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!

Blog #4

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you're finding prolific love today in the form of family, friends, and perhaps even a significant other (or others, I don't know your life!). This week's blog is special because it is based in the wonderful teaching tool called "VoiceThread." It lets us record spoken explanations and lectures over PowerPoints, which is what I have done. To see it in action, check out the link below.

Academic Use of Technology with Joe Cello

Blog #3

Welcome back to this week's Bass Clef Blog, where I'll be taking you through some reactions to ELA technology standards and CPALMS Educator Toolkit. I'll also post my newsletter for Dealing with Performance Anxiety at the end.

English Language Arts (ELA) standards break down what students should know by each grade level. I chose to look at 11-12th grade technology use standards and I feel confident that I could teach most of them. I noticed that a majority of them were ones that I learned on my own, and a handful that I learned at school. Those include Microsoft Excel proficiency, online presentation software like Prezi, and database searches for reliable educational material. I am not well-versed in photoshop or online data analysis websites, so I'd have to brush up on skills there.

A great resource for teachers created at Florida State University is the CPALMS Educator Toolkit. It houses online tools for teachers arranged by grade level, such as interactive learning games, curriculum planning, and lesson plan suggestions. I searched for music tools for high school grades and was disappointed to only find one video. In that video, a luthier (someone who makes or repairs string instruments) explains the math involved in sound waves and the overtone series that is crucial to creating a good instrument. It is explained in a way that anyone can understand. It even made the concept more concrete for me, someone experienced and well-versed on the subject. I hope to find more resources like this for music in the future. Indeed, I may even like to create my own resources to add to the CPALMS Toolkit. 

Speaking of my own creations, the newsletter assignment taught me brand new uses of Microsoft Word. I no longer need a template to create newsletters or pamphlets because I can customize a design on my own. The with the simple use of text boxes and layering, I can snap items in place wherever I want. There are fill and border colors for almost everything, among a plethora of other advanced settings like shadow type and reflection. I can use it in my future career by making newsletters about private cello lessons or upcoming masterclasses in a way that stands out and grabs attention to invite people to read about it. Without further ado, my newsletter is below! It is on a topic I've read and attended classes about because I struggled with it a lot. I'm still improving, but I'm now at a place where I'm more confident than anxious and I wanted to be able to share that knowledge.