Primary/Early Years and Secondary Education. Together we will explore how to use Skoog as a performance instrument – to composing ideas.  I will also be sharing how to record all these using virtual recording studios! I know it all sounds really super-techy, but the winner for me is how easy it is to do. Skoogs can also be used as an introduction to instrumental music and complement existing curricular approaches from class singing to creating sound pictures.    

Check out this latest webinar where Ben Schogler and myself share some really nifty uses of Skoog in various settings.

To view the rest of the webinar, you can do so here. Click here.

Stay tuned for more.

Bye for now!