Web Evaluation: Classics For Kids

1. Name of Website: Classics For Kids
   

2. Web Site Address: www.classicsforkids.com
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: ©2007, Cincinnati Classical Public Radio, Inc.

4. Author/organization Credentials: Provided by Cincinnati Classical Public Radio, WGUC 90.9
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 10! This site is incredible. The layout is fantastic, easy to use, and very kid safe and kid friendly. It even provides a feature that makes sure you know when you are leaving the “kid friendly” website and going to other websites that may not be so friendly through their link sections. While the site is built primarily for elementary students, it also has a “Teacher’s Section” and a “Parent’s Section”
   
   The “Kids” section is full of fun activities that incorporate learning into fun. You can listen to their weekly Kid’s radio show which teaches kids about music and music history while introducing them to classical music. The radio show is again very kid friendly, not boring like your normal classical radio show. The radio show is also time sensitive according to the seasons of the year. For example, the show for the week of Halloween is introducing students to Halloween music and teaching the history around this music and it’s composers. Listening to the show only requires a Flash plug in and doesn’t require a specific player like “Real Player”
   
   There are also links to listen to other music besides the pieces played on the radio show. The quality of this music is very good considering the speed at which it is played. There are links to games which are the best I’ve found on the internet for elementary instruction. My own children love these games and play them in their free time a lot.
   
   The “Teacher’s Section” includes great resources and lesson plans that are fantastic. The only drawback to the lesson plans is that unlike some other sites based in Texas, this Cincinnati based site does not include TEKS references. It would be well worth the effort to add this in for your use.
   
   The “Parent Resource” section is probably the weakest of the site. There is no new information on this page, it only points you to tools on the kids pages that are good in promoting music in the household.
   
   The only thing I dislike about this site is that when you load the home page it plays the same song every time. After a while of surfing through the site and going back to the home page, it get’s pretty annoying.
   
   
6. My response and recommendation for use: Again, I love this site and would recommend it’s use in the elementary music classroom. The “Music Dictionary” page would be a great tool for have students do research on terms you will be teaching in class. It presents the terms in a very fun way. I would also rely on some of the lesson plans provided in the “Teachers Section”. While these would have to be adapted for your needs and desires in the classroom, the way they tie in to the radio show and expose the kids to classical music in a fun way is incredible. I would especially encourage teachers to use the seasonal appropriate teaching to tie classical music into what is going on around them. Many students hear good classical music a lot but they don’t realize what it is. This site is a great tool for exposing them to great classics.

Web Evaluation: DSO Kids

1. Name of Website: DSOKids
   

2. Web Site Address: www.dsokids.com
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: 2003 Dallas Symphony Orchestra
   

4. Author/organization Credentials: Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Texas.
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 7. The ease of navigation is fantastic. It is very user friendly and especially kids friendly however some of the design elements are lacking.
   
   One of the navigations tools that I love is that the site is split up into two “rooms”, one for Teacher use and the other for Student use. This would make it very easy to send students to this site and not be bogged down by all of the teacher material. On the student side, there is a very kid friendly room where students can view and listen to the instrument encyclopedia, look at the orchestra seating chart over the different time periods, read about Texas history, listen to music, download instructions on building your own instrument, read news, read about composers, play games and more. The games are fun and encourage learning. My favorite games were “The Time Machine” where you place composers in the correct period, and “Beethoven Baseball” where you answer music history questions to bat the ball and score your players. The “Teachers Lounge” is full of resources for Elementary music teachers and links to other great sites and resources.
   
   The only reason I would give this site a lower than 10 ranking is because of some of the design elements. Some of the design is very cheesy and I think you would lose some of the great opportunities to use the site to teach with older elementary students because of the “cheesyness”. Also, the site is very slow loading. There are a lot of flash elements involved in the rooms and in the games so it takes a long time to load even on a fast computer.
   

6. My response and recommendation for use: I would highly recommend this site for an elementary music teacher. It could be used as reward for good behavior, letting the students have “play time” on this website which reinforces what is being taught in the classroom. I could also see using some of the games (like the Time Machine game) in a group setting with all of the kids playing along.
   
   The “Teachers Lounges” is a must for music teachers offering many helpful resources. I would recommend that music teachers check out the “Activities” links that sends you to lesson plans that are cross-curriculum (example: connecting music to math) and include the TEKS numbers.
   
   Finally, I think this site would be especially helpful for a music teacher in the Dallas area. DSO does a great job of connecting the classroom to their performances and all elementary music teachers should take advantage of this if possible. The “I am a musician” page tells facts about some of the performers in the DSO. It would be great to have students read those pages and then meet the performers at the concerts.

Web Evaluation: J.W. Pepper

1. Name of Website: J.W. Pepper
   

2. Web Site Address: www.jwpepper.com
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: Copyright, J.W. Pepper & Son, Inc. No Copyright date was listed or last update.
   

4. Author/organization Credentials: J.W. Pepper and Son, Inc. touts itself as the “World’s Largest Sheet Music Retailer” and has it’s home office in Paoli Pennsylvania. J.W. Pepper also has 15 regional offices around the country.
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 9. This site is very easy to use and so much better than the days of spending hours in a dusty music library or music store.
   
   From this site, you can quickly and easily view and listen to music for choral music, band music, orchestra music, church music, classroom music, lesson books, folk music, gift ideas, instrumental music, solo and ensemble music, jazz music, piano music, vocal music, study scores, as well as purchase music technology and even gifts. The drop down boxes lets you quickly focus your searches for the specific ensemble you are looking for. Music is also graded according to difficulty to keep you from wasting time searching through college level literature for a children’s choir. There are specific groupings for Holiday and specialty music if you are looking for the right Christmas song for your men’s choir.
   
   After narrowing down your search according to your group’s needs, genre, style, etc, you can then listen to the entire piece using “Real Player” and view parts of the piece using “Adobe Acrobat”. At this time, not all music is available to listen to or view but the majority of it is. The navigation is very smooth and fast and so helpful in finding the right music for your group.
   
   One of my favorite features of the site is the “e-print” feature. You no longer have to wait for them to ship your music for you to get started. You can now purchase and download a digital copy and print it from your school. You can either print one copy to get started and order the rest to be shipped, or pay the copyright fees to do all of the printing yourself. This is such a time saver and saves procrastinators like me! From my experience, not all of their library is available for e-print but as they progress, more and more is becoming available.
   
   The only reason I would hesitate to rank this site a ten is for the following two reasons. First, the site does not operate properly with “Firefox” as your web browsing software. They need to fix this as so many use “Firefox” for their web browser and it is a pain to have to remember to open this site with “Internet Explorer”. Second, I don’t like that it requires “Real Player” for listening to the music. I’m not a fan of “Real Player” and some schools will not allow its use on their networks. So, for these teachers, they have to do their music shopping from a home computer or be a thorn in the side of the school’s technology director. I wish Pepper would post the songs with the option of “Real Player” or “Windows Media Player”. This should cover all needs.
   

6. My response and recommendation for use: It may be strange to review a retail store for this assignment but I feel that this site definitely falls under the “practical to the work in your content area” guideline for music teachers. In the past, a music teacher only had two ways of finding new music for their ensembles. First, to go solely on the recommendation of fellow music teachers, hoping that what worked for their ensemble would also work for yours, or second, to spend countless hours sitting at the “Pepper Booth” at a music teachers convention such as TMEA, rummaging through piece after piece, singing them to yourself, hoping that the music you took home with you would work for your ensemble. This site has made this process of choosing music much more streamline and helpful in choosing curriculum (the music you teach) that will both challenge the students to higher learning and give them success in the music they perform.
   
   While there are a few other websites and companies that have this service (www.popplersmusic.com and www.rbcmusic.com) , JW Pepper is the industry standard and by far the biggest and best website. This site is used by every music teacher (middle school, high school, college, band and choir) that I know for choosing music that is best suited for their ensembles. I would recommend that any teacher going into teaching music be well versed in the use of this site.
   
   Finally, all music teachers should be well educated in the copyright laws of music use. Teachers on a short budget or looking for shortcuts will be tempted to order a single copy of music and simply photocopy enough for his or her entire ensemble. This is illegal and can get your school and you into a lot of trouble.

Web Evaluation: Music Tech Teacher

1. Name of Website: Music Tech Teacher
   

2. Web Site Address: www.musictechteacher.com
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: © 2002-2007 Music Tech Teacher
   

4. Author/organization Credentials: Created by Ms. K Garret, music technology teacher at Central Park School in Birmingham Alabama. This site was created as an extension of her teaching but is free to all who wish to use it. This site is used in teaching 2^nd -5^th graders in the areas of music theory, composition, history, and general music.
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 9. I would have two small critiques for ease of navigation. First is that it has so many resources you could spend all of your time looking for the “perfect” quiz or lesson! However, I would trade the effort that it takes for all of the incredible resources for an elementary teacher. Second, it is clear that much of the website is geared directly for the teacher and much of it for the student. I would like to see the designer design in such a way that students could easily go to this site and get to the quizzes and lessons that are appropriate for them. I could see how students could be confused as to where to go.
   
   My favorite page is the “Quizzes, Games, Music Help” page. This page has many well done quizzes and fun informational games that encourage learning and are helpful at checking learning progress. My favorite game, not that I took time to play them all, is “Half Step Time”. This game works on identifying half-steps in the chromatic scale with the goal of making your animated teacher walk the plank! This is a very funny game and helps kids work on this skill. A very helpful feature on this page is the “Software Icon Key” at the bottom of the page. This helps you weed through games and quizzes that you can’t use because you don’t have the proper software. Most software is readily available and easy to install, however, with all the locks that schools put on their computers (especially labs) you could run into problems with the various software.
   
   The only problem I ran into was running the “Sibelius” software. While there is a free Active X program available for download and installation, my computer froze up in attempting to install this particular software. In most cases, the web designer offered an alternative way of seeing the file needed through Adobe Acrobat but I would like to see if Sibelius offered more features that would be helpful for instruction.
   

6. My response and recommendation for use: I LOVE this website for elementary music use! I would recommend that elementary music teachers use this site as both a resource for instruction and a model for an innovative way to set up a music technology laboratory.
   
   In the area of instruction, I would use this site both as reward for students who are behaving well in class. Letting children “play” on the computer while learning is a great way to increase comprehension. I watched my 4^th grade daughter play last night for one hour on a website that was teaching her math facts. The games are innovative and help with memory. I would also use the quizzes to check learning at the end of teaching sections. For example, after teaching on the history of Mozart, I would test the students by having them take the corresponding quiz. There are also worksheets available for download that would save an elementary music teacher prep time.
   
   In the area of using this website as a model, I know that the setup that Ms. Garret has is not possible in all schools. However, I would hope all teachers would use her site as a model of “thinking outside the box” and being innovative and creative in classroom teaching.
   
   Finally, I love the section where students can post their own compositions. This encourages musical creativity in the students, get’s the parents involved and excited by letting them listen to their student’s creation, and builds up the students confidence by having their music “published” just like real artists. It serves as a sort of “virtual refrigerator” for musicians. When my sons or daughters bring home good papers in English and Math, we post them on our refrigerator. With this site, you have it posted on the internet to share with family and friends. This would be easy to do in any AISD classroom with the simple use of “Finale” software, MIDI technology, and use of the “Blackboard” website through amaisd.org.

Web Evaluation: TMEA

1. Name of Website: Texas Music Educators Association
   

2. Web Site Address: www.tmea.org
   

3. Copyright date and/or last update: Copyright 2007 – Last updated 10/03/2007
   

4. Author/organization Credentials: TMEA – Texas Music Educators Association began as the Texas Band Teachers Association in 1920. The organization currently is composed of over 9,000 music educators across Texas. This organization is the organizers of all Texas All-State Music Groups and is a major lobbyist for music in schools.
   

5. Web site design and ease of navigation: On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 being the lowest ease of use and 10 being the highest) I would give this site a 7. The navigation bar at the top of the page is very helpful and breaks the site down it to “bites-size” elements. However, the content of the front page seems a bit jumbled and unorganized. I think for a return user, this would be ok but for a first time user trying to navigate into needed content, it would be more difficult than it should be.
   
   From the top navigation bar, it is very easy to surf to needed information areas. For example, when needing information on Texas All State Choir Auditions, you simply pull down the “divisions” drop-down menu to “vocal” and then to the “all-state”. This area provides music information that is needed for any High School choir director in the state of Texas. Navigation is also easy to helpful links connecting music teachers across the music industry.
   
   While navigation is overall good, there were some problems I noted. First, was the sites use of pop-ups. This causes some hassles because of the current standard use of popup blockers. I would hope the web designers could steer around the use of this kind of pop-up. I also noticed that the Elementary division seemed to be underrepresented on the site. For example, the region calendar for Region 1 (Amarillo’s region) didn’t list any elementary events. I happen to know that there were elementary events because my wife is the elementary region chair! So, this site seems to be highly focused for High School Band/Choir/Orchestra and has less use for Elementary, Middle School or College.
   
   Finally, while the navigation bar was very useful, the general design of the front page is cluttered and not very attractive. It is hard to tell what the most useful and needed information is by looking at the front page. You have to know what you are looking for before you get there.

6. My response and recommendation for use: For High School and even Middle School music teachers, involvement in TMEA is an absolute must. The calendar year of choir, orchestra, and band highly revolves around involvement in the audition process for the All State Ensembles. The TMEA convention and other regional workshops are also very helpful and attending the February convention is almost a requirement among middle school and high school music teachers. With this in mind, I would recommend that every music teacher in Texas bookmark this site and use it as the tool that is intended.
   
   Another fantastic use for this site is as a resource in promoting Music Education. From the “News Media Tookit” to the “Fine Arts Enrollment Study”, the Resource Tab can be used to go beyond having a good ensemble to promoting music in your community.
   
   While this website is great for upper level music teachers, it is not one to recommend to students. Students are NOT the intended audience. However, there is a “Students” tab that can be useful for specific situations such as ordering past years recordings and applying for scholarships.