music express teacher user guide - collins express us… · interactive xylophone ... you may see...

© 2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Music Express

Teacher user guide

Getting started with Music Express ............................................................................................................. 1

Welcome screen .................................................................................................................................... 1

Quick start ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Using the player ............................................................................................................................ 4

Section-by-section guide .............................................................................................................................. 5

Lesson bank .......................................................................................................................................... 5

Year groups ................................................................................................................................... 5

Units .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Changing the unit order ........................................................................................................ 7

Lessons - summaries ..................................................................................................................... 7

Lessons - individual resources ....................................................................................................... 8

Song bank ......................................................................................................................................... 10

Warm ups .......................................................................................................................................... 11

Skill builders ...................................................................................................................................... 11

Instrumental resources .................................................................................................................... 12

Ukulele Magic ............................................................................................................................ 12

Interactive xylophone ................................................................................................................ 14

Glossary ............................................................................................................................................ 14

About Music Express ........................................................................................................................ 15

Help ................................................................................................................................................... 16

My favourites ............................................................................................................................................ 16

Search ....................................................................................................................................................... 17

Contact ...................................................................................................................................................... 18

© 2017 HarperCollins Publishers 1

Getting started with Music Express

Click on the Music Express tile on the Collins Connect dashboard to get started:

You may see tiles for other packages on the dashboard. If you've subscribed to these, you'll be able to

access these too. If you haven't they'll be greyed out and not accessible.

Welcome screen

Once inside Music Express, you'll see the Welcome page with a series of tiles featuring different sections

of the site. These sections are also navigable by the tabs along the top of the screen:


To the top-right of the screen is a link to 'My favourites' (where you can bookmark favourite resources),

a Search box, and a link to the user guide (PDF).

Quick start

Music Express is a practical, structured resource bank for teaching music in primary schools. It contains

lessons, songs, warm ups and a range of other musical activities that support every aspect of musical

learning in the primary school. Most resources comprise audio and/or video activities that are ideal for

group and whole-class teaching.

Resources are often grouped into years and, within that, units of work. After selecting a year (or year-

range), click on the sliding panels to access the unit; then click on a blue tile to access individual

resources:


Once you've clicked on a resource, you'll see a summary screen containing some useful planning

information, such as the lesson resources you’ll need, and key vocabulary.

Click on the blue lesson tile beneath and you’ll be taken to a player screen with instructions to its right.

Each resource contains one or more activities, often broken down into multiple steps:


Click on the tabs above the player to move between activities.

Using the player

The player features a number of controls along its bottom panel:

1. Play/pause: click on the button to play or pause an audio or video track.

2. Volume control

3. Rendition drop-down: many activities feature different renditions of a song or other audio track

(e.g. performance, verse, backing track). Use the drop-down control to switch between the different

recordings.

4. Lyrics drop-down: many activities allow you to play the song with/without on-screen lyrics. You

can often select whether these appear line-by-line, or a whole verse at a time.

5. Full screen: click on the icon to the far-right of the panel to access the activity in full screen view

(great for whiteboard teaching).


If an audio track has lyrics, these can also be shown in the player or by clicking on the expandable panel

below the player.

Some songs allow you to jump to different parts of a song or track. Where a song allows this, click on the

blue buttons on the player to select the verse you want to play:

Section-by-section guide

Lesson bank

Year groups

The lesson bank contains 258 interactive lessons arranged progressively by year group (starting at

Foundation level and progressing to Year 6). Click on a year box to access the resources for that year

group.


Each year features either:

a whole-year teaching plan and assessment sheets (Years 1 to 6) or

a whole-year unit overview (Foundation level).

These PDF documents can be downloaded from each year screen:

Units

Within each year, resources are arranged into teaching units. The units are shown in the order

suggested in the whole-year plan, but can be re-ordered to suit your own requirements – see Changing

the unit order, below.

Click on the sliding unit panels to view all the lessons within a unit:


Above the unit's lessons are two further items to help you plan your teaching:

Musical focus: the focus of the unit as a whole (eg Exploring beat)

Cross-curricular link: other subjects the unit supports (eg Maths).

You can also access a unit plan PDF containing lesson plans for all lessons within the unit.

Changing the unit order

You may wish to change the order of the units within a year to fit in with your own teaching schedule.

You can do this by dragging and dropping the unit panels:

The next time you log in, the units will be in the order that they were when you last logged out.

Lessons - summaries

After clicking on a lesson tile, you will see a lesson summary containing the following:

A lesson description

Learning objectives

What you need (any instruments/equipment it's recommend you use)


Vocabulary used (e.g. Beat, Pulse). Hover over an item to see its description. Tip: you can also

find descriptions of music terms in the Glossary.

A downloadable PDF lesson plan:

Click on the blue tile to access the lesson teaching resources.

Lessons - individual resources

Each lesson contains one or more activities, often split into a series of steps.

Read the instructions beside each activity. Play the audio or video track in the song player, using the

drop-down in the bottom panel to access different renditions (see Using the song player, above):


Some lessons have audio buttons embedded within their activities. Click on the orange buttons to play

the audio tracks or clips:


Song bank

The Song bank contains over 400 songs in an array of styles to use as part of a structured lesson or as

standalone resources:

Above the songs are filters to help you find one to suit your requirements. You can filter by:

Year

Theme

Style

Season.

If you want to start your search again, click on Reset to the right of the filters. You can also search for

songs by using the Search box to the top-right of the screen (see Search, below).

Click on a song tile to view the song’s page. Songs are played in the same player as the lessons, with the

same controls used to view lyrics, jump to different audio renditions, etc.


Warm ups

Warm ups are a great way to get any lesson, rehearsal or session off to a flying start, and they can be

revisited as many times as you like to consolidate skills:

They've been grouped into different years/age ranges, but feel free to use warm ups from any age range

to consolidate foundations or extend learning. Once you've selected a year group, choose a unit from

the following:

Vocal warm ups

Physical warm ups

Focus-builders.

Click on an individual warm up and access the graphic, audio or video resources in the same way as for

the Lesson or Song bank.

Skill builders

These skill-building activities help children develop an understanding of beat, rhythm and pitch, to

ensure they build a solid foundation in every aspect of musicianship:


Gradually work through the skill builders for each year/age range: each is progressively harder than the

one before.

Once you've selected a year group, choose a unit, eg Rhythm or Beat. Click on an individual skill builder

and access the graphic, audio or video resources in the same way as for the Lesson bank, Song bank or

Warm ups.

Instrumental resources

Our bank of instrumental resources contains teaching courses to support First Access (wider

opportunities) and interactive, virtual 'instruments' to use in class.

Ukulele Magic

Our 26-lesson beginner ukulele course provides everything you need to deliver fun and effective group

instrumental lessons:


Everything is included to get you started:

pictures of fingering diagrams and chord shapes

audio tracks to both demonstrate and support performance

lyrics or notation on screen:


The lessons are accessed in the same way as for the Lesson bank (see above).

Interactive xylophone

Two versions of an interactive xylophone are provided:

Traditional (horizontal)

Upright (vertical):

Use in lessons to add percussion/accompaniment parts to songs or activities, or even to make up tunes

as a class!

Click on the keys to hear the xylophone notes.

Glossary

The Glossary page features an alphabetical list of musical terms, each with their own definition:


Tip: each Lesson summary page in the Lesson bank features relevant vocabulary words. Roll over these

with your cursor to see the words' descriptions.

About Music Express

Here you'll find more about Music Express and the resources it has to offer:

There's also guidance on how to use Music Express with the National Curriculum, answers to Frequently

Asked Questions (FAQs), and more about our Music Express authors.


Help

Click on the Help tab to find:

This Music Express user guide (PDF)

Music Express INSET details

More information about using Collins Connect

Contact details:

My favourites

You may want to save/bookmark your favourite resources so that it's easy to find them the next time

you use Music Express. You can do this by clicking on the heart symbol beside lesson and unit titles:

Click on My favourites at the top of the screen to see the list of favourite items you've created:


You can re-arrange the order of your favourite resources by dragging and dropping the panels.

To 'un-favourite' a resource, simply click again on the heart image beside the resource title.

Search

The Search box to the top-right of the screen can be used to search the whole of the Music Express

resource. To search, type in keywords or the title of a resource and press Return or click on the search

icon (magnifying glass):

You will then see a list of search results. Resources are colour-coded by category (eg Lesson bank,

Song bank):

You can refine your search by using the Year or Resource type filter dropdowns:


If you have a long list of results, you can also choose to sort by Relevance or Age, using the dropdown to

the top-right of the search results:

Note: songs that can be used with different year/age ranges may appear twice in search results, but will

take you to the same resource.

Contact

The Collins Digital Support Team is on hand to help you make the most of your subscription. You can contact the team by phone or by email:

By phone: 01484 668 148 Option 3

By email: [email protected]

music express teacher user guide - collins express us… · interactive xylophone ... you may see...

Documents