Turn Your Computer Into a "Non Portable" I-Pod!

One of the blogs that I follow at school is: http://garrisonsites.blogspot.com. The guy who writes the blog finds LOTS of cool websites, technology, gadgets, and teaching stuff to share with his "readers" (check out "50 Sites in 50 Minutes", which he presented at the TIES Conference earlier this winter...). Today's post was about a REALLY cool website: http://justhearit.com/.

Here's the note that I sent to the staff at work today:

I saw this COOL site mentioned on a blog that I subscribe to. You can listen to TONS of songs from around the world (I found "Hakuna Matata" in JAPANESE!), or from right here in the US (check out Barry Manilow's "Very Strange Medley)! Not sure how you can use this in your classroom (or if you even want to). It might work for “world music”, or just to have background music playing during reading time in your classroom.

You WILL have to play around with the site a little bit. Find your song by typing the name in the search box at the top. To listen to the song, click on the “+” to the right of the song (to add it to your playlist). Click once on the song (in the playlist column), and it will start.

I’m not sure why, but if you don’t hear anything after a couple of seconds, that particular song won’t play (maybe it has to do with copyright, or something?). If this happens (you'll see "NaN" where the counter for the song is located, at the top of the playlist), either choose a different song, or another version of the same song from the list from which you got the other version of the song.

I haven’t found a way to save the “playlist” yet, but it looks like the site is still in “test mode”. You can submit your e-mail address (upper right hand portion of the screen), and they’ll contact you when you can join.

Very cool!