Music Teacher's Helper Blog

The internet is a veritable treasure trove of resources that music teachers can use to help them do their job better. During my most recent treasure hunting, I found a site that allows you to create online newsletters, an article search engine that finds and lets you read articles online, and a way to help your students find the music that you use in your studio.

Looking for an article to share with your students? You can look online at findarticles.com. Find Articles is a site that allows you to search magazine archives for words. Many of the articles are free and available to be read online. American Music Teacher Magazine and Music Educators National Conference have several helpful articles listed there.

If you’ve always wanted to create a monthly studio newsletter, but don’t have a lot of technical expertise or money to spend on postage, LetterPop is for you. It is a website that allows you to create your newsletter and distribute it entirely online. You can also print it out and give it to your students in person.

This website is well organized and easy to use. You create a basic account and login to create your newsletter. Then all you have to do is select your template, enter text and upload and insert pictures. There are a lot of great templates that you can use to create your newsletter. They are organized by category, so you can choose one to fit the occasion. It even has holiday specific templates. Basic Membership allows you to have 25 contacts for free. You can upgrade your account to allow you to have more features and send the newsletter to more people. If your students do not wish to receive the email there is an opt out link included in each email. You can store your newsletters online as well. They will be adding an invite feature soon, so you can email all of the music directors in your area and invite them to join your newsletter mailing list.

Many teachers have a list of books that they use in their studio, but how about an online list that students can simply click on to order the music? Sheet Music Plus has an affiliate program for teachers that allows you to create your own store online. (As a plus you earn a percentage of the sales that occur through your store.) You create a list of music that you use in your studio using their store creator page and select the type of links that you would like. You can create multiple pages for different instruments or levels that you teach. Then simply paste the html code that is created for you into your website. You can paste it onto a separate page and link to it from your Music Teachers Helper Links page.