Introduction

Connexions is an open-education website which allows educators to share materials with each other. This module is just one of its many offerings; modules in any subject and at every grade level are welcomed. (See the Connexions home page for more information on the Connexions vision and mission. See below if you're interested in contributing in the area of music.)

In the area of music, Connexions has a wide variety of offerings, ranging from lesson plans for simple activities that can be presented by teachers who are not music specialists, to texts and information that would be useful for a specialized high school music class. If you know what you are looking for, you can use keywords to search for it at the Connexions site; there is a search window at the top of every Connexions page. If you need more information before searching, you will find this module helpful.

You will also find lists of the offerings available as of this writing, grouped so that you should easily be able to find the modules appropriate to your teaching situation. These lists are not complete, since modules are being added and updated regularly; the best use of these lists is to help you get an idea of what is available here that you may find useful. The lists included are:

Using the Materials

Finding the Right Materials for You

Because Connexions is a community effort, there is a wide variety of materials available, in terms of teaching style and student level as well as subject. There are also many holes that have not yet been filled. (See below if you are interested in helping to fill the gaps.) There are a number of ways to look for materials that are best suited to your teaching situation.

You can use a Connexions search. A search window appears at the top of every Connexions page. Using multiple terms can help narrow the results quickly. Including terms such as "lesson plan", "activity", or "elementary" can help eliminate many of the offerings you don't need, such as university-level texts, but may also eliminate materials you might find useful. If you find an author you like, it may be very useful to search for other work by that author.

Lenses provide a way to limit searches in Connexions so that they will only give results approved by the person or organization that developed the lens. This allows approval to be more specific than star ratings, which simply indicate general approval. For example, a teacher's group could identify the modules that were useful in meeting state standards for teaching music in elementary school; teachers using that lens would then be selecting only from approved materials. A different group might approve a different, but possibly overlapping, list. Individuals may also develop lenses; in conjunction with this module, the author will develop several lenses. Feedback from teachers is invited, concerning whether the lists or the lenses are more useful, and whether any modules seem to be in the wrong list or lens.

The lists below do not include all the offerings in the subject of music that are available in Connexions, but should give you some starting points in your search. Once you have found materials that are useful for your classroom, check the links from those modules and the courses that include those modules, as well as other modules by the same author.

Developing Your Own Curriculum Using Connexions

A curriculum is a journey from here to there. It is the students that must take the journey; the teacher can only act as a guide or co-explorer. "Here" is largely determined by the students. In music, the students' "here" includes not only their current knowledge of the subject, but also their current musical tastes and prejudices, as well as the ear training provided by the musical preferences of their family, friends, and culture. "There" may be largely determined by educational standards that must be met, but when those goals are also aligned with the students' natural interests, the students are most likely to actually take the journey to get there. In music, this does not mean catering to the students' current tastes, but rather engaging with them and expanding them in ways that the student will find interesting and exciting. This includes finding ways for students to learn about and create music that interests them, as well as finding new/other music and ideas that will intrigue them. An ideal curriculum, then, is one that can be easily tailored to the circumstances of the classroom.

One of the strengths of the Connexions site is that it is set up specifically to allow instructors to design their own curricula. The information is published in relatively short modules. The authors, who are generally also instructors, may group modules into a course for their own use, which other teachers are also free to use, but any instructor can use any modules in any order. All modules are completely available to any teacher or student; no membership is required. (Nor is there any advertising; the site is run as a non-profit.) As long as they follow the licensing rules, teachers can include Connexions materials, alone or with other materials, in a printed workbook or in a curriculum published elsewhere on the internet. However, educators who wish to, can sign up to create "collections" in Connexions, making their curricula easily available to their own students who have internet access, as well as to other educators. Some teachers may also want to take the step of becoming Connexions authors. For example, if you can find here nearly all of the modules you need for your curriculum, you may want to develop and publish the missing pieces; useful materials in Connexions tend to become quite popular, earning respect and gratitude for the author from other teachers and students.

Using open-education resources to design your own curriculum allows you to leave out lessons that you do not need or want to cover. There is, however, also the option of designating "extra" materials for students who are struggling with a concept or who wish to pursue something further.

Course and Module Lists

Searching the Connexions repository for terms such as "musical form", "dance", or "Caribbean music" will generally give a wide variety of results, only some of which will be useful for your teaching situation. The following lists are meant to give you quick access to many modules that might be useful for your classroom. When you find a useful module, you may want to follow links or look at the left sidebar to find "similar content", "collections using this module", or "lenses" that include this module.

A collection is any instructor's grouping of modules, as a unit, course, or class text. Many of the music modules have already been organized into a variety of collections. When needed, a printed copy of a collection can be ordered through Connexions; proceeds help to support the site. As of this writing, the following music courses were available:

Contributing to Connexions

Whether your creative efforts as an educator involve developing a single lesson plan, an entire unit or course, or arranging published materials into a new course, your work can benefit other educators, and many students around the world, if you make it available through Connexions.

Go to the Connexions home page to find directions for signing up as a Connexions author / instructor. There are also links from there to instructions that can help you get started using Connexions. There are also, in Connexions, many modules that cover how to publish modules in Connexions. These include everything from quick-start "manuals" to technical information about things like formatting, links and media.

Anyone who is having trouble publishing a K-12 music module in Connexions is welcome to contact the author for help. Anyone who has published music offerings in Connexions that would be useful to K-12 teachers is requested to contact the author, so that your lessons can be included in the lists above.

Internal links, which, unlike links to other sites, never break, become even more useful as more modules are included in Connexions. If you believe a module would be made more useful by linking to your module, contact the author and request a link. Consider including links in your modules, particularly if you include terms or concepts that some, but not all, readers may want more information about. To link to a specific spot in another author's work, look at the module source, or email the author requesting a target-id.

Connexions allows and encourages derived copies of modules. If a published module is almost, but not quite, what you need, you can easily make changes and publish your own version of the module. You may want to arrange to be a co-author of the new work with the original author; regardless, your new version will still be listed as a derived copy. This transparency of the work's history, giving everyone due credit for the work they have done, takes the place of the more restrictive copyright, so that a large commons of work can be made available to all of the educators and students who need it.

Other Resources for Music Teachers

If there is nothing available at Connexions in the area you need, remember that this site is not the only free on-line resource. As of this writing, the following pages included lists of sites with lesson plans and other useful resources for music teachers. Remember to check each resource for conditions on reproducing and using materials; there are, for example, a variety of types of Creative Commons license, with different conditions attached.