Ten Websites and Uses in the Elementary General Music Classroom: #10-6 Amy Burns Far Hills Country Day School aburns@fhcds.org At the beginning of each calendar year, I blog about 10 items that are useful to the elementary general music classroom. Past posts have included ten technology tools for an elementary music concert and ten educational technology (edtech) tools to enhance an elementary general music classroom. This year, I chose to write about ten websites for the elementary general music classroom because most elementary music educators have access to at least one device that has internet access. In this article, I present numbers ten through six. The following items can enhance a classroom with one device, as well as an elementary music classroom with 1:1 devices, where each student has access to a device. #10 Free Lesson Plans Many of us love paid websites to purchase lesson plans and manipulatives, such as Teachers Pay Teachers (teacherspayteachers.com), as they also offer discounts and free downloads from time to time. However, there are also some sites that have free lessons written by teachers for teachers. A few to note are: • Share My Lesson (sharemylesson.com) – Though not have as thorough of a database as Teachers Pay Teachers, they have free lessons written by educators for educators. When I apply the filters for K-2/Arts/Music, I find 498 lessons. • Smithsonian Folkways Lesson Plans (https:// folkways.si.edu/lesson-plans/smithsonian) - This site has lesson plans where one can browse the map to find world music curricular experiences from Smithsonian Folkways’ Network of Music Educators. All lessons can be downloaded in PDF format. • Carnegie Hall Music Educators Toolbox (https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Educators/ Music-Educators-Toolbox) - Another great resource for TEMPO
free lesson plans. As written on their website, “set of free online resources for music teachers includes lesson plans and activities, summative and formative assessments, video examples, and documented best practices. Designed to be effective and adaptable in a wide variety of music classrooms, the resources were developed through Carnegie Hall’s five-year residency in a New York City elementary/middle school.” #9 Free Tech Resources Three of the best resources for edtech are Richard Byrnes’s website, “Free Technology for Teachers”, Katie Wardrobe’s website, “Midnight Music”, and the Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) website. • Free Technology for Teachers (https://www. freetech4teachers.com/) - Richard has an amazing amount of free edtech resources for any educator. I love that you can type into the search tool for any type of music technology and you would search his database that goes back 12 years. Richard puts his heart and soul into his work. I adore reading his posts and newsletters. I learn a great deal from him and am thankful for this wonderful, free resource. • Midnight Music (https://midnightmusic.com. au/start-here/) - Katie is based in Australia and is brilliant when it comes to music technology. I have known her for years and she always amazes me to how well she knows music technology and edtech and how wonderfully she can showcase and teach it to music educators. Her website has numerous free resources, lessons, ideas, and webinars. There is also a paid subscription where the user can have access to all lessons, webinars, tutorials, and so much more. • TI:ME (ti-me.org) - TI:ME was established in 1995 for the purpose of assisting music educators with music technology. This mostly contained learning how to record and use notation software. In the past 25 years, 32
APRIL 2020
