Lyric videos that have lyrics that show up line-by-line in time to an audio track can be a useful tool in teaching students songs and helping them to learn lyrics by heart. They are not hard to make but they do take a little investment of time. For this reason, they're best suited to songs that you are teaching to many students - perhaps across multiple year levels - or for singalong songs that you are going to use in assemblies, concerts or religious services.

There's more than one way to create lyric videos but today we'll look at a simple method that involves using Powerpoint (on PC) or Keynote (on Mac). The result will be a simple video with a soundtrack and lyrics that appear at the right time throughout the song.

If you're a member of the MMC, look out for an instructional tutorial video that will show you the process step-by-step on both a PC and a Mac.

Today we welcome back Shawna Longo - a music educator from New Jersey - for the third time. Shawna has just finished creating a full online course for Music First and I thought it would be great to have her on to share some tips for tackling course and lesson design when you're starting from scratch.

In the previous episode - number 66 - we had part 1 of my interview with middle school choir director Christopher Russell from Oltman Middle School in Minnesota who describes himself as a traditional-style music teacher who uses technology to support his program.

If you haven't already listened to that episode, I would suggest going back to listen to that one first.

In part 2, Chris and I talk all things ukulele and the way in which he has been creating ukulele play-along videos using a handful of apps on his iPad.

Chris shares lots of great information and tips in this episode so I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed talking to him.

You can find all the links, apps and resources on the shownotes page for this episode at midnightmusic.com.au/67

This episode is part 1 of 2 where I speak with Christopher Russell of Oltman Middle School in Minnesota.

Chris is a great example of a traditional-style music teacher who uses technology to support his program.

Over the years he has utilised technology to increase his productivity and assist the smooth running of his program.

He's an expert at creating music notation files and rehearsal tracks for his students and lately one of the most effective ways he has been using technology is to create ukulele play-along videos using a handful of apps on his iPad.

We mention quite a few links, apps and resources so if you'd like to follow any of those up you can head to the shownotes page for this episode at midnightmusic.com.au/66

This episode is part 2 of my chat with Sydney based music educator Brad Fuller and we continue our discussion about Brad's innovative teaching space and the way he uses technology to deliver his music program.

When students join Brad Fuller's ProjectRnB music program, they are greeted with "Welcome to show business…!"

This episode is part 1 of my chat with Sydney based music educator Brad Fuller.

In 2012, Brad was contracted to redesign the teaching space at Northern Beaches Christian School where he is now the director of music. The redesign of the physical space is innovative and works hand in hand with Brad's unique approach to teaching his year 7-12 students.

Technology plays a very big part by helping Brad and his colleague Peter teach effectively and by helping the students work independently.

Deborah Smith is an Australian music educator who has a very strong background in the Kodaly method and over the years she has made a name for herself as one of Australia's leading ear-training and musicianship experts. Deb self-publishes a series of books and I speak to her about the tools and resources she uses, how she creates video and the influence of technology on her processes.

My guest is Daniel Spreadbury - who was the Senior Product Manager for Sibelius in a previous life - but for the past 6 years he has been working on the conception, design and marketing of the new professional-level scoring application Dorico. Daniel and I discuss what it's like to start a new software application from scratch and what makes Dorico different from the other notation software on the market.

This episode is brought to you by my free hour-long online training 7 Easy Ways To Use Tech In Your Music Classes (all attendees receive a professional development certificate of attendance).

David Bennett of Overnewton Anglican Community College has been working on remixing projects with his music tech students in years 7 through to year 10.

He also likes to keep things fresh by using current music with the students and his projects incorporate music theory skills as well as technology-based skills.

In this episode, we talk about where Dave finds audio stems for remixing projects, the software he uses with different year levels and the process the students use to create their remixes.

Recently I gave a keynote speech for a music education conference with the theme Play, Create, Inspire. I loved this theme because it was simple to tie into what's going on in music technology right now.

In the keynote speech I covered 4 topics - songwriting apps, multitrack music videos, sampling and live looping. Today I'm going to share the songwriting apps that I mentioned during the keynote speech - what they are, how super-successful musicians are using them and how you can use them with your own students.