- A paragraph about how you think you will use data collection (surveys) and/or reporting (Excel) tools as a teacher. Be specific about your subject matter area and the grade level.
- A paragraph on topics you found most interesting from reviewing your classmates’ blogs.
- A paragraph on what technology-related skill you would like to learn next, why, and how you will achieve this goal.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Blog #10
Thursday, April 11, 2019
ILP "Participation" - Lynda Tutorials
Hello Earthlings! Only a couple more weeks of school left, so buckle down and hang in there, I believe in you!
This project was my first time using Lynda, a website that hosts thousands of courses on a wide variety of topics. I'm really surprised I haven't taken advantage of this resource sooner, there are some seriously cool topics covered. I decided to watch a video on the basics of video production to get my feet wet in the art. I'm wanting to make music videos of some of my recorded song arrangements so I can share them on YouTube and get my work published! Take a look at my experience by clicking HERE to look at my VoiceThread.
This project was my first time using Lynda, a website that hosts thousands of courses on a wide variety of topics. I'm really surprised I haven't taken advantage of this resource sooner, there are some seriously cool topics covered. I decided to watch a video on the basics of video production to get my feet wet in the art. I'm wanting to make music videos of some of my recorded song arrangements so I can share them on YouTube and get my work published! Take a look at my experience by clicking HERE to look at my VoiceThread.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Blog #9
Happy Thursday! I just got back from seeing my friend Josephina Guzman give a riveting perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the University Philharmonia. If you haven't heard it, I suggest you listen to the first movement to get started, it's truly a moving work of music.
Moving on, we will start by talking about open educational resources, or OER for short. Put simply, they are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that are published in the public domain. That's right, that means no copyrights, so you can keep them, reuse them, and remix them with no restrictions. That is wonderful news for us teachers! As the popularity of OER increase, we will have access to so many resources without restriction, allowing our lessons to become more complex and refined. I found this article about OER that talks about the potential to lower the cost and possibly even replace textbooks one day. Resources can range from textbooks to entire courses online that students could access for free. It's worth looking into if you're about that! It's linked HERE.
I have become even more efficient with Powerpoint after pumping out these assignments back-to-back. I have gotten the hang of some of the more advanced features of Powerpoint. I created a fairly basic presentation for a mock-AP Music Theory classroom on chromatic chords and that one was pretty tame. I am, however, a big fan of the non-linear powerpoint, because the possibilities are vast. I looked online and saw people who made entirely programmed mini games with Powerpoint alone! I would have liked to do an adventure RPG where the player chooses a path that offers multiple endings, but I didn't have the time so I created a Jeopardy game. I am happy I finally got to learn how teachers do those things! There's so much that can go into the design, it's truly fascinating. Because my topic was The Office, I designed mine around the aesthetics of the show's logo. Check out some screenshots of my works below. If you'd like to play The Office Trivia Game, leave a comment and I'll post it!
Moving on, we will start by talking about open educational resources, or OER for short. Put simply, they are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that are published in the public domain. That's right, that means no copyrights, so you can keep them, reuse them, and remix them with no restrictions. That is wonderful news for us teachers! As the popularity of OER increase, we will have access to so many resources without restriction, allowing our lessons to become more complex and refined. I found this article about OER that talks about the potential to lower the cost and possibly even replace textbooks one day. Resources can range from textbooks to entire courses online that students could access for free. It's worth looking into if you're about that! It's linked HERE.
I have become even more efficient with Powerpoint after pumping out these assignments back-to-back. I have gotten the hang of some of the more advanced features of Powerpoint. I created a fairly basic presentation for a mock-AP Music Theory classroom on chromatic chords and that one was pretty tame. I am, however, a big fan of the non-linear powerpoint, because the possibilities are vast. I looked online and saw people who made entirely programmed mini games with Powerpoint alone! I would have liked to do an adventure RPG where the player chooses a path that offers multiple endings, but I didn't have the time so I created a Jeopardy game. I am happy I finally got to learn how teachers do those things! There's so much that can go into the design, it's truly fascinating. Because my topic was The Office, I designed mine around the aesthetics of the show's logo. Check out some screenshots of my works below. If you'd like to play The Office Trivia Game, leave a comment and I'll post it!
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Blog #8
I got a pretty quick handle on Diigo, which makes me confident that my students would be able to use it because I'm not always the fastest with new technology! I never knew there was a way to bookmark pages in the cloud. I could see this being extremely useful for group projects with the annotation and comment tool. When researching and collaborating, this can all be done wirelessly so if group members cannot meet up the work can still be done. I have already used it personally to bookmark important music festivals I want to audition for. The tags keep things tidy!
Powerpoint has been the most common presentation tool to aid lectures that I've seen in my schooling. While it continues to be relevant, it can be of great assistance in learning at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy. Presenting knowledge is the most used feature of Powerpoint, because you can type all kinds of information that are written by students as notes. Comprehension and application takes it to the next step by asking questions so the students are making meaningful connections with the knowledge you present. Analysis involves grouping and separating elements and understanding each in the fullest. Synthesis and evaluation can be strengthened by having students create Powerpoint presentations of their own. They say you really know something if you can teach it!
Because my profession is going to be a college cello professor, my use of technology will be limited. However, as the profession adapts, I can see myself needing to understand how to mix audio. I recently recorded an arrangement of What a Wonderful World for cello quartet, which required me to know how to write music in Finale, record and mix sound with audacity, and perform each of the four parts proficiently. I have also made short music videos before that required me to know how to edit video. Additionally, I made posters for my senior recital which forced me to learn the best ways to present the information (and I have received a lot of compliments!). Point is, while my main profession is teaching cello, I will always have to use technology on the side for special projects. As things become more digital, it will be important to understand these things as a musician.
I found this awesome site that will help me stay up-to-date with the latest innovations and direction of technology. It's called EdTech, and there are articles sorted by categories like classroom, business intelligence, hardware, and internet. It is even divided into two sites, one with a focus on K-12, and another which is focused on Higher Education. With it, I know I can keep myself informed!
Powerpoint has been the most common presentation tool to aid lectures that I've seen in my schooling. While it continues to be relevant, it can be of great assistance in learning at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy. Presenting knowledge is the most used feature of Powerpoint, because you can type all kinds of information that are written by students as notes. Comprehension and application takes it to the next step by asking questions so the students are making meaningful connections with the knowledge you present. Analysis involves grouping and separating elements and understanding each in the fullest. Synthesis and evaluation can be strengthened by having students create Powerpoint presentations of their own. They say you really know something if you can teach it!
Because my profession is going to be a college cello professor, my use of technology will be limited. However, as the profession adapts, I can see myself needing to understand how to mix audio. I recently recorded an arrangement of What a Wonderful World for cello quartet, which required me to know how to write music in Finale, record and mix sound with audacity, and perform each of the four parts proficiently. I have also made short music videos before that required me to know how to edit video. Additionally, I made posters for my senior recital which forced me to learn the best ways to present the information (and I have received a lot of compliments!). Point is, while my main profession is teaching cello, I will always have to use technology on the side for special projects. As things become more digital, it will be important to understand these things as a musician.
I found this awesome site that will help me stay up-to-date with the latest innovations and direction of technology. It's called EdTech, and there are articles sorted by categories like classroom, business intelligence, hardware, and internet. It is even divided into two sites, one with a focus on K-12, and another which is focused on Higher Education. With it, I know I can keep myself informed!
Friday, March 15, 2019
Blog #7
Hello good people, and happy Thursday! One more day until FSU's spring break, so I know everyone is anxious to get out the door and get the vacation started. Before we go, I want to share my twitter experience, some pictures of my new website, and my take on assistive tech.
After using twitter for over three months, I have learned how valuable the platform can be for getting connected to personal learning networks. Much of social media gets a bad rap for attention-hogging and flashy, amusing things that waste users' time. In my opinion, how you use it determines its worth. I follow a few of my favorite psychologists, philosophers, musicians, and orchestras. Their posts are more educational than distracting and I always find myself learning something new about the career I hope to have in the future. The downside is that I find it hard to think of things to tweet out, because the account is for a class. Therefore my posts have to be in some way related to the course to have any kind of coherence.
I loved using Wix though. I have used it to make a website for another class in the past so I had a decent grasp of the user interface already. Unlike blogger, you can drag and drop things around the page and really customize the design. The limit is your own imagination! I did learn how to embed a calendar that syncs to my Google calendar which will be extremely useful in future projects. When I am a college professor, it's something I will use to keep my studio connected to current projects and classes/masterclasses/concerts. I can also share resources to help my students practice so they can be as prepared as possible for every lesson. See some screenshots below, or visit my website by clicking HERE!
As we advance technology, the quality of life improves for everyone. I had a friend in high school who used assistive technology. He had autism, and his thoughts moved so quickly that his handwriting was unreadable. He had permission to use a laptop every day to take notes and write essays so that he could be on an even playing field with the rest of class. I have also seen videos about video games that have adapted controls for people who have disabilities that affect the use of their arms and fingers. The controllers are tailored to the parts of their body they do have control over so that they can play video games that they wouldn't be able to with a traditional controller. I can see myself needing certain adaptive technologies for students in a music class. One example I can think of is braille or enlarged sheet music for visually impaired, linked with devices that help them follow a conductor without being able to see them.
Have a safe and relaxing break everyone!
After using twitter for over three months, I have learned how valuable the platform can be for getting connected to personal learning networks. Much of social media gets a bad rap for attention-hogging and flashy, amusing things that waste users' time. In my opinion, how you use it determines its worth. I follow a few of my favorite psychologists, philosophers, musicians, and orchestras. Their posts are more educational than distracting and I always find myself learning something new about the career I hope to have in the future. The downside is that I find it hard to think of things to tweet out, because the account is for a class. Therefore my posts have to be in some way related to the course to have any kind of coherence.
I loved using Wix though. I have used it to make a website for another class in the past so I had a decent grasp of the user interface already. Unlike blogger, you can drag and drop things around the page and really customize the design. The limit is your own imagination! I did learn how to embed a calendar that syncs to my Google calendar which will be extremely useful in future projects. When I am a college professor, it's something I will use to keep my studio connected to current projects and classes/masterclasses/concerts. I can also share resources to help my students practice so they can be as prepared as possible for every lesson. See some screenshots below, or visit my website by clicking HERE!
As we advance technology, the quality of life improves for everyone. I had a friend in high school who used assistive technology. He had autism, and his thoughts moved so quickly that his handwriting was unreadable. He had permission to use a laptop every day to take notes and write essays so that he could be on an even playing field with the rest of class. I have also seen videos about video games that have adapted controls for people who have disabilities that affect the use of their arms and fingers. The controllers are tailored to the parts of their body they do have control over so that they can play video games that they wouldn't be able to with a traditional controller. I can see myself needing certain adaptive technologies for students in a music class. One example I can think of is braille or enlarged sheet music for visually impaired, linked with devices that help them follow a conductor without being able to see them.
Have a safe and relaxing break everyone!
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
ILP "Design" - Prezi
Hello everyone, I hope you're having a fantastic first week of March! I have just completed an informative presentation about effective practice. It dives deep into musical practice, but many of the concepts included can be applied to other things, like effective studying and athletic performance. It was useful to remind myself what constitutes good practice while also creating an interactive presentation for other people to benefit from! I live by these practice habits, so I am proof that the process really works. Comment any questions you might have, I really hope this benefits you all!
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Blog #5
Welcome back to another weekly blog coming at you straight from Tallahassee! It's been a humid one here. So much so that my fingers started sticking to the fingerboard of my cello! Today I'm going to share with you some of my experiences with the technology we've used in the first two months of this course.
Initially, I was a little bit salty that we had yet another account to create on Diigo, but truth be told it's not that bad! We used it a lot recently and I'm getting the feel for it. What I like about it is that you can save websites and categorize them. I like being able to highlight and annotate the things I read online, so all my notes for it stay on one place, saved under my account. I can access these on any computer, so it's very practical. In the class, the comment boards in our group get super messy with the annotation spam, but I imagine it's only that way because there are 20 people doing it in a very short span!
Blogging has been mostly positive as well. It is easy enough to use. I enjoy the way that I can type blogs in a text window and it will automatically format once you publish. Additionally, I can input code in HTML to embed videos, pictures, and other media. It has simple options which is great for ease of use. Simple options, though, mean not a lot of variety. There aren't very many site layouts available, and figuring out which buttons changed which modules (text color, size, etc) was kind of a nightmare at first. I prefer sites like Wix that let you drag and drop text boxes and media. They tend to be more user-friendly. In the future, I can see myself using the knowledge gained here to start a genuine cello blog of my travels, performances, practice routines, and more.
One Web 2.0 tool that I use often is Doodle. You can use it to create scheduling polls, which is great when scheduling music rehearsals for lots of musicians with busy schedules! Rather than asking everyone when they are and aren't available, you just insert times and each individual checks the box of every time that can work for them. There's also an option to select "maybe" instead of yes or no. It's a must in scheduling apps!
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