I miss the days of mixtapes. I would spend hours figuring out what songs went together and if they would all fit on the tape (nothing worse then choosing that last perfect song and then finding out you ran out of tape with a minute left). I took pride in those tapes and loved getting feedback from friends about if they liked them or not.
8 Tracks is a free internet radio and social networking app that allows users to create their own playlists of at least 8 songs and share them throughout the 8 track community. It gives a person the opportunity to make a mixtape and release to a wider range of people and, as with all social media sites, get feedback in the form of likes.
In the realm of Music Education, this could be a powerful tool. Students would be able to “show their learning on a lesson” (let’s say examples of a 12 bar blues riff) by making up their own “mixtape” and present it not only to their teacher, but to their classmates and a larger population that listen to playlists on the app. It would also be possible to record your own music and put it up for your teacher, and others, to hear. Teachers could ask students to sample different genres of music using the tags placed on playlists and then link them back, saying if the playlist is a good example of the genre and why.
“Discovering music through people”https://8tracks.com/
Taking advantage of such a library of playlists compiled by real people (and not just algorithms) seems, to me, like such a great idea. Not only could students show their learning “outside the box”, but they may learn about a song, artist, or genre of music they didn’t know about. A nice example of ubiquitous learning!