KARNS CITY — Some budding musicians at Karns City High School are getting a taste of how technology can shake up their otherwise normal band class each week.

The change of pace comes courtesy of an unexpected intersection between art and technology: an iPad app that's normally used for coaching sports. But instead of drawing up plays and breaking down slow-motion replays, students at Slippery Rock University and Karns City High School are talking about things like posture, finger position and breath management — all via videos they exchange.

The project is the brainchild of SRU professors Kathleen Melago, who teaches music education, and Randy Nichols, who teaches physical and health education. In 2015 Melago won a $1,000 grant through the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, which was put toward iPads and the digital app Coach's Eye — a telestration program that is normally associated with sports and weather broadcasts.

Melago had a different plan: could her students use telestration and video playback to help high school students improve as musicians?

Melago turned to Karns City band director Amanda Pivirotto, one of her former students at SRU, and pitched the project as an opportunity for students at both schools to get exposure to distance learning. Melago saw it as a way to get her music education majors more experience in the classroom — even if it was a virtual one.

Pivirotto saw the collaboration as a way for her students to get something she couldn't possibly provide on her own: one-on-one instruction time.

“The kids that are involved in it definitely improve their playing, and they're getting a lot more excited,” about the program in general, Pivirotto said.

The collaboration kicked off with six Karns City students exchanging videos with SRU students. The high schoolers would use the iPads and Coach's Eye to capture short videos of them performing with their instruments. Their student mentors at SRU reviewed the videos, used Coach's Eye to add comments and instructions, and sent back their own videos to Karns City.

Sean Mitchell, an SRU junior from Waterford, Pa., who is majoring in music education, said the project challenged him to rethink his concept of what teaching music looks like.

Directing an entire band's worth of students at once is still how music instruction plays out in most high schools — including Karns City — across the country. But Mitchell and other students at SRU now have a taste for what it's like to do things quite differently.

“It was almost an (incomparable) experience,” Mitchell said. “We have these preconceived notions of what a classroom should be like and what education should be like, but it's easier to reach students when you use the tools that are more applicable to them. It's important for us as educators to step outside our comfort zone.”

Now in its fourth semester, the video exchange program has ballooned to include 16 students at Karns City, becoming so popular that Melago and Pivirotto had to cap the number of students who participate, and institute a first-come, first-served sign-up rule.

For Melago the project has showcased her students' adaptability and desire to connect with people they won't meet in person until the end of the semester.

“I just like seeing the relationships that form between the students, because I think that's one of the most challenging aspects of distance learning,” Melago said. “I like when I'm reviewing the videos and my students say something that makes me realize they're getting to know the (Karns City) student.”

For Pivirotto's students the semester-ending day trip to SRU has become a highlight of the collaboration. The high schoolers get a chance to meet their college mentors, audit a physics course on sound waves, and participate in a drum circle that's part of a music therapy course. They also get to tour SRU's campus and talk about the lives of college music students.

“It's scary, but cool,” said Paige Clark, a sophomore at Karns City who plays the mellophone, a variant of the French horn that's often used by marching bands. “You pretty much get some insight into the life of a college music student.”

That's important to students like Sophia Smith, a freshman flute player at Karns City who said interacting with SRU music majors has made her think about what it would be like to pursue that life herself.

Another freshman, percussionist Dale Dufford, said making the videos can help students push themselves to play to their potential.

“It's made me take it a little more seriously,” Dufford said. “Playing for these people that are a little more experienced — it's like I'm actually performing a concert or something.”

It also has pushed SRU student Josh Bonnici, a junior and music education major from Cranberry Township, to engage with technology in a way he might not otherwise expect.

“It was able to introduce me to a technology that I've never been exposed to before, and it was really interesting to use it for musical purposes,” Bonnici said. “I don't think there was any limit to the amount of time I could have spent,” working with the program.

Building relationships with SRU students and stepping outside their comfort zone on the campus visit also can help reinforce one of the students' biggest takeaways from band class: confidence.

“The whole thing (band and music) is basically a confidence booster,” said Shaun Klein, a Karns City junior who plays clarinet and baritone.

Senior Cate Eakin, who plays the flute, concurred. Eakin said learning to play an instrument helped her come out of her shell in high school.

“I went from barely making a sound to being the one who always volunteers to do a solo,” she said.