tech tools – Jill Cooper (Teaching Education)

Skype is a tech program that I have used in my personal life for video conversations with someone from afar; however, I have never used it as a business tool and it has many benefits in this area as well. Skype is a software that enables free video and voice one-on-one or group calls, as well as file-sharing and messaging options. There are many great features of Skype for business – a couple that stand out are:

1) Skype will connect to your Outlook calendar, read your calendar, and will display the message “In a Meeting” to anyone trying to connect during your booked time.
2) It is possible to take control of someone else’s computer/laptop/etc. through Skype in order to help them perform something on their device.
However, there are a couple of downfalls to Skype as well, including:

1) The program can crash if many chats are open at the same time.
2) There is no ability to group appointed calendar meeting conversations with other conversations.

Skype is a form of social media, as there are the options of writing a status, sending a personal message, group chatting, sharing files, sharing photos, and sharing a computer screen within the program. These qualities all fall under the concept of a social network, and display similarities between Skype and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc. Skype is also considered a tech tool. It is a tool, as it helps people to carry out plans, get tasks done, and collaborate. And it is a tech tool since it a technology-based program. Using one of its main functions, Skype users can have video conferences with each other. So, instead of in-person conferences in the typical business world, conferences can be had via online group chats in business Skype models.

I am going to focus on learning how to record vocals and some instruments that I play, and how to make adjustments to the recordings to create better sounding material. I have the program “GarageBand” on my computer, and will be looking into online and other tutorials on how to use it. I will focus on different elements of the program each week, beginning the week of September 24th, including: tempo, key signature, time signature, looping a track, splitting a track, editing parts of a track, vocal tracks, acoustic guitar tracks, bass tracks, electric drum tracks, adding effects, and publishing a song.

For my tech inquiry project in EDCI 336, I am interested in pursuing a deeper understanding of recording music. As a musician, I believe that it is a very useful learning tool to be able to record yourself playing, and listen back with a critical ear. It’s also a great way to track your progress (on a particular piece of music, for example). And finally, recording your own music is useful for releasing singles, albums, etc. in a professional music career. For these reasons, it could be very practical to incorporate basic concepts of recording into high school music classes.

Category: tech tools

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Introduction

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