These features are now ready!

We are pleased to announce two new features: Online Courses and Online Quizzes.

This article describes the relationship between the two features, how the teacher can build rich learning content, improve their educational effectiveness and how the student can enrich their learning experience.

1. Teachers can design courses on any topic.  Courses can map to an existing examination board syllabus or be totally independent.
2. Each course will consist of one or more units of work.  The number of units, which determines the length of the course, is up to the teacher.  It can be as short or long as they deem appropriate.  An example would be a course covering the Grade 1 Theory requirements of the Trinity College Music Examinations Syllabus.
3. Teachers can create their own content-rich, multiple-choice quizzes.  Each unit of work in a course can have a companion quiz reinforcing the content covered in that part of the course.
4. Both course units and quiz questions can contain formatted text, images, embedded audio and video and more.  This means the teacher can create courses for aural training as well as theoretical knowledge.
5. Teachers can easily see which students have completed which courses and quizzes.  Ideal for formal examination preparation. This enables the teacher to see where weaknesses may be in their student's progress and tailor their lessons accordingly.
6. Students, and the parents / legal guardians of students can monitor progress and have a progress history.  

Why should I create courses and quizzes?

The easy answer is "you don't have to!"  It really is up to you.  That's the whole point of Independent Online Musician.  The system supports how you teach, not how we think you should teach, but if you are aware of the competition for students in a crowded market, here are some reasons for increasing what you can offer to students:

• If you offer a richer learning environment, you increase your chances of attracting and retaining more students
• Creating good courses and quizzes means you have to think carefully about the material, thereby fostering continual self-development as a teacher.  Why would you not want to improve your teaching?
• A multi-faceted approach to learning offers a better chance for the development of the student.  Students learn in different ways and having more than one strategy outside of the "lesson" can really help them learn more in less time.  This is especially important when students are wishing to sit music examinations.  

What's to stop students of another teacher, or just random, non-paying people from signing up and taking advantage of my courses and quizzes?

Your hard work as an independent music teacher has value - whether this be in your instrumental / vocal coaching, or in the courses and quizzes you have worked to create.  You deserve to be paid for your labour so students will not have access to courses or quizzes unless they have booked and paid for a lesson.  After this first lesson, they can take as many courses and quizzes as they like. If, however, you feel someone has only purchased that one lesson to be able to access the courses and quizzes, then you can disable their account.  Easy!  Of course, if you are happy for students who only want one lesson to access your courses and quizzes for ever, then that's up to you.  As ever, IOM is not here to tell you how to teach, but to help you teach as you wish.

These features are now available!