Welcome to Day 11 of the 2024 Appvent Calendar!
In today’s #24DaysOfAi, we open the door to reveal a platform that frankly, beggars belief with the quality of its outputs. Using Ai, this tool can take your writing and turn it into a professional-level song; if you haven’t heard of it before – it’s Suno!
Featured in my recent ‘32 Ai Tools to Support Your Teaching and Their Learning’ infographic and a cornerstone of my presentations for a long while now, Suno helps teachers create catchy tunes with custom lyrics to make learning more memorable.
Ai Tool of the Day: Suno.com
Whether it’s writing songs to explain mathematical concepts like mean, median, and mode or creating background music for study sessions, Suno has a plethora of uses. Its versatility across genres allows educators to connect key concepts to fun, memorable music, making it easier for students to retain information.
Uses in Education
In a recent session working with Pobble delivering a live lesson to 300 schools and 8000 pupils, I used Suno to great effect. In the live lesson with Pobble co-founder and former Primary Head Teacher, Simon Blower, Simon worked with the pupils to help them create a story based on one of Pobble’s exciting writing prompts. I then took their writing and used it to create songs using the platform. Here’s one I made using writing from the Ballyroan Boys National School in Dublin.
Maths departments I’ve worked with have used the tool to create songs to help reinforce concepts they’ve been learning in class. Here’s one made by one school I worked with on ‘Mean, Median and Mode’.
Educational Benefits
Suno Ai presents an interesting opportunity to use an innovative technology, but you might be sat there thinking – this is just a gimmick. You know me if you read this blog and you’ll know that I’m not one for gimmicks, so if you think the ideas above are gimmicky, that’s fine. The tool might not be for you.
What I would say though, is that over my many years teaching, there were so many times when I was involved in needing to support school functions, create interesting resources for quizzes, musicals, awards evenings, all sorts – a tool in your toolkit such as Suno is, for my money, something worth knowing about for those moments where you can be creative and make something that sounds amazing at the same time.
By allowing users to generate original music and songs based on simple text prompts, Suno offers a platform to support the roles of teachers in a variety of ways, not always linked to teaching and learning. For sure, it could be used to create bespoke soundtracks to enhance storytelling in English lessons or to compose historical ballads that bring moments in history to life, the tool opens doors to engagement and cross-curricular connections. It could however just be the case that you want to write an anthem for your tutor group.
Whilst evidence shows that integrating creativity into learning can deepen understanding and retention, Suno might not be for you. That said, Suno provides an accessible way to bring that creativity into the classroom.
Considerations and Tips
- Plans and Pricing: Suno Ai offers flexible pricing options, including free trials, making it easy for educators to explore its features before deciding on a subscription plan.
- Data Compliance: Ensure that any content uploaded or generated complies with your school’s data protection and copyright policies. This is particularly important when using Ai tools in creative projects.
- Customisation: Experiment with Suno’s wide range of musical outputs, from instrumental tracks to full vocal compositions. Tailor the settings to create music that aligns with your lesson goals, whether it’s an engaging class anthem or a subtle soundtrack for a storytelling activity.
This approach ensures you can make the most of Suno while keeping your practices aligned with school policies and teaching objectives.
Final Thoughts
Suno Ai is one of those tools that you don’t realise you need until you see what it can do. Whilst you may consider it a gimmick, it’s not just for creating catchy tunes to help students remember concepts. It’s a genuinely powerful tool that can bring creativity and engagement to many areas of school life. From bespoke soundtracks to bring history lessons to life, to helping with those moments where you need something special, like a tutor group anthem or an awards evening theme, Suno does the heavy lifting, leaving you to focus on everything else.
For teachers, time is always at a premium, and finding ways to do something unique or impactful can feel like a luxury. What Suno does so well is remove the barriers to creating something amazing. With just a few prompts, you can generate music that sounds like it took hours to produce, whether it’s an instrumental background for storytelling or a full song for a maths concept like mean, median, and mode.
While not every tool is for everyone, if you’ve ever wished you could create music without the hassle or expertise, Suno is the tool you’ve been waiting for. Give it a try, you might just surprise yourself. Check it out at Suno.com today!
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