A Great Free Solution for Using Music in the Classroom
By Liz Wheeler
If you want to play music in your training room, an online music warehouse named Grooveshark takes care of those copyright infringement laws for you. Every time a song is played from their site, they pay the licensing fees so you can play it legally!
In reading the terms of service, the music is only available for real-time listening, not downloading for later playing. However, you can search by terms, titles, artists, and choose to listen to them immediately or put them in a queue. You can map out your entire training session ahead of time.
You can even search out other users' playlists. I searched for Bryan Duncan, an older contemporary Christian artist you really can't get on CD. Sure enough, there he was in other playlists, complete with other songs I might like and suggestions by Grooveshark on other songs that were similar.
Grooveshark does warn that it won't guarantee seamless play, meaning buffering issues might cause problems, but there is a lot of music on there, and this is a great way to get free, popular music legally! And when I checked it out with some classic 80s tunes, I had no problem with the buffering. Sounded just like any other music file playing from my hard drive or CD drive.
To get you started, Becky Pike Pluth, our vice president of T&D, recommends these artists, composers or genres for use in the training room:
Composer Ray Lynch-all of his stuff is great!
Composer Chip Davis-all of his stuff is great!
Nitro Praise is a series of eight or nine discs. Make sure it's the instrumental version. Upbeat music for energizers, not reflection time!
Celtic Music-I don't have a favorite group, but make sure it is instrumental.
Or, if you don't feel like trusting the live streaming, The Bob Pike Group does have its Powerful Presentation music which allows you to play the music on these discs without worries of copyright violation. The two-disc set can be purchased here.
Why are all the good ideas left behind in elementary school? Remember recess? One of the best parts of the day. We should leverage these decades-old learning strategies to make adult learning more memorable and workplaces more enjoyable.
It might be common sense to figure out your company's goals and then tie training to that-but we all know common sense isn't so common. As a training director in your company, your first item of business needs to be identifying the true business/productivity goals of your company.
Some managers might think that with the economy the way it is, it's not as critical to figure out how to manage the Millenials. After all, aren't they just lucky to have jobs? And the answer to that question would be "no." If the job isn't all they wanted, they'll simply quit - and if they need to, move back home - and that's not such a bad deal.
Beyond that, the Millenials are here to stay - and the boomer generation is not. More and more of them are retiring, and someone is going to have to take up the slack. And those someones are the Millenials. Managers who learn to understand this generation and how to work with them are going to be extremely valuable over the next 20 years. Will you be one of them?
