Creating Digital Materials

Whatever are teachers to do with all those transparencies they have from old curricula that they wish to keep? What about those aging manipulatives that are on their last leg? I have used an overhead projector only once and when the light bulb goes out, the teacher can find him/herself in a pickle if that technology is the primary instruction tool. If the teacher has technology in the classroom, the most reasonable alternative is to digitize those transparencies and manipulatives by scanning them into a computer. Teachers can take it a step further and create a PowerPoint or Adobe Acrobat file with all of the items.

The transparencies are from the music series "Share the Music" by McGraw-Hill.

I recently scanned the Listening Map Transparencies for the Share the Music textbook series for each grade into my computer. I merged the files together in an Adobe Acrobat file and store them into the computer. I did the same thing for a set of music rhythm cards I bought. By scanning the material into the computer, I can point to the rhythm, correct student mistakes, and say and play the rhythm with students instead of holding the card in my hand. Scanning all of those cards and transparencies was time consuming, but the convenience of being able to access files quickly and maintain classroom discipline is definitely a plus!

I scanned these music manipulatives I purchased into my computer. The color-coded manipulatives were saved into a slide show with the types of notes on the title page. In addition, I rotated the rhythm cards 180 degrees and require students to read the card and recognize that rhythms can be read forward and backward.