Tuesday 20 March 2012

Ukulele Update 7+8

It's been about two weeks since my last update so it's about time that I got around to posting another V-Log on my progress.  Like usual I've filmed two V-Logs that I'm simply putting into one post because they really flow with one another.
In my first V-Log I was looking to try out another strumming style than the one I was previously doing. (just to switch things up!)  The style I ended up testing out is called a "Chunk".  Chunking is essentially just strumming the Ukulele then muting it with the palm of your hand all in one strum.  At first I had some trouble doing it the way I was being taught, so I decided to try it an alternative way that you will see in the V-Log.  I also tried learning part of a new song as well (The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars) which I am actually quite enjoying because it's not as hard to learn as some other songs on the Ukulele.  Oh and the site I learned how to "Chunk" from is Ukulele Underground.
V-Log 7
( I apologize in advance, for some reason the original recording was corrupted at the beginning and the sound is a half a second off.  I've tried re-uploading it numerous times to Youtube but it is the initial recording that is the issue.)


For my second V-log I recorded myself once again playing the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World.  Since my goal by the end of my project was to be able to play this song, I like to record myself after each V-log so I can see my progress over the updates!
Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think:
V-Log 8

Saturday 17 March 2012

The Digital Classroom


In my previous post I discussed the implications that the iPad 3 has for students as schools a like.  I was curious how long it would take for there to be a 1:1 ration of students to iPads within schools.  Through some conversations I had after my post, the general consensus was that something like this was still a few years away.  However, I just stumbled across an interesting article, When Digital Classrooms Become Reality.  The article talks about the new digital classrooms that are being created in the Philippines.  The school system in the Philippines formed a partnership with Vibal Publishing House Inc. (A Educational materials publisher) and Microsoft to help create these digital classrooms.  I won't spoil the article for you too much but just to give you an idea of how this partnership is working here's a blurb from the article:

 "In September 2011, La Salle Greenhills rolled out an entire digital curriculum from their elementary to high school honor classes using 14 e-textbooks in 500 Galaxy Samsung tablets. La Salle will issue another 5,000 tablets in 2012 to cover all students and teachers." 

Now that's amazing! While the tablets may not be iPads like I would prefer, this is definitely a giant step in the right direction to creating these digital classrooms.  Hopefully school systems in North America (Come on Saskatchewan!) will see the example that has been laid out for them and follow suit in order to create these amazing learning environments. 

Wednesday 14 March 2012

What does iPad 3's release mean?


I've often wondered with all the capabilities that the iPad has, why don't more schools invest in using the iPad as a learning tool.  There are so many different programs and apps that are available on iPads that could significantly enhance students learning, not to mention that more and more textbooks are becoming available via iPad. (Check out some of the textbooks apple presently offers)  I recently had a discussion with my dad (who is a the Principle of High School) why we haven't seem much of a push to use iPads within classrooms.  He told me that this was something he very much wanted to see in our schools today, but there was just one problem, they cost far too much to be able to supply an a 1-1 ratio for iPad to students in the schools.  At the time I asked him this question, basic iPad 2's were about $499.99, which would cost the average High School about $400,000.00.  With a price tag like this I can understand why we don't see more iPads in schools let alone a 1-1 ratio.  However with the recent release of the iPad 3, the price of iPad 2's have dropped almost 25% with the basic iPad 2 cost between 299.99 and 399.99.  With the dropping price of iPads, I believe the "It cost's too much" excuse is starting to become a moot point.

While writing this blog post I did a bit of googling and stumbled upon a great article that addresses what the future might hold in regards to students learning with the iPad.  The article looked at what effects the release of the iPad 3 might have on schools today as well as an in depth interview with Vineet Madan, The Vice President of New Ventures for McGraw Hill Education.  I believe Vineet Madan said it best,  “There’s never been a better time to be a student, whether that’s K through 12 or in higher education,”

What do you guys think? Do you think that the release of the iPad 3 and the lowered prices of iPad 2 will have an impact on the amount of technology we will see in schools in the next year?

Saturday 10 March 2012

The Mystery of Mystery Skypes


It's now been a little over 2 months since I said goodbye to the school and students that I got to know so well over the first semester.  Even though I've completed my internship and am back at the University of Regina finishing up my last semester, I can't seem to stop thinking about lessons that I would have taught in my classroom if I were still interning right now.  After getting a taste of teaching for those four months, I can't wait to get back out there and have my own class once again and I think my sub-conscience feels the same way.  It seems like no matter what I do or experience now a days,  all I can think about is how I could incorporate "this or that" into a lesson.  It could be anything from a song I heard on the radio and thought "We could do an ELA lesson on this!" or waking up in the middle of the night and my first thought is how I could incorporate whatever I was dreaming about into a lesson.  It's crazy.   Now that I've gotten that taste for teaching, it's consumed my entire way of thinking and I can't go back to the way I used to be!  I know your wondering, when am I going to get the Mystery Skype part of this blog post seeing as it's the title of my post.  Well don't get too upset, I'm going to get there right away!
So today I was scouring the internet looking for another blog post or article to inspire me for my next blog post, and after about 5 minutes I found an awesome blog with a really interesting topic: Mystery Skypes.  After reading the blog post "Mystery Skype - Who Could it Be?" by Mr. Avery, I became incredibly jealous that I didn't do something like this during my four month internship.  If you're not sure what a mystery Skype is, it's essentially a skype session with a random classroom from somewhere around the world.  Once the Mystery Skype session begins the classes take turn asking Yes or No questions while cooperating as a team with the final goal of figuring out the location of the other class before they guessed your classes location. I think this would be such a fun activity to do with one of my future classrooms.  I can't wait to get my degree and get out there and start teaching so I can try something like this!

What are you're guys thoughts on the idea of Mystery Skypes? Have you ever heard of Mystery Skypes before or actually tried one out with a classroom?

Oh I should also mention that if this is something that interests you, all you need to do is go to one of the Mystery Skype Wiki's and sign up.  (There are different Wiki's for each grade level, the one I linked you to was the grade 6 wiki)

Thursday 8 March 2012

Tech Task #9

For my Ninth Tech Task I was asked to view the movie, "rip!: A remix manifesto", a documentary by Brett Gaylor which explores the the creative art form of remixing media as well as the evolution of copy rights.  The documentary addresses these issues using the the four points in "A Remixer's Manifesto" as a vehicle to justify their views presented in the video.  The Four Points presented can been seen in the image below:

I found this documentary interesting because up until about a year ago I didn't have a whole lot of insight into the art of creating mash-ups or remixing media.  However, last year my younger brother introduced me to various songs that had been remixed or mash-ed up to create an entirely new song.  I found it truly amazing because many of the remixes and mash-ups that I begun to stumble upon remixed songs of completely different genres into an entirely new genre.  To get an idea of what I'm talking about here's a couple of remixes by my favourite Remix Artists (Well the clean versions  that I can post to my blog)
 The White Panda: Mo Free Mo Falling (Remixes Biggie Smalls with Tom Petty)



DJ's From Mars: Enter Telephone (Mash-Up with Metallica and Lady Gaga)


Along with viewing the documentary I was also asked to respond to one or more questions found in the Educational Guide for RIP: A Remixer's Manifesto.

General: Do you think you can argue your creativity when it’s based on other people’s work?

Music: Do you believe there are forms of music that are not built on past works?

These are interesting questions because I had similar questions when I first heard remixes by artists such as The White Panda or DJ's From Mars.  I always wondered, "how can these artists claim this music as their own, if they are using other artists work?" On one side of this question you could argue that regardless of how much re mixer's alter a song or a piece of work it can never be considered their own creation because it already belongs to someone else.  However, the video raised an interesting point when Brett looked at the song "You need Love" by Muddy Waters and how he got the riff from the song by Son House and how that same riff can be heard again and again throughout various songs as the years progressed, in particular the song "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin.  If this is the case, and using other peoples work to create a new song, how can we possibly view Muddy Waters or Led Zeppelin as creative?  Technically they both used the past (the Riff from Son House) to build on a future creation.  Is this really a negative thing?
In response to the second question, I honestly don't believe that there are any forms of music out theerethat haven't evolved or been created without an influence from the past.  Almost all of the genres of music today have evolved as a result of music from the past.  A good example of this could be the evolution of Rock N' Roll.  This genre didn't just come out of nothing, but rather a combination of African American Blues, Country, Jazz and Gospel Music.  This example truly shows how important the past is in creating a future.  Imagine for a second,  that over 100 years ago Jazz or Blues were never created, what would today's music sound like today?

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Ukulele Update 7: Jam Session



So instead of posting another video update of myself talking into the camera and playing a little Ukulele for you, I've done something a little different for this post.  Earlier this week I talked to two of my classmates who were also learning instruments for their learning project and we thought it would be kind of cool to do a group video-blog and try to learn a song together and record our progress playing our respective instruments.  This was a really interesting experience for me because I wasn't sure what to expect going into it because up until this point I've only practiced playing the Ukulele alone.

At first it was definitely a challenge because we all had to pick a song that was easy enough that we would all be able to play.  The song we selected for our first Jam Session was "Free Falling" by Tom Petty. I liked our choice for this song because it was relatively easy to learn as it was only a 3 chord song.  On Ukulele I only had to play the D, G and A chords so it didn't take very long to figure out.  The second aspect of the Jam Session that I found challenging was definitely our timing as a group! As you will be able to hear in the Podcast and see in the Video is how off our timing is in the beginning of each.  I didn't realize how hard it is to actually nail timing down when you play in a band because when you listen to music it just seems so natural and easy, but as we learned, it takes some practice.  By the end of our recordings you can definitely see some improvement in our chemistry together as a (band?) and our next session will definitely be much easier than our initial attempt.

We are definitely going to get together in the near future to film another group Video Blog and we would love some help from you on what song we should learn next as a group as well as a possible band name for us!

Here's a podcast version of our first V-Log (I turned it into a podcast instead of a V-log because for some reason the camera picked up the light in the room like a strobe light effect and I found it difficult to watch and felt it might be easier for you to check out if it was audio only!)



Here is our second V-Log that we recorded with much better lighting! You can definitely see some improvement in our timing as compared to how we sounded in the podcast.



My group members for this Jam Session were Kirk Fiege on Piano and Nick Barnes on Guitar.  You should definitely check out their blogs to view their individual progress on learning their respective instruments as well!

Sunday 4 March 2012

Ukulele Update 6

So here's my newest Video Blog post on my learning the Ukulele. I'm sorry it took me so long to post it but hey, at least it's up now right? Anyway, this post was interesting to make because throughout the past four V-logs I've been trying new ways to strum the Ukulele and in this one I tried yet a new way.  In my last post I started using a guitar pick because I had an injured finger which actually worked pretty well.  However, whenever I listened to the version by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole it just didn't sound right.  So I decided that I would try a more natural way that could combine picking an individual string as well as strumming all the strings when I play the song.  My solution was to pick the first note of each chord using my thumb and then strum upwards using my index finger.  It took is still taking me a while to get this style of strumming down pat, but I have to admit I do prefer playing the Ukulele this way!
I want to apologize a head of time for how fast I talk in this post, I'm honestly not sure why I talked so fast throughout the entire video.  Just comment below and I'll post some subtitles if you are having trouble following!! As well just a heads up the video is by far my longest, running a whopping 9 minutes and 15 seconds.  I don't remember talking and playing for that long but I guess the saying is true, time really does fly when your having fun!
Thanks and Enjoy the video:

Teaching Technology at a Younger Age


I recently stumbled across an interesting article in the Denver Post that discusses some new efforts that are occurring in Colorado to educate children as young as 3 years old in technology education. It's an interesting article because it talks about the new Common Core Standards that have been set in Colorado that emphasize including technology as a component in subject standards.  The article continues with an example of an activity that was used to reach the Curricular Standard "gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media." The activity that a teacher used to hit this standard was having their students create a their own podcast and then post it to their class blog.  What's truly amazing about this activity is that it an example of a typical activity for a fourth grade student at this particular school.  
When I first read this I was kind of blown away because creating a podcast and posting it to a blog is something that we were just learning how to do a few weeks ago, and we're at a post-secondary level of education.  The fact that fourth grade students today are already successfully completing Technology Tasks such as this really made realize how important it is for teachers to be educated in technology practices such as blogging or creating podcasts.  By educating ourselves with new technology skills we are able to use technology as a tool to not only educate ourselves as educators but also enhance student learning through new means.  
While articles like this highlight the importance of utilizing technology in our classrooms, it seems like this issue is more talk than it is action.  I would bet that within most school systems there are only a handful of teachers that truly know how to successfully utilize technology as learning tool.  With this in mind, do you think it should it be mandatory for all educators to attend workshops and institutes on using new technology in the classroom?