Sean Ashmore Head of Music explained, “ We have 720 pupils in KS3 and we use Gigajam to give each pupil ONE full year of instrumental provision over the course of the Key Stage (at 1 hour per week for one term a year). Gigajam is not a replacement for the peripetetic service, and is a very powerful way to extend instrumental provision to ALL pupils in KS3.”

Brian Greene of Gigajam observed ” They use Gigajam to work in conjunction with the service provided by the peripatetic teachers. The music service are brought in to provide Band Skills sessions, building on the skills Gigajam is providing the students in curriculum time.  The spend with the music service has actually increased, now that more students can play an instrument, and Sean uses his Music Standards Fund to provide maximum impact and participation.

It was great to see the students working so well. It was only their 4th lesson on Gigajam and it made me chuckle watching them walk in, say hello and then just sit down and start work.  Sean roamed around checking on students and used the Live Class Activity screen on the whiteboard brilliantly. Every few moments a new uploaded student performance would come up so you could see the progress the students were making. The students loved seeing their work appearing on screen and there was an impressive amount of work being completed.”

In addition to the curriculum time used for learning an instrument with Gigajam, students have extra opportunities to continue their studies; from home via the VLE, in breakfast clubs, lunch time sessions and extended school and community learning. The community learning sessions are attended by local colleges, parents and a number of local residents who now come to many school events.”

Gigajam is available to all students at Pleckgate, via the VLE, and is used to support students in KS4.

 There is a detailed case study featuring Pleckgate High School online at http://schools.gigajam.com/CaseStudyPleckgate.aspx

We have always been an affordable, efficient and high impact provider of musical instrument tuition, and we must continue to make the business case for harnessing technology in transforming learning. We also wish to expand our work with UK schools and Music Services

Secondary, Middle and Primary Schools Pricing

£1 per pupil, per annum, based on number in Key Stage(s)

Gigajam’s unlimited user licence is now just £1 per pupil, per year, based on the number of students within the Key Stage(s) you wish to have access. Every eligible pupil can learn to play the guitar, bass, keyboard and drums, as well as practice at home with our online lesson content and software.

The minimum order value is £150 + VAT at the standard rate.

Heads of Music Services, Governing Bodies, Headteachers and Parent and Friend Associations 

Your own Online Music School for free. Our Content, your Students, fundraising opportunity.

Where it is not possible for an educational establishment, or service provider, to provide Gigajam free at the point of access, Gigajam can make a custom branded online music school for free. Your students/parents can then elect to subscribe to this added value service for just £3 a month. We will then share 33% of the profit which generates revenue for your establishment/service.

For more information please visit our dedicated website where you can also apply to join and become a Gigajam partner. http://freemusicschool.gigajam.net

Contacts:

Brian Greene Managing Director

brian.greene@gigajam.com

0800 055 6797

07976 208859

Drum 'n' Bass Live in the Gigajam Zone

Gigajam provided three interactive workshops with Devon Schools at this year’s Devon Mix music event at the Westpoint Arena in Exeter. Organised by the highly respected Devon Music Services thousands of school pupils converged on the annual event to watch and take part in an enormous amount of live performances, competitions, workshops and demonstrations.

Gigajam’s Brian Greene, Ian Wright, Head of Music at Tiverton High School and Ben van Wede from DMS ran the Gigajam Learning Zone teaching over 100 pupils to play an instrument in workshops that culminated in a live peformance demonstrating some of the skills learned.

To see Gigajam in action in Devon then please view the case studies online here:

http://schools.gigajam.com/introducinggigajam.aspx

http://schools.gigajam.com/CaseStudyTiverton.aspx

As Ofsted reported in 2009:

“The provision for music was good or outstanding in around half the schools visited. However, the quality and range of the provision for music varied too much. While many pupils were benefiting considerably, others were missing out.”

This is one of the key findings in Ofsted’s Making More of Music report. Gigajam can help you make more of music by addressing this and other challenges in the report, for only £1 per pupil per annum.

Gigajam and Yamaha launched their eLearning response to Ofsted’s report at the  Federation of Music Services Annual Conference in Belfast last week (June18th-19th 2010).  The Making More of Music website details how Gigajam can help music providers address many of the key challenges:

• Assessment
• Progress
• Quality
• Underuse of ICT
• Lasting impact
• Key Stage 4 uptake

For more information on Gigajam&Yamaha and their eLearning solutions for education, please visit the Music Classroom for the Future site at: http://schools.gigajam.com/future

Always a popular and fun stand to visit.

Gigajam will be presenting workshops, seminars and exhibiting at the following events in June and July 2010.

It would be great to meet with any delegate interested in exploring Gigajam. We will be on hand  to demonstrate our hosted VLE service http://gigajamvle.com, as well as present the Music Classroom for the Future solution brought together by Yamaha, Gigajam & Steinberg. http://schools.gigajam.com/future

Brian Greene welcomes Simon Finch to the Gigajam stand

Please feel free to visit us on stand at:

Federation Music Services Annual Conference,

 The Hilton Hotel, Belfast Thursday 17th and Friday 18th June

Devon Schools Mix,

Westpoint Arena, Devon Wednesday 23rd June

East of England Broadband Network E2BN Annual Conference,

Wyboston Conference Centre  Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th June

South West Grid for Learning Annual Confernce

University of West of England, Bristol Wednesday 7th July 2010

NEN guests get the Gigajam welcome

Brian Greene, managing director, said, “We are very excited at the response to our latest innovation, which provides an opportunity for us to reach more pupils through partnerships. We provide a highly incentivsed offer to schools and we wanted to make a new and distinctive offer direct to private pupils and, their parents, which was affordable and available through a local partner that they recognised and valued.

By sharing our technology with music retailers, local teaching practices and even schools, we can provide a private instrumental tuition offer that benefits and rewards the partner provider.

In an ideal world we would like to see all schools utilise our £1 per pupil, per year licence, however, we  accept that schools have many priorities to manage. Where Gigajam is not available freely through school, we would like parents and pupils to be able to purchase this service locally. 

We are inviting organisations to partner us, so we can provide Gigajam Online branded as a partner’s own product. The service can then be offered to customers, users, parents and pupils at just £3.00 per month, or £30 per year. Although, this is a small fee,  for instrumental tuition, the subscription not only pays for the cost of the service, but provides a new revenue stream to partners, which is profit for business partners, such as retailers, and valuable additional funding for partner schools.  

1. Proposition — Branded Gigajam Music Schools

Gigajam has developed web technologies that enable it to provide a Branded Gigajam Online Music School to a variety of music channel Partners. This will afford Partners the opportunity to have their own Online Music School.

Gigajam can provide this technology at no cost to Partners, as the business model is entirely scalable with set up and maintenance costs covered by subscription revenue received from users of the service.

In return for the opportunity for Gigajam to expand its services to Partner customers Gigajam will incentivise the Partner with 33% of net revenue received through the sale of subscriptions collected via a Partner’s Branded Gigajam Online Music School.

2. Benefits to Gigajam

• Expansion of channels to consumers and end users.
• Increase in awareness of Gigajam products and services.
• Greater use of Gigajam products and services.
• Increase in revenue opportunity through the exploitation of a scalable technology delivery mechanism.

3. Benefits to Partner

• The provision of a Branded Online Music School, powered by Gigajam’s core content.
• Free — No costs. No set up or maintenance costs.
• Added and expanded value to existing customers and users.
• New product offer for new customers and users.
• New revenue stream.  

For more details please visit the Partner site at http://musicschools.gigajam.net . Please feel free to contact our directors if you have any questions:

Brian said,  ‘Like many programs there are depths of functionality and use that sometimes take a while for users to integrate into their common use. Gigajam is much more than some lessons and practice software and I wanted to show how users can grow to understand and use more aspects of the program to develop and apply users music skills whilst supporting teachers structure the lessons and music making activities.’

The series focuses on a journey of deeper use of the lesson content, software and extended activities, as well as a look at the sophisticated assessment for learning opportunties. It is meant to be a gradual illumination of the possibilities of Gigajam, not a manual.

The first  in the series discusses the two levels of Interactivity users can experience from using Gigajam’s practise and analysis Xtractor software, and makes use of the new informal ‘How to’ Video Channel.  http://schools.gigajam.com/videochannel.aspx

You can view the first email article  here http://schools.gigajam.com/email/10May1/

Yamaha already supports the cream of the nation’s gifted and talented young classical, jazz and rock musicians, though its extensive scholarship programmes. It is also a principal supporter of the Federation of Music Services, which provides instrumental and vocal tuition which is approaching 20 percent of pupils up to the age of 15 in England and Wales – impressively up from just over 8 percent in 2005.

Of the remaining 80-plus percent, some young people learn privately but there is still a large number, particularly in years 7-9, who are interested in learning a rock instrument but who do not currently have access to tuition. Yamaha sees its new Gigajam partnership as a key strategy to help address the problem of access to learning to play – in this case, rock band instruments – for everyone else.

The Gigajam system provides a well structured system of tuition and assessment for guitar, bass, drums and keyboard, which is delivered and assessed online. Learners play along with a series of structured and well designed exercises, initially using Yamaha MIDI and electric instruments. Advanced software then provides assessment and guides the student, at his or her own pace, through the materials. Gigajam is currently preparing a groundbreaking new assessment system for audio instruments, too, which will further radically transform the already effective system.

At any stage during the learning process, learners can choose to play along live with their peers, once they have developed a basic level of skills and confidence.

The Gigajam system is certainly not intended to replace high quality instrumental tuition. However it has already proven to be an effective way to give young people who may not already be learning an instrument the chance to do so, up to an intermediate level. Following this innovative and cost-effective way of introducing more young people to music making, many who have been through the system so far have gone on to learn, either with the local music service or with a private teacher.

Yamaha’s education manager, Bill C Martin, commented: “Yamaha’s vision is simply to expand the number of people learning music and to help make it an inspiring journey for all. We are already doing much at the inspiration end of things: our extensive Conservatoire Scholarships programmes across the genres and our support for the Federation of Music Services, whose members in the local music services provide world-class, high-quality instrumental tuition. The FMS has done a great job helping extend this via its support for the KS2 Whole-Class Instrumental and Vocal Teaching Programme (Wider Opportunities), which has provided at least a year’s free instrumental tuition to junior school children and which has been praised in a report published by FMS in January 2010. However there is more to be done at secondary level to boost the numbers of young people who are learning to play. We believe that Gigajam’s proven track record over the past few years speaks for itself in providing a positive experience for young musicians. We can now begin to develop the quantity of learners without losing quality.”

Watch a video report on the Yamaha-Gigajam presentations at the 2010 BETT show.

PR by DJPR