Web 2.0 Tools for a Music Classroom!

These are 10 handy Web 2.0 tools a music teacher may use to teach his/her class.

Classic Cat

Classic Cat tool's purpose is for students to find classical music very easy. The website lists names of the composure's in alphabetical order, but you may also use a search bar to search a composer/song. When you click on a composer's name, it will bring the student to a page of everything that composer has written. As a teacher, I would love my students to use this tool to look up and be familiar with different classic composers. I would make it an assignment every week for a student to listen to a certain song/composer and write a short reflection on what they just heard and how it made them feel.

Music Theory

A very handy tool that I even use on a regular basis is Music Theory. This tool helps students to identify and study music theory. Music Theory provides lessons and exercises the students can review and practice outside of class. If we are studying music theory in the classroom I would assign my students to look up whatever lesson we just went over in class and to practice the exercises this tool provides. This tool will help the students understand and become very efficient in music theory.

Musipedia

Musipedia is a tool to help students find a melody that they know, but do not know what the song is called. Using Musipedia, you can base your search on a melody, melodic contour, or even rhythm. Students can find their song using a flash based piano, JavaScript piano, the mouse, or whistling/singing into the microphone. I would let my students use this tool to help them figure out a song that they know, but they do not recall the name to it. As an assignment, I could give the students a list of rhythms or melodies they had to sing into the computer and figure out what song it is.

Songsmith

Songsmith generates an accompaniment to match a singers voice or even an instrument. The student just has to choose a musical style and create a tune that they want Songsmith to accompaniment. They can also edit the accompaniment to how they want it to sound. As a teacher, I would have my students come up with a 30 second tune and lyrics to sing into Songsmith. The computer will then generate the song and then perform the piece to the class.

Lyricsfly

Lyricsfly is used to search artists, songs, lyrics, and albums. This tool can be very helpful in finding all the information about the song you would want to know. It also provides an Mp3 so the students can listen to the song while reading the lyrics. As a teacher, I would provide a list to my students to look up 10 famous pop artists. The students are then to list 5 songs and albums of what they looked up and listen to the songs.

 eQuizzer

eQuizzer is used to make custom quizzes that students can take online. A teacher can create their own template, set the number of questions, and even write their own questions. After a student takes a quiz, the teacher can grade it online and give out comments for the student to read. As a teacher, I could create a quiz once a week to evaluate the students progress in the music class. I would do a five open response quiz the students would answer and I would also give them feedback of what they still may need to work on.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a research tool students can use to complete their projects/assignments. When using this search engine, students have to be very specific on what they are searching for. Wolfram Alpha can provide information about whatever the students need to look up. As a teacher, I would have my students research a select few of the famous composure's and have them look them up and give facts from this tool.

Copyright Free Images

The Copyright Free Images tool provides students free images from the public domain. Using this tool, students do not have to cite their photos because they are not copyrighted. Students can look up hundreds of photos from animals to landscapes. As a teacher, I would have my students use this tool to add pictures to their presentations. When giving demonstrations in class, I could also use these images for my own work.

 Slideshare

Slideshare is an online tool kind of like PowerPoint. Students can create their own presentations using this tool and can share their work online with others in the class and the world. Students can even share their presentations on Facebook or Twitter. As a teacher, Slideshare can make it easier for students to create for assignments. Slideshare also makes it easier to share to the teacher for them to grade.

Soundcloud

Soundcloud is used to create and share different sounds. It can be accessed anywhere from IPhones and Android Apps if the student has internet access. They can also share their sounds on social media like Slideshare. As a teacher, I would have my students create music using Soundcloud. To turn the assignment in, they would use this tool and I would then grade it accordingly.

The upside of selfies: Social media isn't all bad for kids

Article: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/living/social-media-positives-teens-parents/

Selfie!

In this article by Kelly Wallace, it talks about the positives of social media for tweens/teens. Wallace interviewed 13-year-old Amelia, 8-year-old William, and their parents about their views on social media. In the video, the mother told the interviewer that she monitors Amelia’s Instagram account 24/7, but in part of the agreement she is not allowed to post anything on her daughters’ page. Amelia says social media can give individuals more of a confidence boosts to their selfie pictures that they post to the public. As it turns out it may be true. A report stated that “one in five teens said social media makes them feel more confident” and that social media is helping individuals to become more outgoing.

These comments actually surprised me, but at the same time it makes sense. Teens spend a lot more time on social media than I did when I was a teenager. Their lives are being built around social networking instead of more social interaction. A lot of teens take selfies of themselves to build up confidence from the comments other people post about the picture. As Amelia points out in a mathematical way, “If one person says this thing, it brings them down, but if this (other) person says the equal amount just as good, it evens out to a zero.” 

The article even showed examples of teens sharing videos of themselves performing songs on social media. Even though these individuals were singing off-key, they still had plenty of support from others. I was really happy to read this. Teens especially need to hear these encouragements from others and to give them that confident boost. It takes a lot of courage to post something like that on the web and it is so rewarding for those individuals to read the positive feedback!  

Social Media: How does it really affect our mental health and well-being?

Aritcle: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/275361.php

Image from: "Unhappy girl using computer." Images. Medical News Today. Web. 6 April 2015.   

Throughout this article written by Honor Whiteman, he described the negative effects of people’s mental health and well-being when users access Facebook on a daily basis. Whitman uses statistics to get his points across of how serious social media can have an emotional impact on individuals. He declares that Facebook can increase anxiety, low self-esteem, and also addiction. Being an active Facebook user myself, I agree with a lot of Whiteman’s arguments. 

I use Facebook to maintain relationships with my family and friends, to keep up with events and information for my Fraternity, and also to acquire information from reliable news. I am on Facebook every day, but I do not post, but every once in a while. I post important information that I feel like I should share and I feel other people may find interesting or pictures of the family/events. I am on Facebook just looking through other people’s posts, articles, and pictures. As Whiteman says, “we use social media…for self-distraction and boredom relief.” I agree with this, because half of the time I get on Social Media I ask myself, “Why am I wasting time looking through posts that I do not even care about?” 

I agree with Whiteman that Social Media may cause anxiety and low self-esteem as well. Many of my Facebook friends love to complain about their lives on the social media on a daily basis. With their comments, it is obvious that a lot of these individuals have very low self-esteem and can even post really hateful comments about themselves or others. Reading these comments, I always start feeling angry and even uncaring. This makes me feel awful because I should offer support, but when I try they will not listen. I guess they use Facebook as their rant box just to let everything that is bothering them out. I feel like it is their own personal business and should not be posted to the public every day. I also noticed that people begin to not care and comment less and less on those individual’s posts. 

I believe there are pros and cons to Social Media. I think it is a fantastic way to keep up with friends, family, and events. It also lets individuals express themselves to others through the internet that some cannot in the real world. But Social Media can also have very negative effects on individuals. They can become very addicted and have to log on to Facebook daily, become aggressive after being online for a certain amount of time or from what they have read, or increase their low self-esteem from posts. Despite all of the negatives, I agree with Whiteman that social networking sites are not going to fade anytime soon, because people have come to depend on it so much in the past few years. 

Welcome to Blogging!

Hello! My name is Kathryn Elizabeth Hemund. My mother tells me I am so "Queenly" because she named me after two famous Queens (except of course my first name is spelled more modern than Katherine). I think this is the reason why I am so interested in the Queens and Kings that lived in Britain in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance eras.  

I was born in Hot Springs, AR, but moved to El Paso, TX for 8 years. When I was 12, we moved back to Hot Springs. During that time my parents got a divorce. It was a pretty difficult time being in a whole new school and family issues going on. We got through it and I believe the divorce was for the best. My mom is now happily remarried, but now wants to move to a different state eventually.

I am studying Music Education at Henderson State University. I really want to teach younger kids about music and how important it is in today’s society. I want classical music to be familiar to younger students and hopefully they will enjoy listening to this genre. I want students to have knowledge to a large genre of music instead of just listening to one specific genre all of the time. Later, I want to teach Middle School choirs, because I think having students interested or being a part of singing is so important for students to find something they did not know about themselves and also to learn more about music along the way.

My major interests are that I love to read, watch movies, and of course sing. I like spending weekends with my boyfriend just to relax, watch a movie, and just have that moment of not thinking about life of school. I love reading, and I wish I had more time to do this at school. Singing has been my passion since I can remember. I remember my mother saying I used to sing all the time, now not so much. I think being in College and singing all the time I have kind of lost some of my passion for it. I miss singing for fun, but lately it has not been so much. I know it is just a phase and I will get over it. I still love to sing, I just need to find the fun in it again.

Image from: SCrowe. "music-notes-background-bickstock-photo3." Image. Lawrence County. 17 January 2014. Web. 6 April 2015.