Friday 16 November 2018

Concert Review: Rocking Dan delivers a night of unforgettable energetic educational rock music!

It was billed as being a rock 'n' roll party in the library and it certainly lived up to all expectations as Rocking Dan Teaching Man played to an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd of children, parents, teachers, librarians and other fans on Thursday night (November 15th) at the Sutherland Shire Library.


Rocking Dan exploded onto the stage of the library's event space in his trademark academic cap (mortar board), silver cape and animal print shirt to rapturous applause as he belted out his opening tune the classic educational rock party anthem Have You Filled Someone's Bucket Today which included one of Rocking Dan's signature guitar solos. It was the ultimate party starter and set the tone for an evening of energetic educational musical fun!

The awe struck crowd soon rose to its feet as Rocking Dan followed up with the disco funk pop rock inspired Dance To The Days of the Week before the gig reached epic proportions as the audience went wild for the rockin' 12 bar blues dance tune Come On Everybody Let's Do The Floss.

There was great delight on the faces of the audience as they sung along and performed the actions to the ever popular classic tune What Makes A Good Friend?. Before anyone could catch their breath the crowd were soon back up on their feet again as they danced to Funky Four Times Tables (a request by a local primary school teacher) and were jumping up and down to super fun song about following left and right directions Bounce.

As the show reached its fever pitch climax Rocking Dan played his extremely catchy R @ B Alphabet song Get Up And Dance to the Alphabet (ZED Version) which had everybody shaking their bodies and moving their feet to the beat. With the concert goers still dancing Rocking Dan signed off with the hit new song Be Kind To Everyone. "It a song with a great message you can dance to." remarked one of the audience members.

At this point Rocking Dan left the stage but the wildly enthusiastic crowd were chanting "Friends of 10, Friends of 10, Friends of 10."  Rocking Dan didn't disappoint his adoring fans and returned to the stage for an encore and to the absolute delight of everyone in the Sutherland Shire Library Events Space he played a heartfelt and moving version of the song that made him an musical educational YouTube mega star.  The audience were now in full voice "La, La, La, La, La, La, La the Friends of 10". It was the grand finale of grand finales and one that the people who were lucky enough to be there will never forget. This was not just a concert, this was an experience of a lifetime.

Set list: Have You Filled Someone's Bucket Today, Dance To The Days Of The Week, Come On Everybody Let's Do The Floss, What Makes A Good Friend?, Funky Four Times Tables, Bounce, Get Up And Dance To The Alphabet, Be Kind To Everyone.

Encore: The Friends Of 10

Check out Rocking Dan Teaching Man on YouTube




A big thank you to everyone who came to the show!
Rock on with Rocking Dan!
















Saturday 3 November 2018

Epic tales from the dyslexia battleground: how a boy defeated the dragon and became a wizard

As Dyslexia Awareness month comes to a close for 2018 a few people have asked me “What’s it like being dyslexic?” This is great because the more people who know about dyslexia (particularly teachers) the better. I can relate to one of the descriptions of dyslexia in the book Overcoming Dyslexia. The book refers to a University of Colorado student named George. He describes dyslexia as “the beast, an unknown predator that silently stalks him, continually disrupting his life…George wants to see the face of the beast, to understand why this is happening to him.” 

For me personally I think being dyslexic is like fighting a massive fire breathing dragon but instead of wearing armour you are wearing a wetsuit and instead of having a sword and a shield you are armed with a toothpick and a bin lid. The dragon claws at you, bites you, and scratches you. It bats you around for fun like a cat playing with a ball of string whilst you desperately and frantically poke at it with your toothpick in a mad panic. Eventually the dragon breathes fire on you then swallows you whole. 
            

(Dyslexia means difficulty with words (Dys- difficulty, Lexia words). Dyslexia is a result of a neurobiological weakness in the phonologic module located in the left hemisphere of the brain due to a difference in how that part of the brain is structured and wired. Individuals with dyslexia struggle with reading, spelling and writing. Dyslexia is not rare it affects up to 20% of the population and is on a continuum from mild to severe. It is not linked to intelligence.)




At this point you are bouncing around the dragon’s stomach covered in its slimy digestive juices trying in vain to gain your footing and balance while at the same time jabbing the dragon’s stomach wall with your toothpick. After a while the dragon coughs you back up and you fly through the air at tremendous speed before landing face first on a hard gravel road. There you lie face down in the gutter battered and bruised your wetsuit ripped and singed. You sob uncontrollably with no fight left in you hoping the dragon will leave alone but you can hear the dragon laughing and taunting you. 

You are now at your lowest point and if you are lucky enough a wizard comes along and picks you up and tells you it’s going to be alright. The wizard pulls out a crystal ball and they show you a ray of light at the end of a deep dark tunnel. They tell you one day that light will shine really bright. 

The wizard trains you in a special magic called the alphabetic code. They teach you the alphabetic principle (explicit, systematic, structured, cumulative teaching of the alphabetic code) and they teach you how to strengthen your working memory. The wizard believes in you because at this point you sure don’t believe in yourself. You work harder then you ever thought you could under the guidance of your wizard and maybe a few other wizards along the way. (I remember my first wizard her name was Miss Leslie she was from England and she was my tutor when I was nine years old after I was identified by an educational psychologist. Sadly She had to return to the UK when her visa ran out.)

They build up your armour, give you a sword and a shield and then give you the skills to face the dragon again. This time you are ready, you let go of your fear and anger. When the dragon roars at you this time you roar back you scream at it “ Yes actually I am deciding to try today…by the way I was trying all those other times…no I’m not lazy… or dumb, or stupid and yes my parents did read books to me… and you know what else I can read, write and spell better then you thought or I thought... yes I know my multiplication tables... most of them… most of the time so you don’t need to single me out, I can remember things, I can sequence the days of the week.. months of the year.. I’ve worked out which side of my body is dominant (sort of), I can balance long enough to ride a bike and I can do up my shoe laces. Yes I can hold more than one direction in my head... yes I can match letters to sounds... and yes I know there is something called spell check…” You yell as loudly as you can and the horrible dragon yells back even louder. Then you fight that dragon with every ounce of effort you have in your mind, spirit and body, you swing your sword with all of your might and you take a chunk out of it. 
Armed with knowledge and skills it's time to stare down and fight the dyslexia dragon.

You know that you will never slay the dragon… you will never defeat it. You will battle the dragon for the rest of your life but one thing is for sure the dragon will never swallow you whole again and you will never ever be left a sobbing mess at the side of the road in a torn and singed wetsuit… Thank you to all the wizards in my life…and to all the wizards in every dyslexic’s life. You will never know how much impact you have on us…


We need more wizards! Early Identification and evidence based intervention is key to helping dyslexics overcome dyslexia! Dyslexia doesn't just affect reading, writing and spelling it also affects self esteem and self worth.  It is four times harder to intervene in year 4 than it is in year 1. Unfortunately most dyslexics are not identified until after year 3 if at all. With support, intervention and lots of hard work dyslexics can achieve wonderful and extraordinary things. The light that once was dim can shine brightly for them as they show off their talents can strengths.

Some strengths of dyslexics may include: Inquiring mind, problem solving, comprehending new ideas, generating new ideas, analytic thinking, insightful thinking, thinking outside the box, seeing the big picture,creative and critical thinking. Dyslexics may also have an extensive vocabulary.
Read more about my dyslexic journey in my 2017 blog post here




Check out my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man

How can you identify and help a dyslexic?

Dyslexia means difficulty with words (Dys- difficulty, Lexia words). Dyslexia is a result of a neurobiological weakness in the phonologic module located in the left hemisphere of the brain due to a difference in how that part of the brain is structured and wired.

Dyslexics find reading, spelling and writing very challenging. This is because dyslexics have difficulty identifying, manipulating, segmenting and blending individual sounds in spoken language (phonemes) and mapping those sounds to letter combinations (graphemes) (cracking the alphabetic code, decoding and encoding). Dyslexics may have higher than average verbal abilities. It is not linked to intelligence and often dyslexics have creative, productive and talented minds. They often have excellent vocabulary and language comprehension skills. It is the lack of decoding ability that impedes their reading comprehension. Dyslexia is not rare it affects up to 20% of the population and is on a continuum from mild to severe. Around 5%-10% are severe to moderate. (About 3-6 kids per class on average are on the dyslexic continuum.)

The major feature of dyslexia is a concern for their literacy development (i.e. acquiring and using written language to learn). Dyslexics are capable of learning, however, they learn in a different way and need explicit, systematic, structured, cumulative and multisensory teaching of the alphabetic code with lots of opportunities for repetition to learn to read, spell and write. Using decodable texts in conjunction with the explicit teaching of the alphabetic code is great way to help dyslexic children practice the skills of mapping the graphemes to phonemes they have been taught and blending them together to decode words with fluency and accuracy.


Early identification and evidence based intervention is key to helping dyslexics overcome dyslexia. It is four times harder to intervene in year 4 than it is in year 1. Unfortunately most dyslexics are not identified until after year 3 if at all.

Dyslexics may also experience cognitive challenges such as inefficient verbal short term and working memory (i.e. being able to hold onto information for a short period in the mind) and Verbal long term memory (i.e. being able to retrieve language based words and sentences. Verbal long term memory is also used for reading fluency and speaking fluency such as holding onto numbers whilst doing mental arithmetic, learning new subject words, holding onto verbal instructions long enough to then work on those instructions. Transferring information from short term memory to long term memory is also affected.

Lots repetition and practice is needed to make the new skills become automatic. A lack of automaticity means that dyslexics are likely to experience processing overload when attempting to carry out new or complex tasks (e.g. learning the Days of the week, Months of the year, Times Tables, The Alphabet or sequencing).

Some strengths of dyslexics include: Inquiring mind, problem solving, comprehending new ideas, Generating new ideas, analytic thinking, insightful thinking (Outside the box), seeing the big picture, creative and critical thinking. Dyslexics may also have an extensive vocabulary.



Some signs of dyslexia in children at school include: Poor letter sound knowledge, poor phonemic awareness, poor word attack skills which leads to slow and inaccurate decoding and this results in poor reading comprehension, difficulty with spelling, poor organisational skills and difficulties with written expression.




Don't forget to Get Onboard for dyslexia awareness and support Code Read! 











Friday 11 May 2018

Win a copy of both my albums

Hey Rocking Dan fans,

My new album Dance, Count, Bounce and Sing is out now! Here is your chance to win digital downloaded copies of both my albums (Rocking Dan Teaching Man and Dance, Count, Bounce and Sing).  Check out my album launch on YouTube and leave a comment and you will go into the draw to win these albums!

So what are you waiting for head over to my YouTube channel and the enter the contest now!

You can listen to both my albums here on the music player.


Until next time Rock on, Rocking Dan Teaching Man.

Tuesday 24 April 2018

Aussie Teacher Tubers Meet Up!

What's an Aussie Teacher Tuber you might ask? It's an Australian Teacher who has a YouTube channel. I had the pleasure of meeting some amazing Teacher Tubers last week in Sydney. All of them have YouTube channels and they vlog about their experiences as teachers in Australia. It's great to see teachers sharing their knowledge about teaching with a wider audience. Do you watch any of these Aussie Teacher Tubers vlogs?


On the far right of the photo is Bec West she is an Assistant Principal at a primary school. Check out her channels Talkin' Chalk and Clever Pickles






Standing next to Bec is me (Rocking Dan Teaching Man). I am not a vlogger, however, I am a teacher and I have a YouTube channel. I write and record educational tunes and create animations to go with them.


Standing in front of me is the first Aussie Teacher Tuber I ever came across. It's Florence and she is a Year 1 teacher from Sydney. Her channel is called Teacher Tales.

Up the back in the middle is Daniel Yong he is a Primary teacher also from Sydney check out his channel mrdanielyong.


Next to Daniel is the always funny and entertaining EJ Kafoople. She is a High School English teacher from the NSW north coast. Her channel is called Kafoople Land (but it will always be Life in Kafoople Land to me).
On the left of EJ is Erin and she is a Music teacher. Erin teaches music to students from Years 3 to 12. Her musical channel is called Insidethismusicbox.
On the far left of the photo is Kylie and her channel is called Kylie's Edventures. Kylie is currently a Stage 3 Primary teacher from Sydney. 
Go and check out these Aussie Teacher Tubers YouTube channels to hear their teaching stories. Are you a Teacher Tuber? If so leave a link to your channel in the comments below. Maybe you are a teacher and you would like to share your teaching story. Perhaps you too could start your own YouTube channel and become an Aussie Teacher Tuber.


Until Next Time Rock on,
Rocking Dan Teaching Man











Sunday 15 April 2018

Top Children's Music Blog Award for Rocking Dan Teaching Man


It is a tremendous honour that my blog Rocking Dan Teaching Man has been named as one of the top 25 children's music blogs on the web in the world for 2018 by Feedspot.com! I want to thank everyone at the Feedspot organisation for this most prestigious award. It is wonderful to have my musical educational work recognized in this way. I am most humbled and grateful! It gives me great joy to know that I have reached so many teachers and children from around world with my educational music and as a result helped so many kids with their learning. Thank you to all the teachers, children and parents who have watched my videos and listened to my songs on my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man. I am grateful for all of the support I have received from everyone. I would like to thank the Australian Catholic University and Sydney Catholic Schools for the ongoing support and encouragement of my work in helping children to learn through music and movement. Congratulations to the other award winners as well.


Rocking Dan Teaching Man has had over 3.2 Million views on YouTube so far which is amazing! It's incredible to think that my music and animations have been seen in so many different classrooms by so many children from around the world. It's great to make a difference outside of my own classroom.
















In other news my second studio album Dance, Count, Bounce and Sing will be released soon so keep an eye out for that. The album contains 24 fun, energetic tunes for the classroom to get your students moving and learning!

In the meantime you can download my original album Rocking Dan Teaching Man from CDbaby.com or from itunes. You can also listen to my educational music on Spotify.







I have also been having a lot of fun playing live versions of my songs and giving YouTube shout outs to classrooms from around the world. If you would like a shout out from me for your classroom let me know in the comments below or email me rockingdantm@gmail.com 
Check out my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man and don't forget to click on the subscribe button.

Until next time keep rocking,
Rocking Dan Teaching Man. 




Saturday 6 January 2018

Amazing SKYPE with George Washington Carver Elementary School 1st Grade Missouri




It's always great privilege when teachers invite me into their classrooms to sing my songs with their kids.  Music and movement have a really positive impact on children's learning. Thank you to Kacie Barratt and her 1st grade class at George Washington Carver Elementary School in Missouri for having me at your school and in your classroom via SKYPE. I had a great time! The children were wonderful. They had beautiful manners and were so engaged with the music and the story I read to them. Fantastic singing and dancing and moving! It was such a pleasure SKYPEing with them.

The highlight for me was playing "We Love Monsters" (a description song about monsters).


I wrote the song back in 2014 when I was teaching Kindergarten. I used the song as a writing stimulus for the children in my class to help them write descriptions about monsters. The song contains many adjectives that describe what monsters look like and verbs that describe the things monsters do. It just amazes me that almost 4 years later I was able to sing the song via SKYPE to a class of 1st Graders half a world away. It was incredible to hear the children enthusiastically singing the song and to see them doing the actions along with me! I never would have imaged I would be doing this when I uploaded my first YouTube video 5 years ago!

Here is the original animation I made for We Love Monsters 
Here is a link to my blog post from 2014 about We Love Monsters descriptive writing


Some of the other songs we sang were What makes a good friend?, Dance to the days of the week, The Friends of 10, Bop bop and count to 20 and Get up and dance to The Alphabet. You can check those songs and all of my other educational tunes on my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man! 
We also had a fun Q and A. I was very impressed with the children's questions.




If you are a K-2 teacher in the USA or somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere and you would like to have a SKYPE sing along with me then send me an email Rockingdantm@gmail.com or message me on Twitter @RockingDanTM and let's see if we can work out a time and date. I've had some Aussie teachers ask me but I'm a full time teacher so I'm always in class at the same time (possibly could SKYPE with other Australian States when the school holidays are different from NSW).

Thanks again to George Washington Carver Elementary School 1st Grade Missouri. We Love Monsters! Go Wildcats!



Until Next Time Keep Rocking!
Rocking Dan Teaching Man.