Tools for 2.0

Jeremiah Watson

EDU 2043

31 Oct 13

 

Recently, I was sitting in class wondering how teachers find such unique tools for their classroom. I was given my answer by a website called cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com. This site is a very useful site to have in mind if becoming a teacher. This site is a hub that links to other websites and tools on the internet. I browsed the website for tools I would use for my future music classroom. To my surprise, I found a website that had tools used not only for students but to help teachers as well. So I have decided to make a list of 10 websites I think are good for the music classroom. Please note that this is my own opinion on what works best for me the individual.

                The first one to watch will be Noteflight. Noteflight is a website that allows its users to compose whatever they want on staff paper. Some of the features on the website include the control of tempo, voicing, instrumentation, and key. When completing a composition, the user can freely share their works with others privately or to the open public. This is a great feature to use in the classroom for theory class.  It allows students to collaborate with one another and discover new techniques to use in future compositions.

                Next on the list of ten is Soundcloud. Soundcloud is a social website that brings musicians across the world together. People who make posts on the website leave their music for the public to openly see and comment on specifically what part of the composition they like most. This is a great program to use in the classroom. Students that want to learn what to improve with their music can leave their composition to the open public to listen to, download, and share with others, bringing more reviews and ideas to the student on what to do for the next time.

                Third on this list is Haikulearning. Haikulearning is a website that is aimed for teachers wanting to take their class online. Haikulearning is a website allows the individual teacher, to create 5 classes and store up to two gigabits of data on their cloud based storage. Assignments for students and other activities can be stored to the cloud storage for use. This is an amazing tool to use because it does not charge money to an individual teacher if they are the only ones in their school district using it.

                Fourth on the list is easyTestmaker. This website is does exactly as the title says. It gives the user an easier method for creating tests. Easy test maker allows the user to create up to five tests at a time for their classroom. Features included are multiple choice questions, true or false, matching, fill in the blank and open response. Creating tests for music theory class becomes easy. It allows the teacher to include a music vocabulary test, music history fill in the blanks or any other combination the teacher feels best tests the students.

                Fifth item to have for the classroom is Jeopardylabs. Jeopardylabs is a website that gives its users the ability to create or use a preexisting template to play jeopardy with. Preexisting templates can be found through its search engine. Users just need to type whatever subject they want for a jeopardy game.  It’s a great tool use for review sessions before a music theory or history test. It gives the students a fun way to learn material in the classroom.

                Next is Holt. Holt is a site that gives the user the ability to make charts or diagrams for whatever they want. Web diagrams, cluster diagrams, sensory details charts, and many others are included as some of the features of the site. Another very useful feature of the site is that each organizer has notes on how to use them in the classroom. Music Theory and Music History would benefit from this a lot. The charts could be used for helping students brainstorm what to write for their reports or list certain events in a chronological order. This is also nice for the teacher because it helps the teacher remember the ideas they have for teaching an upcoming class.

                The seventh item on the roster is Prezentit. Prezentit is a site that gives the user the ability to create PowerPoints to be viewed online.  Images, text and transitions are able to be placed on the slides. It is a good tool for people who do not have Microsoft PowerPoint. This would be used for presentations to parents and students open house to inform them on what the classroom will be like and who you are. It is able to also be easily located by parents who did not attend open house or for students who were not in class for the day.

                In the eighth spot on this list is Bookr. Bookr is a website that gives teachers a fun way to create present new concepts to students in their classroom. The website gives the user the ability to create a digital book and include whatever they want inside the book. The book looks like a children’s book so it works great for teaching little kids new concepts. For a music class, the book can be used for teaching children the basics of reading music and singing. Features I would include in the book would be basic solfeggio, notes, rhythm, treble clef, and bass clef.

                Ninth on the list is Simple VLE. This site is similar to the website Haikulearning. Teachers are able to go online and create classes and place activities in each one. Not only activities able to be included in the site, but also grades for the student to view and see how they are progressing. Students are able to be kept up to date on what their grades are in the classroom and also individually talk to the teacher about subjects relating to the class. All of the music classes would benefit from this website because it is completely free and you are not restricted to a limited number of classes or data. Students and parents are able to be kept up to date about future events or the progress of the student in the class.

                The final item on the list of ten is Primaryschoolict. Primaryschoolict is a website that gives the school a filter aid for students when they are on the internet conducting research. Teachers when instructing students to specifically use this site can relax and know that their students will not come across inappropriate material. Research papers and other assignments needing the internet can be done without worry. Music classes can use this site for researching composers and learning about theory concepts or historic events that influenced music. The filter can also block out inappropriate music that should not be searched on school computers.