Web 2.0 Tool Alert: uJam

by Michael Grzelak

Just wanted to highlight an awesome web 2.0 tool that I started to use after a conversation with a fellow teacher on Twitter (#edchat). It is called uJam and it allows a person to create a free account to make free songs.

I have zero musical ability (I am not lying... it's pretty bad), but this site does not care about my lack of musical ability.

There are four different ways to use the site for music creation; the way I used it was simple -- I recorded my voice.  My focus was giving directions for a test. After I finished recording (and I did attempt to sing a little) the site was able to sync my voice and speed to a variety of background music options.  I was able to change the style of my voice, the tone, the pace, and so much more.  It was awesome!  If you do have the ability to read notes... well... still check it out as you can manipulate certain features to make your songs sound better.

My students thought my song was dorky, but sometimes that is the role of the teacher in order to gain some interest.

Have your students play around with the site.  They will love it and it can be used for project creation.  It has an endless amount of creative potential and your students can actually create a song of their own and save it as an mp3 file.

Imagine your students with headphones on, but instead of listening to their songs they are listening to class-created music that will help them review/learn content.