web design for kids

Building simple web pages with html is not only dead easy, but it's also a great enrichment activity for students in all disciplines.

Small Planet Communication's Create Your Own Web Page tutorial condenses the page-building process into seven simple steps. One of the greatest strengths of this tutorial is its "big picture" approach: it emphasizes the overall process rather than the niggling individual details of writing html. On the other hand, Small Planet's introduction to html is a bit too rushed and will likely leave students confused as to the specific functions of each tag. A little step-by-step instruction from a teacher should help mitigate this particular problem, though. Alternately, take a look at the Goodell Group's html for kids guide, a well-organized and well-written introduction to the most common html tags. Webmonkey for Kids also has some terrific lessons, project ideas, and links to html editing software.

resources for music teachers and musicians

I had to take a break from singing when I started library school, since the evening classes conflicted with the twice-weekly rehearsals. I'm looking forward to starting up again next year (assuming I finish this degree by then), but I'm a little anxious about getting out of practice, especially with sight-singing. So while this post is ostensibly for music educators, my primary motivation for sniffing around for online tools was personal.

Anyway, here goes:

Good Ear is a decent and free site for ear-training practice. Students can test their recognition of chords, scales, intervals, notes, and cadences by listening to a brief QuickTime recording played by either piano, guitar, or violin (user's choice). I also like the ear training tools on i was doing all right, which not only play slightly better recordings that Good Ear, but also show the student the notes on the musical staff -- the only on the treble cleff, for some reason.

You'll need a reliable broadband connection to use this virtual metronome effectively, since a slow or shaky connection will prevent the metronome from keeping an accurate beat. Though I still prefer my trusty pocket metronome, this electronic version makes for an acceptable substitute. I also enjoyed customizing the sounds of each beat.