Web 2.0 for Music Teachers

Chapter 6.5 from McPherson, G., & Welch, G. (Eds.). (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Music Education, Volume 2. Oxford University Press, USA.

Abstract: This paper describes a multimodality approach that helps primary-school students improve their learning performance during music instruction. Multimedia instruction is an effective way to help learners create meaningful knowledge and to make referential connections between mental representations. This paper proposes a multimodal, dual-channel, multimedia learning (DML) system that provides efficient control over several multimedia objects such as Word files, PowerPoint files, web pages, images, films, and real-time videos. The multimodal DML system was applied in an experiment in which 32 fourth-grade students were assigned to the experimental group, where they received twelve 40-minute music lessons using multimodal presentation over a period of eight weeks. The control group consisted of 32 fourth-grade students who received the same twelve 40-minute lessons, but with musical notations. The results reveal that students in the experimental group showed a higher level of learning achievement and motivation than those in the conventional group. The conclusion was that multimodal presentations are helpful to scaffold learning.

From the National Arts Centre - orchestral instruments, musicians and composers

Incredibox is one of those websites that really have to be seen to be believed. It encourages composition skills in students, but in a fun and user-friendly way. Basically you create your own a cappella group song from a list of chosen voice generated sound effects. It is incredibly addictive and even has bonus bridge sections that can be earned from creating a worthwhile composition. Everything is guaranteed to match musically so you can use this with any age of elementary students and still get great results. Try it and you will love it.

There are four music games on Classics for Kids, and each of them are based on solid musical theory. The Rockin' Rhythm Master encourages children to listen to and repeat drum beat rhythms, while the Note Name game is all about naming notes on a staff. The composer time machine offers musical samples from great musicians, and a simple composer lets students create music as long as they keep four beats to every bar. The games open in a small window, so if you use Firefox, I would recommend the Flash Game Maximizer plugin in order to make them full screen.

A few links to additional music resources for whiteboards etc.