Category: EDCI 336

Reflection on Learning Lead Guitar

I have so much experience playing music, have been playing music professionally for 9 years, have been playing basic chords on the acoustic guitar for even more years, but I have never explored the electric guitar and lead guitar parts. It was an interesting and fun journey picking up the electric guitar and learning an instrument in an entirely new way – a more creative and less structured way. I worked for most of the semester on building new skills that I can use in a more practical way later on as I get more comfortable with soloing.

I really enjoyed learning some songs along the way to apply some of the skills that I was working on. To anyone learning an instrument, I would highly recommend doing this in order to feel the success of the skills you are slowly building up through practical applications.

I am excited to keep learning the skills I have worked on, increasing the tempos that I am comfortable with, increase my creativity, getting into soloing, and more. This is definitely going to be an ongoing project in my life that I was happy to have the opportunity to begin in my EDCI 336 class this semester.

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Scratch (Coding & Gaming)

Scratch is a visual programming language. Within scratch, you can mix clips of movement, sounds, costumes, and scripts. Simple coding is used to create scratch animations, such as asking the user “What is your name” and taking the information they input and putting it into the next line (e.g. “Hi Jill”). Coding is useful to practice in the educational system for many reasons. For one, coding is used in some upper level Math courses in High School, including Computer Science 11 and 12. Scratch can introduce the concept of coding in a fun and relatively easy way, and demonstrate the interesting outcomes that can result from successful coding.

The games that can be created through scratch can have positive implications on learning in the following subject areas: biology, english, technology, math, and physics. For biology classrooms, games can be created in scratch to introduce students to various classes of animals, for example, and have students appropriately classify these animals into their classes along their journey in the game. In English class, scratch games can help students with story telling. Playing games within scratch can model the effective use of story telling in writing, and creating games in scratch can be hands-on way of actually telling stories in a multimodal way. Scratch also teaches students multiple technological skills, skills that are increasingly important in this day and age. Math and physics can also be applied to scratch games; for example, a person could explore firing a canon at various angles to hit a target, continuously estimating and re-estimating what a successful angle looks like. I am excited to explore scratch in more and more ways in order to incorporate it into my future classrooms.

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Reflection on Learning GarageBand

Music is a big part of my life, and recording is a big part of my life. But before this semester, I had never recorded something on my own. I had never explored recording software and learned how it worked. For these reasons it was really fun to explore GarageBand and learn more about the art of recording, editing, and mixing instruments and vocals.

I was surprised at how easy recording can be at a simple level, and also surprised at how complex it can be to make professional-sounding tracks. I feel that through my research and practice using GarageBand I explored the tip of the iceberg of recording. I developed the ability to record all sorts of instruments (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric drums, electric bass, and vocals), edit and choose the best takes, add effects, and more. However, there is probably so much more to learn in terms of detecting what sounds best and adding the best possible effects and levels of instruments, etc. This was mostly a guessing game of “what sounded right to me.”

I think that it would be useful to teach students in high school music classes about the basics of recording. It can be such a handy skill for musicians, whether it be to produce professional demos, to practice for a recording session, or to hear a rough mix of songwriting ideas as they are thought of. I would love to expand my knowledge of different recording software to be able to make appropriate recommendations to students depending on their level of interest, commitment, and previous knowledge.

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Distributed Learning & Assessment

Distributed learning is a form of learning in which a student and teacher are (for the most part) not physically in the same place. Thus it takes advantage of the Internet’s capability of connecting people via video and audio features. Distributed learning can be intermingled with some face-to-face instruction as well. There are many distributed learning programs in BC, both for public education and independent education. I can see advantages as well as disadvantages to distributed learning, but overall I think it is a great option to have in BC. Some advantages of distributed learning include: 1) the ability to study while travelling, working, or otherwise unable to be available for set class times, 2) the vast bank of schools and instructors to choose from, 3) the flexible pacing and scheduling, and 4) the cost effectiveness. However, I can also imagine a few disadvantages to the structure of distributed learning, including: 1) the potential for a lack of motivation, 2) the deficiency of social learning, 3) the lack of certain courses, and 4) the availability of the Internet. Overall, I believe that distributed learning is a very useful option to have for the learners who will benefit from this style of education.

In my various courses at UVic this semester, I have learned many pieces of information on assessment and how to make it valuable for students, parents, teacher, and administrators. First of all, it has been emphasized in the Psychology of Classroom Learning course that assessment and feedback are best to be frequent, immediate, and specific. As a student, it is highly valuable to receive feedback that can actually guide towards improvement of learning. For this to be the case, teachers must focus on specificity in their delivery of assessment. In addition, we have learned a lot about the importance of both formative and summative assessment styles. Formative assessment consists of assessing during the process of learning. This can be done through the Think-Pair-Share method, through homework and in-class questions, or through summaries/reflections of the lesson by the students. Summative assessment consists of assessing students’ knowledge at the end of a unit and comparing this to some sort of standard. This can be done in the form of tests, quizzes, projects, presentations, etc. It has been emphasized in my coursework this semester that formative assessment is very important for student success. This is because formative assessment allows the teacher to get a grasp of where the students are at, and adjust their pacing or teaching style to suit the students’ needs

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GAFE and PLN

GAFE (Google Apps For Education) is a free set of applications provided by Google for educational institutions. It is highly valuable because it provides a workspace that is in the cloud, meaning that your work can be accessed from any device at any time as long as there is internet connection. One component of GAFE that I just started to use this school semester is Google Docs (which also includes the service of Google Slides). These two components of GAFE have been very helpful for individual work as well as collaborations. For anything that I am working on individually in Google Docs or Google Slides, I do not need to worry about the transportation of a laptop or other device with me when I travel, when I go to and from school, or otherwise. As long as there is access to an electronic device with internet service where I am going, I can simply log in to my Google account and continue to edit my work from wherever. Despite their benefits for individual work, I have found Google Docs and Google Slides to be even more helpful for collaborative work with peers. Through these two services, a person can start a document or slide presentation, and then share it with the other collaborators in their group who can edit it and/or add to it. I have used this method of collaboration in many of my classes this semester. A few other features of GAFE that I have not yet used are Gmail (for email purposes), Calendar, Drive (for storage), and Sites (for creating websites that can be edited by various collaborators).

A personal learning network is a set of connections a person forms to interact with and learn from others. As a future educator, I have realized the great importance of developing a personal learning network and I have begun to do so this semester in many ways. For example, when working on my inquiry project for my seminar class at Vic High, I focused on connecting with experts in the field that I was studying. My inquiry question was as follows: “What defines inquiry-based learning in the Grade 9 math classroom?” I spoke with multiple people who had hands-on experience teaching in an inquiry-based way, including Trevor MacKenzie (from Oak Bay High School), Math teachers at Vic High, and an instructor at the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. I also spoke to students to develop an understanding of how they viewed inquiry and what benefits they saw in this style of learning. Becoming a successful educator is greatly benefited by developing connections along the way that can help provide insight and depth into your learning and practice. This is what a personal learning network is all about.

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Lead Guitar Practice Summary #9

This week I learned a new line from a very lead guitar-heavy song: “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin. Below is a video of the result of my practice.

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #9 video:

This piece of music tied together a few of the key concepts that I learned over the course of my semester of tackling the lead guitar. First of all, it took some time to practice the up and down picking while changing strings so often. It is a challenge to gauge the distance between the strings when alternating between upwards and downwards strokes.

Additionally, I got to apply my string bending practice with half-note bends occurring two times every line. This was a good reminder to practice the precision of bends, aiming for the note that is exactly a half step up from the starting note.

Finally, this song tested my ability to do hammer-ons and pull-offs. This was especially difficult, because the lead guitar line contains a hammer-on and pull-off joined to one another. In other words, it involved plucking a note, then adding a finger without plucking to create a hammered-on note, then taking away that finger without plucking to create a pulled-off note. This technique of a back-to-back hammer-on and pull-off is especially challenging since it involves playing three notes in a row with only one pluck of the string.

My resource this week was:

Black Dog Tab

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Learning GarageBand Part #9

Through both my use and research of GarageBand, I have found that there are many advantages as well as many disadvantages to this particular recording software.

As pros to the software, it:
-is simple to use
-is great to use as a sketch pad to start compositions
-has a very easy interface
-has a very clear layout

As cons to the software, it:
-does not allow for changes of tempo within a song
-has less effect options than other recording software
-can only drag a section of a song to the nearest beat, rather than to anywhere (this affects the ability to redo a small part of the song easily)

GarageBand is often recommended as a tool for anyone starting off in their recording journey. Other recording software programs are more popular for professional use, including Pro Tools, Ableton Live, and Pro Tools. However, these can cost somewhere between $200 and $600.

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Lead Guitar Practice Summary #8

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #8 video:

To continue my lead guitar practice this week, I learned different forms of pentatonic scales. For each major or minor key there are many different shapes of the pentatonic scale, starting at different areas on the fret board. It is useful to know these different shapes because, when in a soloing position, you may want to have the ability to solo on different parts of the guitar, having variation in the pitches of the notes you play.

In the above video, I am shown practicing three different major pentatonic scales in 4 different shapes each. To further my practice in this area, I could work on minor pentatonic scales, I could increase the tempo I am playing at, and I could increase the number of octaves of my scales.

Reference:

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Learning GarageBand Part #8

Since I completed my recording of “I’m Yours” last week, I learned about exporting a song from GarageBand and the differences between different exported file types this week. In the version of GarageBand that I have, there are three possible file types that I can create when exporting a song: MP3, AAC, or AIFF. If you are like me, these terms are confusing at first and more information is needed.

Here is a quick summary of these three file types. MP3 stands for MPEG-2 Audio Layer-3. Songs in MP3 format take up less space than other file formats. This is due to the fact that data in the song is compressed to make the file. In other words, some parts of the song are removed that do not affect the listening experience (e.g. very high and low frequencies essentially undetectable by the human ear). MP3 files are compatible with all iOS devices and are thus widely used. AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding. AAC files are higher quality than MP3 files but essentially do the exact same thing: they compress certain frequencies and take up less space than other files (and even less space than MP3 files). They are also compatible with all iOS devices. AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format, and AIFF files are uncompressed files, thus taking up a lot more space than MP3 or AAC files. They use about 10MB of storage per minute of music. Because they are uncompressed, they are technically of higher quality than compressed files, but that comes with the cost of storage space. AIFF files were created by Apple and are only compatible with Apple devices.

Because AAC presented itself as a relatively high quality compressed file compatible with all iOS devices, I chose to export my cover song under this file type.

Reference used:

How MP3 and AAC Are Different

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Virtual Reality

In class today, we had the opportunity to check out a virtual reality lab and it was fascinating. I have never experienced virtual reality and I got to make art with virtual objects and brushes, as well as view artifacts in a 3D space in my time in the lab.

There are a few health concerns with virtual reality. First of all, it can affect the growth of the eye, leading to the potential development of myopia or nearsightedness. Secondly, there is a danger of getting hurt by obstacles in the real world that are not visible in the virtual reality world (for this reason, it is always recommended that someone is watching over a person using virtual reality). Finally, motion sickness is very common within virtual reality, as the movements within the 3D space can be abrupt and/or large, throwing off a person’s balance. For these reasons, children below the age of 12 should not use it, and people above the age of 13 should be conscious of their time spent on it.

I can see many benefits of adding virtual reality into an educational setting. As two main examples based on my experience, I can see the benefits of virtual reality being implemented into art and history classes. In the virtual reality space, a person can create art in three dimensions, using objects, lines, a 360 degree space, colours, and more. Additionally, in this space, a person can view artifacts up close, far away, from above, from below, etc. This could be a really cool addition to history classes in which students are studying archaeology and artifacts are not obtainable in the real world.

Reference:

The very real health dangers of virtual reality

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