Privacy & Safety in Schools

We had Jesse Miller speak to us in class regarding extremely valuable topics for getting prepared to be a High School teacher, including social media, consent, privacy, and safety. As a future teacher, it is highly important for me to assess my social media usage and what is made available to the public eye. In this day and age, students, parents, administrators, and others can google a teacher’s name and find out a lot of information. Whether that information is desired to be personal and private should be considered by the teacher.

To respect the privacy and safety of students, it is required to obtain consent for sharing information about them online. A teacher is not allowed to take video or photos of students on school grounds without parental, student, and school consent.

Jesse also talked about the pros and cons of having student’s cell phone numbers as a means of contact. He suggested that it may be useful for a teacher to have a student’s number if they are in charge of an extracurricular activity that the student participates in. However, Jesse recommended putting student contacts in the “notes” section of one’s phone, rather than in contacts, so as to not mistakenly send them an accidental or inappropriate message.

As a final note, there was discussion on the effect of cell phone popularity on safety in emergencies, such as school shootings. When police are involved in an emergency like a school shooting, they enter classrooms with their guns up until they can see everybody’s hands up and empty. However, a lot of students do not necessarily want to let go of their cell phones in these instances, as they can serve as a sense of security.

The school dynamic is constantly changing in this age of technology, and it is so important for teachers to be aware of the privacy and safety risks that come with these changes. It was invaluable to be educated by Jesse Miller on some key privacy/safety topics.

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Learning GarageBand Part #2

In learning about GarageBand this week, I focused on the basics of setting up an instrument to record. The default audio input setting when first opening up GarageBand is the built in microphone on the computer. Despite it being a convenient means of recording a musical idea, the built-in microphone picks up a lot of extraneous noise and is not ideal for professional recording.

I looked into how to change the audio input, and figured out that the materials I would require are: a microphone (or instrument), a cable for the microphone (or instrument), an audio interface (to plug the microphone/instrument directly into), and a cable to plug the audio interface into the computer. These four elements are shown in my set-up in the picture attached. As an audio interface, I am using the VoiceLive Touch 2 by TC-Helicon (because I already owned this device), however there are simpler/cheaper interfaces that exist.

After setting up these four elements, I had to change the audio input setting, so that GarageBand would pick up sound from my microphone, instead of from the built-in audio input of my computer. To do this, I went to GarageBand —> Preferences —> Audio/MIDI and changed the built-in input to “VoiceLive Touch 2.” Now I am ready to record!

I can replace the microphone with any electric instrument (including an acoustic guitar with pick-up, an electric bass, and electronic drums, all of which I will try to record in this project).

The resources I used to learn how to set up my audio input for recording were:
Audio and video interfaces and connectors
GarageBand for Mac: Connect a microphone
Selecting Inputs/Outputs in GarageBand

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Lead Guitar Practice Summary #2

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #2 video:

https://youtu.be/nj0PunwC8Ak

My lead guitar practice this week was focused on learning major scales. In the attached video, I play major scales (both ascending and descending) in the keys of E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. I learned that there are many different finger pattern options in playing scales, but I consistently started on the lowest string of the guitar, leading to a fairly consistent finger pattern for each scale. I could extend my practice of scales to learning other finger patterns by starting on the 2nd to lowest string when possible, the 3rd lowest string when possible, etc. I could also extend my practice by playing the scales along to a metronome, and gradually increasing the tempo.

As resources for my learning, I watched the YouTube lesson “Learn The Major Scale on Guitar” by Guitareo, and I looked at written music for each scale using a Guitar Scale Tabs website.

Scales are important to learn because they are the building blocks of musical concepts. When playing in a particular musical key, it is important to know the notes that belong in that key to develop ideas of what notes to play in a lead guitar line.

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Visual Journal Entry 2

I am creating a video titled “This Is Me” as a project this semester. It serves as a multimodal presentation introducing who I am and what has brought me to teaching. I am using the video editing program “wevideo,” and learning how to tie in images to musical sound, as well as add in a voiceover to narrate the film. This video introducing who I am, as well as these video editing skills, will be useful in the future in the classroom. It helps to practice creating a multimodal presentation for students, and to accommodate the many different styles of learning that children may have (auditory, visual, etc.). Another skill that I am learning in this project is image editing. I am using many photos that I took in the past, and the majority of them are in portrait orientation as opposed to landscape orientation. Because the video editing program favours landscape orientation photos, I edited many of the photos to make them into squares, and then I used the function of blurring the background so that it incorporates some elements of the photo (rather than being black). Finally, I am learning some audio editing skills in the process of making this video. I chose a musical soundtrack to go along with my narration, and learned to fade it in at the beginning and fade it out at the end (using the “wevideo” editing options). For my voiceover, I recorded myself using the program “GarageBand” (which I learned how to use in my Technology class). I recorded one paragraph at a time, added each paragraph in separately to the video, and lined each paragraph up with its appropriate images.

I am excited to be working on many technology skills in my “This Is Me” project, because they are so useful to bring to the classroom in this technology-driven age. As well, these skills will help to create a classroom environment in which students can learn in a multimodal way.

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Edcamp

It was very interesting to learn about Edcamp in class last week, as Edcamp takes the aspects of active learning and inquiry into conferences. At Edcamp conferences, topics are chosen by participants, and voted on by participants, as opposed to topics being decided for the participants. In Edcamp sessions, people can have an unstructured participant-driven dialogue and share their individual expertise and insight with others. This concept allows a full spectrum of people in education to share ideas with each other.

In class, we did a pseudo-Edcamp conference, and I participated in a session regarding whether or not schools should consider moving from a grade system to a pass/fail system for marking. There was healthy debate-style dialogue from people with different opinions and backgrounds. A big pro of the gradeless pass/fail system is that students can feel value in their knowledge and achievements by “passing,” rather than feeling less value by comparing their percentage to those above them. However, an advantage of the grade system is the ease with which post-secondary institutions and programs can select candidates. It was thought-provoking to hear opinions from both sides of the argument, and understand the complexity of the decision at hand.

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Learning GarageBand Part #1

Learning GarageBand Part #1 video:

https://youtu.be/3GXaO83YQwk

My ultimate goal for my tech inquiry is to record a shortened cover of “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz with acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. These are instruments that I already know how to play, but that I have never tried recording on my own.

This week, I focused on getting oriented with GarageBand on my computer and figuring out the first steps of making a recording. I set up the tempo for my recording of “I’m Yours” to be 76 beats per minute. I learned through experimentation that setting up the tempo to be correct allows for easier edits later on. For example, if I record my guitar part and partway through I make a mistake, I do not have to redo the whole part. Instead, I can start the recording at the bar line where I made the mistake and just redo that section. If I did not set the tempo correctly, the bar line would not be accurate.

I also set up the key signature to D major and time signature to 4/4, again for the purpose of easier edits down the road.

Finally, I learned that I can copy and paste a part of a track. For example, if I record 4 bars of guitar and those 4 bars repeat for the entire song, I can copy those bars and paste them into the subsequent bars. This is a shortcut to recording, but it also makes for less of a “human” sound to the recording. In my attached video, I gave an example of copying and pasting with claps.

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Lead Guitar Practice Summary #1

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #1 video:

https://youtu.be/3lFbmSJUJGI

My lead guitar practice this week was focused on picking technique, in other words how to pluck the strings with my right hand using a guitar pick.

I tried to keep my right hand as relaxed as possible, as advised by the YouTube lesson “Basic Guitar Picking Technique” by Guitareo, using a motion mainly from my wrist and using both up and down picking. Instead of making big motions with my right hand, I tried to keep my motions small and efficient.

I practiced down strokes on all 6 strings (as they all feel different due to their thickness differences), and I practiced up strokes on all 6 strings. I then alternated between down and up strokes on every string.

I then used a metronome to practice all of these things in sequence at a certain pace (80 beats per minute in my attached video).

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Learning Plan

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.

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Introduction

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.

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Visual Journal Entry 1

My first “Visual Journal” entry is on the topic of anchor charts, because this method of learning strikes me as an effective tool to use in the classroom. Some ways in which anchor charts can serve as a student tool include: studying for exams, summarizing readings, and presenting knowledge to others. First off, exams and tests can be a source of anxiety for secondary school students. Having gone through high school, and also having witnessed some classes at Vic High on Wednesdays, there is often a lot of information presented to youth in a short amount of time. Anchor charts can serve as an effective tool to categorize the main points required to know for a test, as well as their connections to each other. Secondly, anchor charts can be an effective way to summarize readings. As mentioned in the EDCI 352 classroom, certain people prefer learning visually over learning by written text. Visual learning can help with future memory of a topic. Therefore, summarizing readings into an anchor chart can help students with creating a visual representation of text. Finally, anchor charts can be a valuable way to present knowledge to peers, teachers, or parents. As a future teacher, getting students to make anchor charts for test review or a reading summary can demonstrate whether or not students have grasped a topic.

I have witnessed the effectiveness of anchor charts in two ways so far: in my personal use in the EDCI 352 classroom, and in scholastic readings online. As seen in the example image attached, our EDCI 352 class made anchor charts for the various dimensions of the multiliteracy framework. This helped to summarize the class readings, as well as present and share our knowledge with the rest of the class. I found this very helpful to grasp the main points of the article and to feel a sense of teamwork with the rest of the class. It was also interesting to read about the multiple uses for anchor charts in the article “Anchor Charts as an Effective Teacher/Student Tool.” As a future teacher, it is helpful to see the many ways that anchor charts can be used in the classroom according to this article. For example, anchor charts can be used to present a lesson plan for the day, to display classroom rules, or to make assignment checklists, ways which I have not yet explored in my personal use.

As a final thought, I would like to talk about one particular topic we made an anchor chart for in the EDCI 352 classroom: “Conceptualizing by naming.” I witnessed this method of teaching while observing a Biology 11 class and it seemed to be very effective. The teacher had students look at various organisms and try to name them, as well as attempt to group them based on their similarities to each other. The class was able to work on many attributes of the “conceptualizing by naming” practice, such as: identifying similarities and differences, categorizing with labels, drawing distinctions, and developing specialized vocabulary. This categorical naming exercise provided clarity and insight on the topic at hand, and overall seemed very effective.

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