Final Video

Hi Everyone,

Here is my final video, as I mentioned it’s a cover of Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan. This was my very first experience singing to a song that I was playing as well as the first time I have recorded myself. There are a number of things I had difficulty with in this video, but all in all, I am happy with how it turned out. Enjoy!

Learning to play and sing to a song on the computer has been quite an experience. As frustrating and sometimes painful as it was, I am so thankful I have finally completed my project and I am ready to move on to learning other songs I also hope to become much more fluid with this song as well. Thank you for following my learning process, it has been a rollercoaster ride for sure!

Thank you for following my learning process, thank you for the encouragement and well wishes, it has been a rollercoaster ride for sure!

Summary of Learning

Wrapping up!

As the semester comes to a close, I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the number of assignment due as well as a great sense of accomplishment.This semester has been an incredible journey for me for various reasons, but most of all because I finally feel like I am able to play the guitar with some confidence, thanks to my #learningproject. I am so grateful I was given a chance to take on a project that was of interest to me personally and see it through to the end.

During this project, I was lucky enough to have my classmate, Janelle Clarke along for the ride! When she posted this meme I learned that she too was learning the guitar. Because we had connected on Facebook as well, we were able to contact one another with questions, project ideas and often just to chat. It was really neat having someone to talk to about my classes since I am so far away. Thank you, Janelle!

 

Many times I felt as though I had a lot to learn before I was able to assist anyone else too much. The google+ community was extremely helpful during this course to put those feelings at ease a little and I was able to offer possible solutions to a few tech issues or share some information about a command feature that I had discovered.

  

 

 

 

 

 

One place where I probably learned the most from my classmates or contributed to their learning was in the zoom room. I think it is beneficial to be able to have questions answered in this classroom setting and it likely contributed to the learning of my classmates that shared the same questions.

A few times throughout this course I had a chance to contribute to others learning through conversations. Just yesterday I was showing my Dad around the google apps page (the google drive and google docs) and a few weeks ago I showed my partner the coding websites and we discussed how these might be useful in a classroom setting. In addition, I told a teacher friend of mine about the social media platform mentioned by

In addition, I told a teacher friend of mine about the social media platform mentioned by Amy Klassen called Edmodo, which is basically a classroom friendly “facebook”. This site is one that I would love to use in my future classroom as it seems to provide a good starting place for students who are just becoming familiar with social media sites. This also increased my learning of the topics because it requires me to demonstrate and explain different purposes for these tools.

All of these experiences have increased my learning of the topics because it requires me to demonstrate and explain different uses for these tools. Thank you all for giving me a good introduction to the endless capabilities of the online world!

Online Social Activisim: Is it worth it?

    It seems every time I log on to my Facebook there is yet another heated argument happening. These days it usually involves the controversial Peel Water Shed debate, women rights movements or opinions about newly landed immigrants. A platform such as Facebook has given people the ability to both support one another and distribute hate.

   Online social activism, for this reason, is not only meaningful but I think it is necessary. So many times there are people who will say racist, or sexist things online that they wouldn’t say in person. That is where we get a chance to SHUT IT DOWN. I know that when individuals online, whether I know them or not, post hateful messages I react. I can feel it affect me emotionally. And, the only thing I can do, in that moment is say something. I am encouraged when I read countless people all banding together to shut down a person who chooses to make racist, homophobic, sexist statements online. It actually makes me feel like I am in some way contributing to a social cause when I challenge those narrow-minded statements. And I can imagine that those people who are being discriminated against feel supported when others stand up for them.

I think social activism plays two major roles in our society. One is bringing together people who are being oppressed and giving them a platform to expose their daily struggles, which we can all learn from. And two, it educates others, who may be more privileged that we are not all living the same reality, others struggle more, despite working their efforts.

Many times I have been reading through news stories and comments on the Black Lives Matter page and what I’ve noticed is that people, for the most part, are there to support one another. Countless times administrators of that page have posted threats or racists memes they have received through private messages. They post them publicly in order to bring attention to the fact that they are being discriminated against and support one another.

  Online social activism is about empowering one another and whether it serves to change laws or prevent prejudices from existing isn’t always clear.

An Hour of Code

Coding is very new to me. Of course, I had seen the dreaded codes appear when my old computer would crash or if I hadn’t saved a document properly. Getting a chance to understand coding in this class has been very neat. The idea of computer programming and all that that involves always seemed a little terrifying but I think I can safely say I am becoming more comfortable with the idea of implementing technology in the classroom and hopefully by the time I am a teacher I will have had some practice.

I must say that after our class I went back to code.org and continued Moana’s journey for a while, but I decided I had better step it up a notch if I wanted to learn a little more about coding. We’ll I’m glad I did because what I learned in my tutorial by Hello Processing was extremely helpful in grasping how coding works as well as the purpose it serves in our everyday lives.

I chose the Hello Processing site because it allows you to create images with very detailed step by step instructions. Although I can appreciate this program in some ways, as it is very straight forward fun and engaging, I also found this program to be somewhat glitchy.

When I eventually got to the second part of the tutorial, where we learn how to add color to our image, somehow my image didn’t restore from the last session. Luckily, I had taken a screenshot so I went through and filled in the code and was back at it.

Schools in the Yukon have not become fully involved with digital education, so I struggled to understand how coding could be used to benefit a student’s learning. I will admit it is fun and even somewhat addictive, but I didn’t really see what the fuss was all about. I choose to research this topic a bit to see what I could find.

The CBC article, Why Kids Should Learn to Code was very helpful and it brought to my attention a few main points. 1. Coding is a form of digital literacy, and because of this, it is important for children to gain an understanding of the function of code in order to better understand the digital world as a whole. Because many aspects of our lives are very much intertwined with elements of the digital world, we know that children will benefit from a better understanding of code. 2. Problem-solving! This was the big one for me – and after reading a bit more about it – obvious, too. Having children practice problem-solving skills through an engaging and interactive game (even ones like Moana) is laying the groundwork for some critical thinking, which is something children are doing much less these days.

All in all, I would say learning to code is something children will benefit from while having fun. There is a huge amount of variety when it comes to skill level or style which allows for flexibility and structure at the same time. The ability for a teacher to encourage the development of digital literacy in a way that can be fun and interactive is a win – win in my books!

Tieing it all Together

Hi all,

It’s been a while since my last update, but I have been practicing every spare moment. Things have been progressing well and I am really feeling committed to the guitar. I have noticed it’s a bit tricky for me to focus on one particular song, I often find myself checking out random videos and sites to learn a riff and then I have to push myself to get back on track.

My goal for this project was to learn to play and sing a song for the final video. I think it’s safe to say that is finally within my reach. As I have mentioned the song I chose was Knocking on Heaven’s Door. I initially had difficulty choosing a specific version of this song. In this video, Michael Schulte uses a capo on the third fret and I really liked how that sounded. I practiced it that way for a while and I initially thought that was the version I would use for my final video. However, when it came time to practice singing I discovered that for my voice, I would probably be better off without the capo, and I am starting to get used to the way it sounds.

I used a voice recorder app on my iphone to record a few different versions of the song, both with and without the capo. Here is a recording where I have demonstrated the difference between the two versions.

If you don’t already play guitar, the pictures below should give you an idea of what position my hand/fingers are in when playing each chord.

  This is the finger placement for a G chord.

This is a D chord.

This is an Am (minor) chord.

This is a C chord.

Here is the exact finger placement for the chords, these are screenshots from a few of my Garage Band Lessons.

The lyrics are slightly different depending on which version of the song you are learning as well. I decided to use lyrics that were familiar to me and seemed to suit the way I learned the song.

Talking About Facebook

  When trying to decide what to write about for this week’s blog post I thought I might look at the ever popular, Facebook. As much as I enjoy this social media platform to communicate and share photos with friends and family a part of me does think that in a few ways Facebook is doing more harm than good. To begin with, it is a little bit of a distraction. Especially if you have ever taken an online course. With the intention of doing a quick flip through the pages of FB, somehow I have found myself, 45 minutes later reading the expense reports of our member’s of parliament (this video accurately describes exactly why that seems to happen!)  Okay, Facebook may not be to blame for that one, but there are a few, more serious concerns I thought I would mention. 

  I struggle with the idea that because we are becoming increasingly geared towards online presence it seems we are simultaneously falling into a world of false identity. There are numerous stories that tell of the pressures felt by social media users to present a flawless digital identity. The article Split Image describes how one young woman struggled so much to live up to this image she had created for herself, that it is thought it may have led her to suicide. Many young adults present their ideal self on places like Facebook using cropped, filtered photos and exaggerated descriptions of achievements. To me, it seems this is becoming somewhat of an obsession among teens and young adults and is playing a major role in the negative body image which can lead to an array of other issues.

  In addition, The article Three Big Problems with Facebook Activism points to our tendency to assume that we are in some way advocating for oppressed individuals by “liking” and “sharing” articles that pertain to them. People have become so absorbed in the mass amounts of garbage “news” and ineffective online campaigns that you forget to participate in the real world fight for social justice. So often people are reposting articles and memes or changing their profile picture because it is trendy, and seems to conform to what is happening around them. In many ways, I believe Facebook is giving people a false sense of participation in social justice movements, which, as the article above shows is benefitting their ego more than anything. In addition, it reminds us that neither our own nor are our friend’s posts are completely genuine and more times than not we use this more convenient advocation as a way to comfort ourselves in a world that requires much more active participation.

All Those Apps

When I was looking around at a few of the apps that are available, I realized there are so many! You can find apps for everything, from budgeting, meal planning and learning instruments to tracking the stages of pregnancy. Having all of these different applications allows you to personalize your device in order to stay organized, share ideas and prepare projects and various other things. I chose to look at two apps one that I use frequently now and one that I might use in my future classroom.

The first app that I found useful as a student was ScreenCastify. I use this tool to record presentations with voiceover, present pieces of my learning project and most recently to record a conversation in the zoom room with my classmate Janelle Clarke for a project. ScreenCastify is user-friendly, versatile and best of all, it’s free! This app allows you to save videos to your device or upload them directly to youtube or the google drive and provides the link as well. I have found this app to be extremely useful and I will likely continue to use it for the remainder of my studies.

It was difficult to choose just two apps to write about. Because there are so many fantastic apps that save time, money and headache. But this next one takes the cake. NaturalReader Text to speech is a must have for people with reading disabilities or dyslexia. I can also see myself using this tool at times when my eyes are burning from staring at a screen or textbook for hours on end. I love that this tool not only will boost many learners to a level playing field, but it also changes things up for those of us with long lists of assigned readings. I think I just might download this one, too!

Teaching with Twitter

In our ECMP355 class our task was to simulate a likely conversation surrounding the topic of implementing the use of social media in the classroom.

Janelle Clarke and I tackle Twitter… from the perspectives of two of the most important adults in a student’s life.

 

Video References:

Photo Credit: clasesdeperiodismo Flickr via Compfight cc

“10 Amazing Ways For Teachers & Tutors To Use Twitter In Education”

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ways-to-use-twitter-in-education/

“Digital Citizenship : Using Technology Appropriately – The Nine Elements”

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

Music By: Transient by Psychadelik Pedestrian is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

 

  Having a guest speaker in a class is always exciting. Having the opportunity to learn from others and their experiences are invaluable and our guest speaker in ECMP 355, Carol Todd was no exception. I was inspired mostly by her willingness to talk openly and honestly about the tragic loss of her daughter, Amanda Todd. Amanda was the victim of brutal and persistent bullying both on and offline. When you watch The Fifth Estate episode: A Man in the Shadows, you come to realize that a  large portion of her story is common. A typical young person exploring the online world comes to find that she is able to connect with others, many of whom seem friendly and encouraging of her singing talent. This positive reinforcement would have likely given Amanda the confidence online that she struggled with in the world.

  Then her story takes a bit of an uncommon turn when we learn about the individuals who choose to engage in this online world for the purpose of bullying and extortion. This is the scary reality of creating a digital identity. Amanda’s story is one that has brought these dangers to the forefront of many parents minds. Instilling fear in parents as their teens explore the online world. What I learned from Carol is that although she recognized that Amanda was interacting with dangerous people online, she never mentions wishing she had prohibited Amanda from accessing the internet.

  Many people have expressed that this mistake may have cost Amanda her life. However, the reality is that it is virtually impossible to deny a teen access to anything, let alone technology that is often required to complete homework assignments and communicate with peers. I wondered how things could have played out if she had been prohibited from using the internet and I am fairly confident that would have made things worse, for both Carol and Amanda. Do I think this would have prevented Amanda’s death, absolutely not.

  Carol has said that her daughter was likely keeping the bullying and extortion from her mother because, like most teens, she was afraid of her Mother’s reaction. Could things have played out differently for Amanda? Maybe. But from our discussion with Carol, she focuses not on what could have been had Amanda come forward earlier, but how she could have provided further education for her daughter about the dangers of putting yourself online, I found that courageous.

  This and many of the conversations we have in ECMP 355 have provided me with a clear understanding that it is our job, as parents and educators to teach children about online responsibilities. We have to be involved in preventing our own children and students from bullying others online and protecting themselves. As we’ve discussed digital identity is only becoming more important and relevant in today’s society and we have a responsibility to show children that it is ok to embrace the online world for its unlimited capabilities while providing an understanding of its potential dangers.