With the scare of schools closing, whether it be because of sickness or inclement weather (yay for endless snow days!) , there is always talk about what to do when E-learning becomes necessary. With music class being a 90 percent performance and collaborative based environment, how can you translate this to being online? Today, this one is for you Quaver users, let’s go down the list of things you can do if you gotta go E-learning. 

There are a lot of options in here that do require having student accounts. There are several ways to create these. I highly recommend sending an email to the customer service gurus to get the directions on how to. 

Assignments in RM

The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the new tool in the Resource Manager that allows you to assign a full lesson to students or create a lesson from scratch. Both of these tools equally effective.

When assigning lessons straight out to students, you need to do the following:

• Head into the Resource Manager and search for the lessons you want to assign to your students in the search bar.
• Once you find the ones you are looking for, drag those lessons from the results into one of the folders on the right-hand side. Now you’ve made a copy of them. This is the time that you could customize the lesson if you want, or go straight to assigning it.
• To make it into an assignment, select the lesson you would like and then click the Menu button up top and select “Create Assignment From.” This will make a lesson that you can assign to your students.
• Once you have created this in the Resource Manager, you can then head into your Teacher Admin Panel and assign it for the students to be able to access.

Some lessons are not the best to assign right out because they are meant for whole group instruction, while others will do just fine. Look for the following criteria:

• Activities that have clear directions for students and/or family to be able to read. You want to make sure they know the purpose of each screen.
• Lots of interactivity that they can do. 
• Some screen that allows you to measure the success of the lesson, whether it be an assessment or interactive that they can use to demonstrate their new knowledge or skills.

The other thing that you can do in the Resource Manager is to create an assignment from scratch. This is almost exactly like customizing a lesson. To get started, all you have to do is to:

• Head into the Resource Manager and select the folder you would like the assignment to go into by clicking it once. 
• Then click Menu and New Assignment Template.
• This will create a new assignment. Please go into the folder you created the assignment template and find it in there. 
• Once you find it, click it once and then click edit. 
• Now you can search for Quaver things to drag and drop into the assignment or click menu to create a new screen such as the Teacher Recording Screen, which allows you to create short videos with instructions for the students!

This tool is, in my opinion, handy because you can not only use it to design some E-Learning for your students, but you can also use it to put ClassPlay songs together for your students to practice for concerts or even create lessons for projects you are doing in class. 

Project-Based Learning

YES, your students can do projects even outside of class. Even though a lot of the projects in Quaver are performance-based, you can have students record themselves using their devices using the Student Recording Screen for you to be able to see their creations, or they can send you the components of everything they did for you to see. 

*Tip- If you want to use student recordings in a different medium or share with others, I recommend having students also sending you a copy via dropbox, Google Drive, or email to make it easier for you. 

Some of my favorite projects that students could also do at home with some modifications:

• 4th-grade Rap Project
• 5th-grade Commercial Project.
• 6th grade Scoring for Animation.
• 7th grade Music, Media, and Technology.
• 8th grade Musical Styles.

Student Interactives

This area is great to be able to send students to if you want to have musical options open for them to access. Students can either access them from the Student Tab in their account or by clicking the Student Interactives button on the QuaverMusic.com main page and typing in a Class Code that YOU create in your Teacher Admin account and can pass along to students who do not have student accounts. 

Some highlights in here are:

• The recorder scores perfect for students to practice. If you wanted to do a recorder unit away from school time, I would recommend doing the lessons first and leave these for more practice time. 
• The Note and Rest Grab and Staff Champion games in the Music Theory area are GREAT. 
• Instrument Crane in Instruments and Knowledge!
• Rhythm Selectah in Music Creation!
• Orff Library in the Playing Music Section!

Beyond lessons, you could have a small library of activities like these for them to do if they feel like spending more time creating and learning about music. 

Creatives

This is where students can go to create and compose. Whether it be the creative lites or the regular creatives, they have lots of options when it comes to making music. Give them guidelines or let their imaginations run free and give them opportunities to share. A lot of these are also integrated into projects and lessons. 

Low-Tech Options

We have to think about equitable access when it comes to situations like these. There are some cases where you know every student in your school has access to the internet and a device. However, in most cases, there are still large populations of students who do not have access at home to a device or internet, so having options they can do without access to either is necessary. 

There are a lot of printable resources throughout the curriculum which allows you to send home a packet for students to do or have links available through email for maybe someone to go to the library to download and print out. A great place to start if you do not know what you are looking for exactly is the Essentials. Each one of the Quaver Classrooms has a worksheet area with lots of creative options for you to download and have your students do. I like the extra credit and craft ones because students can get hands-on with the activity and take their time creating a great product. 

*Tip- Classrooms 11 and 12 have some wonderful worksheets that focus on writing rhythms and melodies. Perfect for getting students started. *

Are you a Quaver teacher needing some help to get E-learning going for your students? Send me an email Catie@QuaverEd.com and let’s plan it out.