Project: Creating Note Name Exercises with MusicTheory.net

Well, today was a snow day for this teacher. And what do teachers do on snow days?

Create learning projects, obviously. (…Am I doing this right?)

I started my unexpected day off by rearranging several music selections for an after-school group, because losing a full rehearsal less than two weeks before performances? Yeah… that’s going to make things tight. And these students don't need any added pressure right now.

Then the December learning challenge in The eLearning Designer's Academy dropped, and it’s a Camtasia challenge! Perfect timing, because I’ve had a few mini-projects sitting on my “use Camtasia for this” list.

So today’s project turned into a quick tutorial video on using musictheory.net to create note-naming exercises for music students. I run a Fine Arts Resource Repository in Canvas LMS for 90+ Fine Arts staff, and I’m always adding new tools and trainings based on what people need.

A lot of staff use musictheory.net, but I get frequent questions like:

“How do I make the custom exercise link?”

“Where do I turn certain buttons on or off?”

“How do I actually see my students’ scores?”

So I made a quick, just-over-seven-minute walkthrough showing how to customize exercises and view student results.

For this one, I kept it simple: I used Snagit for screenshots and short clips, pulled everything into Camtasia, and uploaded the finished video to YouTube so I could add chapters for easy navigation.

I’ll be creating more in this series and adding them to the Fine Arts resource repository soon, especially if more questions keep rolling in!

And yes, I’m fully aware that completing a learning challenge on day one of the month is peak nerd energy. I'm cool with that. This unexpected snow day felt like a little gift of extra time, and it was the perfect excuse to finally tackle a few projects that have been simmering on the back burner.

And in my defense, I was left unsupervised with a snow day. Well, my dog Bella is a pseudo-supervisor, but full disclosure - I had to change my mic settings so my recording wouldn't pick up the sound of her snoring. So if you hear a little rumble in the background, you can thank Bella for that.