Week 5: Social Bookmarking and Zaption

This week we utilized two wonderful programs online. The first is Diigo, a social bookmarking site, which is a wonderful too for educators. Diigo is a way to save all the neat blogs, games sites, lesson plan ideas, and curriculums. I know that I am always finding ideas online and have a ton of bookmarks on my school and personal computers and I never have what I need on the computer I need it on. I also am very good at bookmarking a site and going back to it and finding out I have no idea why I bookmarked it or I can’t find what I liked on the site. Social bookmarking with Diigo solves this problem and makes bookmarking, I think, easier. Being able to highlight and put stickies on the sight you are bookmarking is so wonderful, no more searching for what you need. Plus, you can access your bookmarks from any computer. The social sharing of bookmarks is a nice feature, but not something that is high on my priority list.

The other site we utilized this week was Zaption, a cool way to make presentations and quizzes using YouTube videos. This is my favorite site thus far, it is beyond easy to use and makes for nice listening activities with the ability to ask questions and put in discussion breaks.  I constantly am pulling up YouTube videos in class to give students a visual experience to go along with listening activities. I usually will point out instruments or musical elements by speaking over the video or pausing. This means each class gets a different experience, because I will sometimes get distracted and miss something I wanted to point out or I will pause to late and have to rewind (rewinding can be difficult in YouTube). By quickly adding in speaking points, discussion questions or multiple choice questions I can eliminate all the fuss and have well organized videos for my lessons.

The other nice part about Zaption is students can access the videos outside of class as assignments or “show-n-tells” at home. I can also easily give quizzes without collecting and having to grade tons of papers. The other nice feature is being able to create simple sub plans that can be accessed from any computer. Many times when I am out, the principal with have my sub travel to the classroom instead of using my room. She does this because the students’ behavior in my school is very rough for subs to handle and my room has the most valuable material in the school, which she doesn’t what the students to break. Usually the subs show a movie from my collection, but now I can set up listening activities that the sub can easily access and show to the class, it’s almost like I will be there with the class.

Here is a link to my Zaption tour for you to check out:

"In the Hall of the Mountain King" Zaption Tour

Week 4: Audacity

This weeks activities using Audacity were a lot of fun and a wonderful experience.  During my undergrad (many years ago), I worked for the universities concert hall recording and editing concerts and performances using Pro Tools. I loved Pro Tools, but could never justify spending the money to buy my own. Audacity has many similarities to Pro Tools including many of the shortcuts, from what I remember.

I have been in in need of a way to edit and cut concert material for my choir a few times and have sent it to work with my husband to edit it more me (he is a TV news photographer/editor and has access to editing software). I love how simple it is to use and get around without much direction. It has all the functions that I would use in Pro Tools but without the cost.

As for a teaching purpose, I can definitely come up with many lessons to utilize this software with my students in elementary school. Though, I do feel this software would be more appropriate with older student due to the complexity of the software. Though I could see elementary students following the step by step instruction from the “Bart” assignment and doing quite well with what would be expect of them.  I could see utilizing this software to teach form and composition at the middle or high school level.

Overall, Audacity is amazing and free. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to buy Pro Tools who don’t really need the full version of Pro Tools. I can’t wait to do more with this software in the future!

Week 3: Soundtrap

It is truly amazing how much cool technology is available for free. This week it was great getting to explore Soundtrap, what a fun program. Honestly, I started working with the free version before upgrading to the premium trail version. I thought the free version had a lot to offer. I really enjoyed playing with all the loops, and could easily spend hours exploring all the neat sounds it has to offer.

As an elementary teacher, I could easily see some of my older (4^th and 5^th grade) students loving this sight. I wish I had some extra computers in my classroom (I only have one) so small groups of students could work on creating pieces of music as a center based activity. I could also see using this software with my talented and gifted small group of students. The program is not too complicated and offers so many sounds and options.

I could also see me using the program to create loops to back up impove singing activities with my younger students. I am not great at piano or guitar, my main instrument is clarinet, so this offers me a way to accompany my students that is easy to use.

I have always loved technology, but feel I am out of the loop now that I have been out of college for eight years. I have found games for my students and create simple activities using my smart board, but I never thought I would find cool programs to create music that are appropriate for elementary students. I have to say that creating music with my students has always been an area that I do not spend as much time on as I feel I should, but have found myself getting excited about creating now that I have found fun new ways to do it with. I definitely feel my students will be doing a lot more creating this year and I don’t think they will be nearly as apprehensive about it because of all the cool software they get to utilize.

Week 2: Notation Software Review

This weeks task of using music notation software was wonderful. In my undergrad I used and took a class on Finale and Sibelius. I have always loved Finale and have always wanted to own it, but the cost is so high that I have always just gotten by with the free/sample versions. Using the sample version of Finale is extremely frustrating and it never does all the stuff that you need and want it to do. I have not looked for a free notation system in a while, but Musescore is my new “go to” software.

Musescore is a great alternative to Finale and has everything I could possible want. From what I remember from Finale, Musescore is set up in a very similar way (maybe an older version). It is easy to set up a score and extremely easy to enter in notes and rhythms. I especially like all the functions available for free with dynamics and articulations. I hate when music does not looked organized and even, with Musescore it is so easy to get everything lined up and looking nice.

I can’t wait to re-type my 5^th grade recorder music into Musescore. I typed up my recorder packets almost seven years ago using a free version of Finale and over the years I have had to edit the music by hand because the free version was only good for so long. The music is starting to look run down and very messy. Musescore will easy give my music a facelift this year.

As for Noteflight, I was not as impressed with this software. It is a little more difficult to use and almost seems clunky compared to Musescore. I think the difference is that Noteflight is an Internet based program, were Musescore you download the software and use it on your computer. Noteflight can only offer so much as an Internet based program or it would not work online, where Musescore can offer a lot more options. Though it is nice having the option to not download the software. Noteflight might actually be better to introduce to students as a free software option, because it is not as complicated as Musescore.

Overall, I was very impressed with the software this week and can’t wait to discover other new gems.

Noteflight

A Bicycle Built for Two

Noteflight is a great free tool that offers educators a way to create sheet music for their students. The program is not too difficult to use and easy to figure out with little direction. I do, however, feel that this program is better for shorter pieces, because scrolling down while working was frustrating to me. Overall, it was easy to enter in notes and chords. The lyric function can get annoying because once you get to the end of one line it will not continue onto the next line by itself. The little things in the program that are annoying are not bad and are easy to overlook when looking at the amazing price, FREE!