Kinect helps schools kids channel their inner musician

I heard another great story this week about how products like Kinect and YouTube are changing the way we do things – or more specifically, the way that kids do things. In this case, Gareth Ritter, a music teacher from Wales had his pupils use Kinect to find out more about how to play a particular musical instrument, and then how to record that instrument. The kids also used Kinect to create quizzes so they could test how much information they had retained. Gareth was the first runner up in the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum, held in Washington D.C. in November.

Gareth says that most of these students are low performing and spend a good share of their time playing Xbox. When they fail a level (in a video game), they keep trying until they succeed. Gareth was able to tap into that competitive drive and these kids who were once disengaged started taking more of an interest in what they were learning.

You can see some of the cool stuff that Gareth’s pupils did on his website.