5 Mins with Samir Bhana from School of Music Online

What is School of Music Online (SOMO)?

SOMO is an exciting new approach to musical education delivered into schools through the use of gamification and interactive learning. SOMO is aligned with an authorised examination board in Australia that provides a structured syllabus taught either in the classroom or at home which allows the students to grow their musical talents and for the teacher to easily track student progress with a full suite of analytics.  When we first conducted user acceptance testing with teachers, they demonstrated the use case for the product and we were then able to gage how much this program could help improve their effectiveness in the classroom and reduce paperwork. The development of the dashboard gives teachers an analytics zone that they can use to track student progress, assign homework, facilitate grading and assessment and export to a report card, all completely online.

What does SOMO mean nationally for music education programs and curriculums? 

SOMO is built to align with the national school curriculum so that it can fit in with the teaching program rather than against it. The main objective is to ensure that it is easily adaptable in the school classroom, making life easier for the teacher and the education more fun for the student. Our aim is to prove that music programs can be taught in school in an affordable manner, so it never has to be cut from the budget which we have seen in the past.

What does School of Music Online mean for regional, remote Schools and indigenous & Torres Straight Islander Students? 

The development of SOMO means that regional, remote, Indigenous and Torres straight Islander students will be able to gain a quality music education that would normally not be made available to them since the cost of music tuition can be very expensive, if you are even lucky enough to have a music teacher in that region. Since music has such a deep and profound meaning in their culture and heritage, we want to help any way we can to make it an easier, more accessible learning experience.

Why is gamification becoming such a prolific component to teaching and learning?

Simple. It’s all about engagement. SOMO uses gamification to keep students engaged and motivated to learn, because even in a structured syllabus orientated environment, for the student to have the most fun and get the maximum benefit, engagement is going to be key.

What’s different about SOMO?

If you compare SOMO to other online education solutions, this is a program that works for both students and teachers. Originally when we began developing SOMO, we were creating a new way for students to learn music, but when we identified the many challenges faced by teachers everyday, we discovered that we were actually developing a solution that works for both teaching and learning. Music teachers are now some of our biggest advocates for getting the program into schools.  If you are at a school which does not have a music program or even a music teacher, this can definitely be used as an effective learning tool for students to give them access to the benefits of music– which is a real game changer.

For more info on SOMO, contact Myndlyte  http://myndlyte.com/

Unknown

The following two tabs change content below.
Education Technology Solutions
Education Technology Solutions has been created to inspire and encourage the use of technology in education. Through its content, Education Technology Solutions seeks to showcase cutting edge products and practices with a view to expanding the boundaries and raising the standards of education curricula. It introduces teachers and IT staff to the latest products, services and developments in education technology with a view to providing practical how-to guidance designed to facilitate the integration of those products and services into the school environment in the most productive and beneficial manner possible.

There are no comments

Add yours