Great Google Tools For Teachers

Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom

Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom

Finding ways to stretch your budget in a music classroom is always important and even more so when trying to purchase high tech electronics, software, and other materials. This article provides an updated list of dozens of different low cost or free alternatives to expensive music education products. It includes such categories as music notation software, drill design software, special needs hardware, and many more.

The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.

The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.

This document contains sheet music for all common instruments to play The Star Spangled Banner, also known as the sheet music to the National Anthem of the United States of America. You can view the sheet music online or download the individual parts arranged for all common concert band instruments. If you do not see your instrument listed please scroll to the bottom of the page and try one of the the other instruments. Most musicians will be able to find at least one instrumental part that matches their range and preferred key signature. If you are seeking a simple piano version of the song please select from the voice, trumpet, or alto saxophone versions.

Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom

Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom

Music, band, choir, and orchestra classrooms can be huge and assessing the knowledge and retention of individual students in such a large class can be daunting. Plickers are one of several solutions that can be adapted to work in large groups, making the act of assessing a student’s understanding a little easier and a whole lot faster.

Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check

Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check

In recent years the question of whether or not marching band is a sport has been brought up time and time again for various reasons and by various groups. On one side you have the YES crowd who says that marching band is competitive, physically demanding, and every bit as much a team event as any traditional sporting event. On the other side of the coin are those who say no, that marching band is NOT a sport and it is a musical pursuit that happens to involve coordinated movements. Both sides are right, but to make a final decision we need to look deeper into the facts. Read on to find out what they are!

Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews

Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews

Scroll down to view the comparison chart of over a dozen different portable digital audio recorders.

Buying a portable digital audio recorder is a major decision. The balance between price, features, and quality is a fine line that has many different options to choose from. There are dozens of different models of portable digital audio recorders, some of which have drastically different sets of features yet sell for roughly the same price. This easy to read head to head comparison chart and guide to many of the more popular portable digital audio recorders is intended to help potential buyers more easily see these differences and make an educated buying decision.

Apps and More for the Choral Classroom

Apps and More for the Choral Classroom

The number of apps, software, and gadgets available for use in the music classroom continues to grow each year but finding things that can actually be beneficial to your classes grows more and more difficult as well. We spoke with Dr. Christopher Russell, Director of Choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, Minnesota to get his must-have list of apps.

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Online Tools For Teachers

I was recently asked to do a presentation for the teachers in my school on Google's various tools. I discovered that while most teachers use Google for all of their searches very few were aware of the great additional search tools that Google provides. These tools are great for any teacher, regardless of their particular discipline.

{mosimage}Google It!

Everyone uses Google for searching the Internet, but Google has come out with some great resources that are truly on a level all to themselves:

Google Scholar: www.google.com/scholar

Directly search the texts of peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Some articles are available in their full text forms. Others you may have to ask the media center or another library to help you obtain.

Pros: Lets you get your research from highly reputable sources, not just some generic web page.

Cons: Some articles cost money for reprints, sometimes it is hard to tell from the abstract if you really should bother with getting the full article.

Google Books: www.google.com/books

see also: http://www.gutenberg.org/

Search the full text of thousands of books and read the complete book online for books that are out of copyright and/or books that the publisher has given permission. In most cases you will be reading from an actual scan of the original book. The goal of the project is to help people find books and information that they normally would not be able to because the book is permanently out of print.

Pros: Allows you to limit your search to complete books rather than books that only have a single reference page in the system. Even the books with limited pages help you find books that you can then order through interlibrary loan or through a dealer.

Cons: Most of the books that are complete are so old that they are not of much use to researchers looking for current information.

Google News: www.google.com/news

Search for current articles and events from thousands of newspapers world-wide. You can even create your own personalized RSS feeds to download news specific to your area of interest directly to your desktop as it happens.

Pros: The RSS feature is a great addition to your desktop, especially if connected with a personalized Google search page. Want to see articles related to teaching physics? Set up an RSS feed with those words and get caught up on what is happening in your field.

Cons: Text search is very literal. You will often have articles suggested that have little or no relevance to the actual topic.

Google Alerts: www.google.com/alerts

Google will send you one email each day with a catalog of news articles that match your specific criteria.

Pros: Very handy if you are researching a specific topic.

Cons: Very literal and pulls in some information that is irrelevant to your research.

Google Translate: www.google.com/translate

If you find an article, a web site, or even a paper letter written in another language Google will translate it for you on the fly. If your search discovers a page written in German but you think it has information you vitally need, Google will translate the page and display it as if it had been written in English to begin with.

Pros: Very handy

Cons: Often mangles the syntax of a sentence.

Using Google as a Plagiarism Detector: www.google.com

If you suspect that a student has plagiarized in some way type part of the suspected text into Google's search. Chances are if the student copy and pasted it from the web he probably found it on Google to being with. In addition to the standard Google search you should also search using the other tools listed previously. The standard Google search will not always pull in information from these other tools.

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