Five Tech Tips to Assist Elementary Music Educators with Digital Manipulatives Amy M. Burns Far Hills Country School aburns[at]fhcds.org
b. Clipchamp.com: Clipchamp has a free version and a paid subscription. It is an online, as well as desktop, video editing tool owned by Microsoft. Currently, the free version allows you to create 1080p(HD) videos with unlimited watermark-free logos, and gives you access to free audio, image, and video stock, as well as free filters and effects. If you have a video that needs to be mirrored, you can create a free account, then upload the video to Clipchamp, click on the video tools, and flip the video horizontally (see figure 4). When finished, you can export it to your hard drive, or share it to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, or LinkedIn, or upload to YouTube, send to TikTok, pin to Pinterest, embed with an HTML code, share to various apps, or create a link.
One of the critical aspects of our elementary music teaching scenarios is creating or using visual manipulatives to assist in teaching musical concepts, displaying visuals, teaching to multiple modalities, and so much more. Since 2020, many music educators have created and utilized digital resources and manipulatives in their classrooms. As we have developed and used these resources, we have come up against some challenges. Here are five tech tips to assist with creating digital manipulatives or trying to overcome some obstacles, or some tools that can assist you when needed. 1. Mirror a YouTube Video This tip came up when we were preparing for the NJMEA Conference. We were thrilled to be able to feature Dr. Missy Strong and Franklin Willis as our featured presenters for the Elementary Academy. Franklin has become a very popular presenter for many reasons from his teaching methods to his fabulous digital resources. One of his most popular videos is the Rhythm Stick Line Dance. The challenge with the video is that it is not mirrored. When he goes to the right, the students watching and participating in the classroom are going to their left. There a few solutions to making the video mirrored so that the students participating will go in the same direction. Here are two: a. Mirrorthevideo.com: I thank Becki Tarby for this tip. In the YouTube URL of the video that you would like to mirror, delete the “youtube” and replace it with “mirrorthevideo.” This will create a mirrored video in the tab that you can use at any time (see figures 1, 2, and 3).
Figure 4: Clipchanp.com
2. Presenting a YouTube video without comments/ads/etc. There are many ways to do this. Here are a few: a. Place YouTube videos in Google Slides: If you have access to Google Slides, you can place YouTube videos into the slides using the insert menu: Insert>Video then add the YouTube URL or type a description of the YouTube video into the search bar. b. Create a Google Site: If you have access to Google Sites, you can create a Google Site and insert YouTube videos there to have them organized in one place. You can also share them with your students.
Figure 1: Mirror the video
Figure 2: Mirror the video
Figure 5: Wakelet.com Figure 3: Mirror the video
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