Summative Post

As I wrap up my ICT class, here are a few final thoughts on technology and education.

Disappointed by Xtranormal

I tried making a movie today with Xtranormal and was really disappointed with it. I thought it would be a great education tool as it states that if you can type, you can make movies. This seemed like it could be an awesome classroom tool because the students would be able to get a great result out of something that did not require alot of outside prep work. But unfortunately I did not even get to the end result before I was disappointed.
To give the site a chance I will say that I only created a free account. It may work better with an account that is paid for, but as a first time user I did not want to put money down on something that I couldn't try out first.
When you sign up with the free account it gives you 500 points to begin with. But to pick the most basic background is over 100 points, and picking the most basic character is over 100 points. So if you have picked to do two characters you are already over 300 points. At this point I was already super disappointed in the animation and gave up for the night.
When I tried to get back into it today I could not remember my password (or frankly what email address I had used to create it). I tried looking through my different email accounts, but website did not send me any sort of confirmation of what I had used. So I ended up feeling lost and really did not want to try it again.
So in terms of using digital story telling, I have given up on Xtranormal and will continue using animoto for now, at least until I find another story telling sight that I like.

Animoto

Fun little video that I made today on Animoto. This could be used for alot of great applications in the classroom. A great interactive way for students to create stories from their own lives. Take a look!

dissecting pig heart

Oh, Powerpoint

I really enjoy powerpoint presentations. Througout highschool I used them often, and I think I am pretty savy with using it. embedding videos, creating really interesting layouts, inserting voice overlays; the program allows for a lot of different and interesting creations to be developed from it. Yet people still make so many boring, and ugly presentations.
A few of the common mistakes that happen during powerpoints are:
way too many transitions
bad text: font, color, and size
animations that often look immature
bad sound effects (good only if you are actually trying to be funny)
too much text on the slide
no pictures or too many pictures
.....so much more than can't be listed at this time.
I really love the features that powerpoint can offer, but people really need to remember that the powerpoint is just an aid to their presentation, not the other way around. Ok, now that I have had my rant, how do I teach students to use powerpoint properly? Presentations are scary for students, and having an aid like powerpoint can really help them to feel more confident in their presentations. Of course they will run into the giltches at first that I just mentionned, that is part of the learning process. How do you get students past the point of the boring ugly powerpoint presentation? How do you get students to use the powerpoint as a creative outlet during learning and build a strong presentation at the same time? A few thoughts to ponder....

Give kids a chance!

I Just watched a tedtalks video by Sir Ken Robinson, and I have got to say that he deserves such a prestigious title for he is a smart man, and not just university prof smart either.

Interestingly enough the largest statement that stuck with me from his entire speech was this :

"Shakespeare was in someone's English class".

Robinson had said this as a bit of a joke, and kept on moving, but it really remained with me. Every student that walks into our classroom has the potential to become the next Shakespeare, Einstein, or god forbid, Justin Beiber. We do not know what our students will become.... it's as simple as that. We have NO IDEA what our students will become.

Yet we are all still preparing our lessons to teach in the same way as we have learned. Math and English before social studies, social studies before music, music before drama. We teacher our students that if you excel in drama but not in math, that you are stupid. This is how our education system works. If what you excel in will not get you a stable "normal person" job than it is not of worth. And because it is not of worth, you are not of worth. Bit of a harsh reality to face from the teaching and growing that we like to imagine ourselves doing as teachers.

So how to change it? That is the bigger question. I want to believe that because I am going to teach music that I have already taken a big step in supporting the musical students in having confidence in their abilities and in themselves. But unfortunately I am also aware that when they sit in math class and cannot do their multiplication tables it is going to emphasised to them that they are not as good as the rest of the class, even though they may be the only one getting a good tone out of a recorder (or the best tone that can be produced out of a recorder anyway).

I am really feeling hopeless as I am posting this because I really do not know how I can personally change this fact. It really needs to be a whole system revolution. To allow students to embrace themselves for who they are and what they are good at is a huge task, and it will be a huge task also to change our system to allow them to do so. I hope that we can be inspired as a whole to embrace our students, to change our system, and to not squander the potential that our students hold.

Dear Santa...

Ok so I need to have a bit of a chat with the jolly old fella and his white beard and awesome magical bag because I totally think he has an ipad for me stashed into the bag of his somewhere. This is because recently I have fallen in love with the one that I have been using from school. Of course checking facebook, pinterest, and every other waste of time I can find on there are so easily accessible, but there is so much more to it than that. I have been taking it with me everywhere and using it for everything!

Ipads are seriously a great education too! Not only for students, but also for the teacher. I seriously do not know how I am going to be able to write a lesson plan again without one. They allow me to write my rehearsal plan anywhere, can have it right on the stand with my score, and make edits at any point before my rehearsal, even if it is one minute before. They are also great in rehearsal because all gadgets (metronome, tuner, keyboard if necessary) are all in device that is attached with the lesson plan.

As an student I have been using it a lot also. I can edit documents, highlight papers, and do any research I need from one devise. So seriously, anyone talking to Santa Claus any time soon please tell him that he needs to give presents to adults too (and that I would really like an ipad), thanks!

Smartboard

I have fallen in love with the smartboard. Recently we looked at using the smartboard in class and I did not realize all the different things that can be done with it. My peers brought in a lot of different ideas, ranging from using the actual score, circle of fifths, and even simple notation learning. These were all really awesome and I learned many different things that the smartboard does.

I had always thought that the smartboard was not really something that would be used as much in the music classroom but after the class last week my opinion on that has totally changed. There is so much that can be done with the smartboard if you are aware of what it can do. It is great to help students visualize the aural concepts of music and I am really excited to get to use it more!