PRODUCING DIGITAL RESOURCES

Many teachers are producing their own digital resources; examples include Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets etc. In this section we explore simple ways of creating digital resources in a variety of other media forms.

Still images

These can obtained in the following ways although you do have to check copyright issues when using images from an external source ...

• internet download – search images from websites such as Google Images or Flickr and download as jpeg or bmp.scan
• an image from a photograph or a book using a digital scanner.
• digital camera – transfer to computer using a USB cable

Note: you school ICT support should be able to help with the above, if required.

There are arrange of software packages available for processing images and your school is likely to have such software .. for example, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. An alternative is to use downloadable freeware. One of the best is Irfanview.

Cropping images using Irfanview

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Select the area of the image you require and select Edit >> Crop

Whilst this helps to focus the reader’s eye on a smaller part of the image, you might still need to resize it ... high resolution images taken with modern digital cameras can be physically very large ie many pixels wide and high!

Resizing an image using Irfanview

Crucial for increasing download times for website images.

Load your image into Irfanview and select
Image >> Resize/Resample

Change the width and height measurements - the image on the right is approximately 300 x 350 pixels to give you an idea.

Or enter the dpi [dots per inch - the higher number, the larger the image] you require without necessarily adjusting anything else in that dialog window.

Click OK

Irfanview tutorials are available on the internet. Simply use 'Irfanview tutorial' as a search term in Google.

Making Audio clips

The ability to add sound to a teaching resource is an essential skill for music teachers. These can be recordings of your own students or excerpts from featured works. [As with all digitally produced resources, be aware of possible copyright infringement.]

The most popular audio editing software is probably Audacity

This is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. Download Audacity on to your computer from the Audacity website [Make sure you also download the LAME mp3 encoder – this will allow you to import and export mp3 files]

There are some excellent tutorials on Andy Murray's MusicWing site, which provides a guide to the basic functions. Log into the site and work through the Audacity skills topics. It is important to familiarise yourself with these editing routines:

• record something new
• trim start and end
• cut audio region
• silence audio region
• cut/paste audio region

Making Video clips

Students usually find short, well-produced video clips engaging and stimulating.

Consider involving pupils/other departments in production. Perhaps there is someone on your staff who could provide a whole staff inset on video editing?

See the Teaching Music website for some excellent examples of video produced by music teachers.  Using MovieMaker [Windows] or i-Movie [Mac] produce a short video related to some aspect of your music teaching. These programmes are largely intuitive, but you may require ICT support [especially re transferring video from camcorder to computer].

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