Monday 30 January 2012

Death of Education but the Dawn of Learning

The title of my blog post references the final words in the video "Learning to Change, Changing to Learn", as spoken by Stephen Heppell on the use of technology in the classroom.  As I was surfing the internet last night I stumbled across this video, and I feel that it really expresses why we must explore technology use in the classroom.
Here's the video:

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with them or do you think this is merely wishful thinking?

Side Note: If you want to see some interesting back and forth dialogue on the video, read some of the comments about the video on the Youtube page. There is a lengthy debate over the message of the video that is actually a good read after watching.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Tech Task #3

For my Third Tech Task I needed to create a budget spreadsheet on google docs using the data provided to me by my professor. Once I completed entering in the data and all doing the calculations(the SUM formula was great for this), I couldn't decide how to make it an attractive spreadsheet. My impulse was to centre everything, but some of the data looked out of place, so I kept everything aligned to the left. The other impulse I had was to make all the columns different colour's because it would look cool. However, once I did it I had trouble reading some of my labels, so I decided to stick with plain white text and colour the background of the cell instead. My last touch was to colour the background of every second cell to make my data easier to read. To see my final product you go to my Spreadsheet on Google Docs. 

Here's a humourous picture I found online that reminded me of my mindset when I first learned Microsoft Excel! 

Monday 23 January 2012

First Vlogs.....Awkward

So, I guess I still had more to say about Michael Wesch's Youtube video, "An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube".  Once I finished my previous post a little while ago, I grabbed my Ukulele and started surfing Youtube for some videos that could help me out.  As I was watching different videos, I couldn't help but think about the section in Michael's video about peoples first time vlogging and how awkward and difficult it can actually be.  As I was thinking about this, I remembered that I had actually decided last week to document my first day with my Ukulele via Video Log.  So I fished the video out of my Photo Booth and gave it a watch.  Man oh Man did Michaels video ever preach the truth! My first attempt is probably one of the most difficult things I've had to watch myself do.  I had no idea how to sit, what to do with my hands, where I should look, and even how to talk (I talk so fast at some points that I'm not even sure I'm speaking English) To my surprise I also had a visitor in my video that I didn't even know was there.  He however doesn't seem to mind being on camera seeing as what he does through the course of the video. 
Take a look if you want to see an Awkward first attempt at a Vlog:


What do you think? Was it as hard for you to watch as it was for me?

Sunday 22 January 2012

Tech Task #2

Wow, so I just finished watching the Youtube video "An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube" by Michael Wesch.  I'm not going to lie, over the past four years whenever a Professor would assign some boring video that was over the length of 3 minutes, I would usually just jump ahead to random sections of the video and look for answers to respond to (I'm sure that I'm not alone in this).  I must confess that the same thought crossed my mind for this task the minute I saw the 55:34 length of this video.  In the back of my mind I was thinking "Okay, this is way too long! The second half of the 49's game is going to start in a half hour. I'll just look for something that I can say was interesting and write a response about it".  Unfortunately for the slacker inside of me, the minute the video began, I was hooked! This video was incredibly interesting and it really made me think about the actual community that is Youtube, and how do I fit into everything Michael is saying. I've got so much to talk about, but I don't want to write too much or chances are you won't read this post and I'll be lucky if you've read this far on my post!
Originally I viewed Youtube as a place where people can post videos as a means to get attention.  I never really thought of it as a "New form of empowerment, New form of community, or a new way to connect in ways we couldn't before" As the video continued I began to think more and more about these words and how I use Youtube now.  I quickly came to the realization that I am actually an active member of this Youtube community.  Initially, I used Youtube solely for the purpose of listening to music or watching music videos.  However, almost two years ago I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, but I really didn't want to pay for lessons.  After some searching for tabs online, I decided to search Youtube to see if there were videos that would teach me how to play.  I typed in the words" How to play Our Song on guitar" (Yes the first song I wanted to learn on guitar was a Taylor Swift Song) To my delight, I found thousands of videos that could teach me to play this song.  I watched a bunch of different videos that people had posted of themselves playing the song and learned how to play my first song on guitar! When I look at it now, this is actually really amazing because the first song I ever learned on guitar was taught to me by people whom I've never met and have absolutely no idea who I am. Yet they connected with me through the images of themselves they posted on Youtube and I, for the rest of my life, will always remember "yourguitarsage" and "kfarrow77" as the people who taught me how to play my first song on guitar.
Here's kfarrow77's video that helped me to learn the song:



Another idea from the video that really caught my attention was the idea that people can actually form a new identity or mask in a new community space where "everybody is watching but no one is there".  It's interesting how comfortable most of the people in the Youtube community are when they are posting videos of themselves on the Internet.  Lots of these people are posting videos of themselves doing things that they might not be inclined to do at first in a public setting.  This in itself is kind of ironic because there would probably be less people watching if they were to do a live version of their video for say 100 people, then the millions that are able to view their video on the net.  An example that I immediately thought of was the "Single Ladies Guy" dancing in a leotard in front of his camera to the song all the "All the Single Ladies".  In the video he seems incredibly comfortable showing off his dance skills to the world, but the question in the back of my mind is "When he posted this video, if he had the choice to perform the dance in front of his webcam (in the comfort of his own house), or on stage, which would he choose?
Here's the video by Cubbyradio:



As it turns out, after this video gained immense popularity online, and he became a Youtube Sensation and was actually brought out during a Beyonce concert to dance with her on stage.  So again my question remains "Did he always have the confidence to perform in front of thousands of people, or did Youtube give him the confidence to perform in public after performing for millions, alone from the comfort of his home? It's much easier to remain anonymous and hide from others comments on Youtube than it is in your everyday life.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Decisions, Decisions...What to learn for my Major Project

After some careful thought about what I wanted to learn for my major project for Ecmp355, I've come to the decision that I want to learn how to play the Ukulele.  There is actually an interesting back story as to why I've chosen to learn how to play this instrument, so pull up a chair, grab a nice beverage and read on.
During my internship this past semester I created a class blog for my students and their first blogging task was to blog a response to the following question: "In our world today peace is wanted by most people of the world, yet it appears to be such a rare commodity. Why is this? If so many people want peace, why don’t we have it?" I was really impressed with my students because I read so many wonderful and thought provoking responses on each one of their blogs. However, there was one response that  the whole class seemed to like the best, not because of what the student wrote, but because of the video they posted to go along with their response.  The particular student described peace and what a peaceful world could be like using the song "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole as their inspiration.
Here is the same music video that the student posed on their blog:




After the student posted this video, my class fell in love with the song and almost everyday before religion class we would listen to this song before we began.
I still keep in regular contact with my students using our class blog, and last week another student had commented on the original post with this song on it.  So as I read the comment I couldn't avoid the temptation to click play and listen to the song once again.  As I listened to how beautifully Israel Kamakawiwo'ole plays the ukulele in this song, I knew right then and there what I wanted to learn as my major project this semester.  Using this song as my inspiration, I want to successfully learn how to play the ukulele and learning how to play this song as a particular goal.  I think learning the ukulele will be a skill that I can transfer into my classroom and my teaching for the rest of my career!

Sunday 15 January 2012

About Me!

Hello and welcome to my blog!
About Me:
My name is Matthew Bresciani, I'm currently in my final semester of my Middle Years Education Degree at the University of Regina. I hail from Regina, Saskatchewan and have lived here my entire life.  I come from a family of teachers (my mom is a Teacher, my dad is Principal and my only brother is in his second year of Secondary Education also at the U of R). A few of my hobbies include: Staying active with Intramural Sports (I usually play Soccer, Floor Hockey, Football, Innertube Waterpolo and Dodgeball each week), watching my two favourite sports teams (Saskatchewan Roughriders and Edmonton Oilers), Watching my favourite tv shows each week (I have too many to mention here, that would be it's own blog post alone), and many more!

My Thoughts on Technology:
Technology is a wonderful thing! I'm not sure I would be able to survive without my computer. I use it for so many things (Email, Photoshop, iMovie, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, just to mention a few) During my internship I don't know if I could have been able to teach as effectively without the use of technology in my classroom.  I loved using youtube videos and our systems moodle videos to help enhance my lessons.  Setting up a class blog was something that I also found worked really well and really seemed to engage the students and help them to take responsibility for their own learning.  Here's the link to my class blog if you are curious as to how it was set up, however you will not be able to read any of the content because kidblog.org protects posts from public viewing. 

Since technology is so prevalent in today's society,  most students are using and becoming familiar with new technology all the time.  As teachers we need to find a way to use and adapt this technology into our lessons as a  means of engaging our students in their own learning.  Instead of viewing technologies that students are actively involved in as a negative, we could use new technologies (Twitter, Youtube, Cell Phones, Social Media, etc.) as a tool in our teaching to actively engage our students in their own learning.  Engaging students is fundamental to learning, so why not use technology as a means to achieve this?

ECMP355:
I am very excited to be a part of this class as I feel it will truly help me to become a better teacher.  I expect to learn about different kinds of technologies (after one class I've already learned a bunch!!) that I will be able to use when I have my own classroom.  Once I have completed this class I hope to have learned how to implement new technologies into my teaching, Successfully create and maintain a Professional Blog, Successfully learn how to play the Ukulele, and many more things that will come as a surprise to me over the course of this semester!