Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville Selects Interactive Listening iBook and Textbook to Launch New Music Education Curriculum
Contact: [email protected]
JACKSONVILLE, FL, August 12, 2014—Duval County Public School officials have chosen a groundbreaking new iBook and textbook called Interactive Listening to launch an exciting new music education curriculum for Jacksonville students this school year.
Interactive Listening, which has earned rave reviews from music educators nationwide, was named by Apple Inc. as the #1 Editor’s Choice in all categories of textbooks and was the first music education method to ever be featured on Apple’s iTunes website. Duval County Public Schools has purchased 2,000 textbooks for students and 100 iBooks for teachers as part of this new initiative.
Created for digital-savvy students, Interactive Listening features Hollywood-style graphics, an orchestra of interactive 3-D instruments, and entertaining computer games. Developed by Pete Carney, who attended Landon Middle School in Jacksonville, and Brian Felix, Interactive Listening remixes music with technology in a compelling new way, abandoning the traditional textbook approach. Carney and Felix, music educators and jazz musicians, sought to bring music history alive for students with interactive content that spans 35,000 years of music.
“We wanted to create enjoyable content that engages students by using a diverse spectrum of sounds, from prehistoric cavemen to Beethoven to Coldplay,” said Carney. “We give music education the movie-star treatment, by including music videos, 3-D imagery and computer games that make it fun for students to learn music history.”
Carney and Felix will be in Jacksonville at Atlantic Coast High School on Aug. 13 at 8:30 am to give a presentation to middle school and high school teachers, showing them how to effectively teach the iBook to students, who will follow along with the companion Interactive Listening textbooks.
“When I was playing in saxophone in the band at Landon Middle School, I never would have imagined that I would create a music app that the Duval County school system would use in 20 years,” said Carney.
Interactive Listening has been taught in over 100 schools nationwide, part of a recent movement by educators to incorporate more iBooks into classroom teaching, said Carney. “Not only are iBooks more economical for school districts to purchase, they also speak to students in the digital language that they know and love,” said Carney. “By applying technology to top-notch content, we can produce relevant classroom lessons that really resonate with students.”
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Below is a link to our matrix for the state and national standards for music education.
State of Florida Music Standards in Education and Benchmark Alignment
