week 3 - Creating video presentations

This was an interesting week for me. We have been given many examples within our music method class, about how useful video can be for our subject for example in areas of composition or performance. I.E It is useful for students to be able to create works and record works, but it is also very useful for the teacher  for the purposes of assessment. I find it a bit frustrating to not be able to use the mac computer, but then I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn on the PC because there are many schools out there that use PC - so I should be able to navigate my way around them.

week 2...

Week number 2...

This week we were shown how to use the movie maker in the tutorial. Taking in to consideration what John said in his lecture about different styles of learning, I ask myself - what is my style of learning? What is my favourite style of 'expression'. These two styles are linked surely? Do they have a direct correlation? Also, does my style of learning gel with the way that I am using computers at the moment?

While interacting with movie maker, I started to realise that I may enjoy the process of learning more about using this medium because I often relate to visual communication/visual aids for learning and so,  engaging with the visual video medium may help me to express something in a way that I haven't yet been able to express.

However I find the details of learning the program a little bit frustrating i.e. you learn how to do one thing but immediatly after that you start struggling with the next thing that just 'wont work'! For example I learnt how to drag a photo into movie maker but then struggled with finding a way of shortening the length of the clips.

Some points from John's 2nd lecture:

• The only thing worse would be to make technology "invisible," preventing children from even being aware of their ignorance." Monke, L. W. (2006)  - i.e. not about integrating technology - that can make it invisible - piano/car example
• "If I don't 'integrate' a computer in things I do outside the classroom, but I do 'integrate' it inside one, then whatever I am doing with it there is probably not authentic".
• "...there exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go against early 'naive' theories that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its matching domains."
•  "The point about all this is that computers can often cater for all sorts of intellectual styles and approaches to thinking - at least, expressions of thought. (VELS: Visualising thinking??) That's the individual angle - computers usually offer everyone a starting point that suits their cognitive leanings."
• Riding, with collaborators who include Cheema and Raynor, considers that there are two independent 'dimensions' to the way people think and make sense of the world: Wholist-Analytic and Verbal-Imagery
• John says this is one of the scariest things a teacher can be faced with, because it is a graphical (and graphic!) reminder that all the kids in their class have minds that work in different ways and along different paths. And as a teacher you have to allow for that, and use it.
• "Work expressed in words is almost always valued over work expressed in pictures. All qualities of an Analytic-Verbaliser mind." 
• "...in Lecture One I suggested that making a film required a very wide range indeed of abilities and interests. It also requires a wide mix of Cognitive Styles and Intelligences."
• "...And understanding your audience begins with an understanding of how they best learn."
• "ICT won't solve your educational problems, but it can help broaden the ways in which your students can learn and live and invent and create and cooperate and publish."

Welcome! First lesson...

My first day of blogging has been a fun challenge. I have to admit though, I feel a bit behind other students. "Surely I'm supposed to know how to blog and how to use powerpoint magnificantly, by now", I ask my self? I mean, I have already completed a degree and I have been using the computer for quite a few years. However, today was the first day I had ever tried to set up a blog. I felt a sense of achievement even though the task was pretty simple. Sense of achievement, is good!
What I've realised is that I need to keep alert in the classes, so as not to miss a thing the tutor is saying (In this first lesson every now and then I lapsed in to my own thoughts and then found myself back in the class but two steps behind...this was not condusive to good learning).
I understand that I will need to catch up on quite a bit of knowledge in order to be able to utilise the technology to its potential (as much as that is possible) for my subject area -music. I was really  impressed by one of the guest lecturers for music, who showed us many ways that technology can be used within the music classroom. One of those tools, was the chance for students to set up blogs and post video presentations about certain musical subjects, rather than having to write an essay or present in class. The lecturer had explained that the student was 'anti-class presentation', and yet he excelled in the blog presentation.Ultimately I would like to be able to offer my students a variety of ways for them to present their work and their understanding of topics. The more I know about the technology and what it can offer, the more opportunity I can give to my students to learn in a way that is best suited to them individually.
First things first -get comfortable with the blog and powerpoint medium. The only way that happens is to just 'get in there' and try things out.