I am a person who needs sound around me while I work. At home the television or music is always on from dawn to dusk.  Maybe that is why I am a music teacher.  If you like to have music on while you work or surf on your computer, a good site is http://www.pandora.com/   This site is an online radio that plays the songs you like without ads.  You tell it what genre or artist you would like to hear and that is what plays.  It will also find songs similar to your favorites.  It will remember what you have played.  There are many choices. Best of all it is FREE.  Teachers like that word.  Pandora can keep you company.  Try it out. 

If you have been teaching for awhile, you probably have cassette tapes that are gathering dust.  They were once useful, but now are replaced by cds.  Last week I found out that I could turn these good tapes into great cds.  I used my computer.  It really was easy. First you need audacity download on your computer. This is free software found at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.  Next connect your tape player to your computer. This is done by using the headphone jack on the tape player and the microphone jack on the computer.  You will need to use a cord with two headphone jacks on each end. I unplugged mine from my headphones.  It is a cord that looks the same on both ends with a 1/4 inch jack.  Import the song  into audacity.  Edit it if you wish and then export to itunes as a mp3.  Burn your cd and presto you are done.

Audacity is a great tool for the classroom. This software will allow you to record speaking, singing or your favorite cd.  Once in this software you can edit or split tracks.  It is great for making podcasts and your own cd.  Enjoy.

Do you wish you could learn more, but just don’t have the time?  180 Technology tips  is a website that can help.  It send an email every school day September thru June with a 5 minute lesson.  These technology lessons are simple and practical. Some of the lessons are everyday knowledge to you and others answer that question “Why didn’t I know that?”  The website is http://www.180techtips.com/index.htm    The lessons add up to 15 hours of training.  The amazing part is you only invest 5 or less minutes a day.

I just wanted to write a note to encourage you to use United Streaming no matter what subject you teach.  I teach elementary music , but technology is alive and well within my classroom.  As an example, this week in 5th grade music we talked about  ripping , burning cds and the copyright laws.  I believe our children need to know what is acceptable and what is not.  Many wanted to know how to burn cd’s, but had no idea how.  They need to know the rules as well as the method.  Our jobs as teachers is to train responsible citizens.  As we use technology let us train our students to be respectful .

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