Digital Teaching Tools

“Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing.” 

Donna J. Abernathy

Below are various webpages and document I collected and organized from the public domain and Dr.Albert’s and Dr.Lehmberg’s music library.

MUSIC BLOCK – Colorado Public Radio

https://www.cpr.org/podcast/music-blocks/

A music appreciation podcast about the building blocks that make up your favorite sounds. Music Blocks explores how songwriters and composers use sound to express their emotions and share their experiences. Each episode runs about 5 minutes to fit easily into family time, classroom discussion or your podcast queue.

Directly quoted from the webside

Noodle Loaf Music Education Podcast for students

Episodes contain fun music for kids, movement activities, rhythm games and plenty of learning through play! The show is created by musician, early childhood music educator and best selling children’s book author, Dan Saks.

Music play online

https://musicplayonline.com/

It contains almost every aspect of general music learning from Pre-K to Middle School. It is an excellent resource for teachers, highly recommended! The students can browse the content freely using student access code once the teacher pay for the subscription.

Highlights
  1. Sample lessons for each grade
    (Ex. concept slides, song activities and kids demo videos)
  2. Interactive games and assessment/practice tools for fundamental music knowledge
    (Ex. steady beat practice, rhythm play along, learning note names, trivia wheel)
  3. The ability to create “My Lists”
    (You can select one or multiple contents from different lessons and activities and use them to create your own lesson plan)
  4. Lots of different songs, poem and story books are available for lesson planning
  5. Lesson instructions for Recorder, Ukulele and Orff instruments

Classic for kids

https://www.classicsforkids.com/

“Classic for kids” is an amazing free website that introduces classical music to young students in a fun and entertaining way. It has three main categories, Listen, Play, and Learn.

Listen!
They update their podcast each week with new focuses. The topics could range from famous musicians to music history. Each podcast has musical examples and important background information. The full series is available under the “Past Shows” tab.

Play!
There are a lot of interactive activities for students to learn about composers, instruments of the orchestra, musical terms, note values/names, and more. Two of my favorite features are “Explore The Composer Timeline” and “Compose Your Own Music”.

Learn!
It contains a lot of practical resources for students and teachers. It has music activity sheets (available for printout), a full Musical Dictionary, and sample lesson plans for teachers who want to integrate “Classic for Kids” content into their curriculum.

The most significant feature of this website is the resource page for parents. It gives helpful guidance for choosing an instrument, selecting a teacher, and learning to practice properly.

Musical Explorers

Carnegie Hall Education Programs

Musical Explorers is a free curriculum designed to connect students in grades K–2 to rich and diverse musical communities as they build fundamental music skills through listening, singing, and moving to songs from all over the world. Each program culminates in an interactive concert experience, during which students celebrate what they’ve learned by singing and dancing along with their new favorite artists. Recommend this to educators as well as world music lovers.

Symphony for the kids – Learning Opportunity for Young Students

A lot of symphony orchestras have a sub-page for young students to explore musical knowledge. The contents include but are not limited to instrument demonstrations, concert etiquettes, performing videos, and music history. It’s a fantastic way to learn about music before stepping into the concert hall.

Listed in no particular order

 A Guide to 100 Musical Instruments – Interactive Activity

https://www.aaastateofplay.com/the-wide-world-of-music-a-guide-to-100-musical-instruments-interactive/

This online webpage includes 100 instruments from all around the world with simple sound demonstrations. It is a fun interactive resource for young students to explore various instruments and experience different timbres.

Resource contributed by Susan and Ethan

Musical Glossary for Kids By Carina Jaramillo

https://www.theaterseatstore.com/blog/musical-glossary-kids

This webpage contains a great breakdown on the various terms and definitions used in music theory, including tempo, crescendo, the major and minor scales. You can also scored down to the Additional Resources for extra information located at the bottom of the page.

Resource contributed by Anna and LouAnne Taylor

Chrome music lab

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments

Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments. It provides great opportunities for student to explore musical elements on their own, with proper guidelines, in-class activities on Chrome music lab may be doable.

Highlights
  1. Song maker (Create music by clicking the bars, there are options to change instruments, tempo, bar number, starting pitch, scale, range, beat per measure, create simple harmony. save as MIDI or WAV file)
  2. Kandinsky (Draw lines and shapes to create music), Rhythm (add in multiple beats and hear how it was shown through different instrumentations)
  3. Arpeggios (Different Arpeggio patterns and major/minor mode are available for students to explore)

Creditability by Google

https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/creatability

Great tool for students with physically disabilities. The user can experiment music through body movement. Another great tool for self-exploration.

Musictheory.net

For people that are interested in learning fundamental music theory, this is a great self-learning tool. It’s super interactive and up to date. I would also highly recommend this to teachers who are considering bringing theory to your classroom, it has great chord demonstration and detailed explanation of different concepts.

https://www.musictheory.net/lessons

Incredibox – Melody and Rhythm generator

https://www.incredibox.com/demo/v3

Incredibox is a music video game, developed and published by the French company So Far So Good. The concept of the game is users dragging and dropping sound icons on different characters to make music. The player can find combos to unlock animated bonuses and record mixes to integrate a ranking.

Rhythm dictation

https://www.therhythmtrainer.com/

There are two modes available:

A: Choose rhythmic patterns by listening to the audio

B: Choose audio from written rhythmic patterns.

The user can also adjust the tempo (fast or slow), beat highlight (on or off), and basic rhythmic patterns. It’s easy to use, good for self-evaluation, and the result can be sent via email.

Rhythm randomizer

http://www.rhythmrandomizer.com

It has more advanced settings, such as playback, measure count, time signature, and note selections. It might be too hard for students to use on their own, but It’s great for in-class assessment.

Tempo interactive index: https://musicplayonline.com/activities/Tempo%20Interactive/assets/printable_menu.pdf

Tempo poster: https://musicplayonline.com/activities/Tempo%20Interactive/assets/tempo_posters.pdf

Pear Deck for Google Slides

A Google slides add-ons that helps you design PPT and other class materials.

  • Custom activity or question from scratch. Use Text, Number Response, Multiple Choice, and Web Slide questions to engage students.
  • Add audio to any given slides through its recording function
  • Web-based application to K–12 schools and teachers

Edpuzzle

A platform that allows you to pre-design videos and questions and keeps track of students’ learning progresses.

  • It helps to track the numbers of times the student have watched a certain session and where they are in their self-learning process.
  • The teachers have the option to insert their own voice narrations and questions anywhere in the video.

Bouncy Ball

Fun tool for classroom management! It’s a sound detecting device. If the volume gets too high in class, the ball will bounce up and make a “Shhh” sound. (You can even change the ball into other objects.) It’s a good visual reminder for students to stay quiet and work independently.

https://bouncyballs.org/

Bandlab – Music Composition

https://www.bandlab.com/?lang=enn

Online music composition software, easy to use and access

Technology for Teaching and Learning 2020

Tech for Teaching and Learning 2020Download

This document has music and non-music related websites and information that any educator will find it helpful.

China on Stage – 舞台上的中国

  • Video presenting Chinese traditional instruments, singing, dancing and essential cultural heritages, such as shadow play.
  • Quality educational resources
  • English subtitle
  • Membership required for view

Resources for Music Educators

David Row – Make Moments Matter

Home
  • Ukulele lesson
  • Teacher Pay Teacher store
  • Youtube channel + free teaching resources

Robert Amchin
Master Orff Schulwerk Music Educator

https://www.drrobamchin.com/

  • Lesson plan
  • Music video

Kate Bright

https://www.katebright.org/

Bow Tie Music – Youtube Channel

  • Student demonstration
  • A wide variety of song selections
  • Movement + folk dance from The New England Dancing Masters

The Music Class – Music Blog

https://themusicclass.com/blog

  • Song suggestions, update weekly
  • Useful teaching tips and instruction sequences for teacher