In the next few weeks my Senior PE Students will be embarking on a 6 week training program that involves the creation, participation and eventual evaluation of their fitness improvements. Each and every year this proves to be a fun and rewarding activity, with students working incredibly hard to build their fitness and learn about the physiological responses to exercise. However while the students are busy planning their programs, they never seem to forget an important motivational element ……MUSIC.
In 2011, I blogged about how students were going to be planning their music using iTunes to create special playlists that auto switched songs to signify work/rest ratios. This would allow them to automate the training process for a number of training methods. This turned out quite well, but required students to spend significant time modifying the play length of songs in iTunes. This however spurred the desire to create the Music Workout app, which has been released on Android and iOS resulting in over 20,000 downloads and a big following from the PE Community.
For those unaware the app works as an interval timer using your music to signify the change of intervals. Set it for 20 seconds work and 20 seconds rest and your music will pause/decrease volume or ring a bell at the end of interval to notify you of the change. This app has grown to become a fantastic addition to my PE Classes, however more recently I have been complimenting the app with another service called “Spotify” which is simply spectacular.
Essentially Spotify is one of largest legal commercial streaming services on the planet providing users with access to millions of music from major and independent record labels. With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to show you how I use Spotify to help me curate music appropriate for workouts and the PE Classroom and make it available on my mobile devices.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQFA8eY_G0&feature=youtu.be
So how important is music to your PE Classroom? Have you used Spotify or another streaming service to curate playlists?
