Technology and Innovation - Alyssa

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Author: alyssavanstone

Final Demonstration Growth – Chasing Cars

This is my final demonstration of growth with the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

This song was very different from the last one I learned as it contains fingerpicking, an aspect of the ukulele I had never experienced or heard of before. I found it quite difficult. I found that my fingers were very sore, and I would have to take breaks quite frequently as all of my fingers were hurting from doing the chords and fingerpicking.

Chasing cars included the chords AMAJ, AM7, and D. I found it quite easy to navigate from AMAJ to AM7 but very difficult to perform the chord D.  I think that this was really difficult for me as it required to have three fingers on one fret, and it felt very cramped. As you can see in the video, it takes me a few seconds to get my fingers correctly to D.

I also found that I did not have enough time as I would have liked to perform this song successfully. The last part of the semester was extremely course-heavy, and I did not have much time to practice. If I had more time to practice my navigation from AM7 to D, it would sound a lot better.

The introduction and the verse required only fingerpicking with the three chords. Fingerpicking was very difficult for me, but when I started to get the hang of it, it was pretty cool to do, and in my opinion, I sounded much like the real song. The fingerpicking requirements were to play 8 times on each chord. It was the first finger, and then the thumb, the second finger, and the third finger at the same time to get the correct sound.

For the chorus, it was strumming, which I am confident in within my last song Riptide. The strumming pattern was down, down, down, down-up. I also found it very easy to navigate from AMAJ to AM7 but difficult to go to D when strumming.

All in all, this song was enjoyable to learn, and I am thrilled I had the opportunity to experience fingerpicking.

I am really proud of myself as I was anxious I wouldn’t be able to play the ukulele at all, but with practice, muscle memory, and perseverance, I got both songs done at a pretty successful rate. I am confident in my skills on the ukulele that I could teach elementary school students the ukulele’s basics due to having to do this assignment. I am proud and thankful!

Chasing Cars

As the end of term approaches, I am working a bit harder each and every day with this song. This song is much more challenging than I anticipated.

It is harder than I thought because I had gotten strumming patterns and the chords down from Riptide, but I did not have any experience with fingerpicking. The fingerpicking pattern and speed vary, and I find it rather difficult to change chords while fingerpicking.

Although it is much harder, it is a lot of fun. When I do get it going and accomplish it, it sounds so much like chasing cars! It is so satisfying to be able to create the sounds as the song does.

I have also had a hard time with chord D. The chord D requires you to put three fingers on the same fret. I find it very difficult to maneuver my fingers in the correct places without taking a few seconds to get them there successfully.

I have been working strictly with the chord D lately so I can master it. It is extremely frustrating not being able to get there as fast as the other chords. My goal for this week is to successfully go back and forth from D to other chords without hesitation. I am hoping my muscle memory will start to memorize the finger placements more smoothly successfully.

Inquiry Project

Assignment 336

 

This is our EdTech project for this semester. I had a lot of fun doing this inquiry as I believe Kahoot is a really useful game to use in the classroom to promote learning and engage students in the material. I learned many facts I did not know about Kahoot, how it is important, and how students and teachers use it effectively. I also learned how to create them which is important in my future career.

 

Ukulele Progress- Chasing Cars

This week I made a lot of progress with my ukulele song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

I am using the same teaching style as I did with Riptide. I wrote down all the chords I needed to know, and which finger goes on what string and made diagrams for me to refer to as I go through the song. The diagram also includes strumming patterns.

One thing I am having a really hard time with is the finger picking aspect of this song. It is not like anything I have done before, which is why it is so challenging. The youtube video I previously linked shows how to finger pick, but it is going to take a lot of practice to get the hang of it. Focusing on finger picking and the changing of notes is the hardest part I am struggling with.

I have also noticed that my fingers are getting more used to strumming and holding down the strings, but the finger picking requires a different part of my finger so those parts of my fingers are quite sore when I practice, which means an even less amount of practicing as I usually need to stop after five minutes of practicing.

I also got the opportunity to play in front of a few friends. I was really nervous to do so, but they were very supportive and gave me a few helpful hints. They also wanted me to teach them some of what I have learned from chasing cars, which really helped with my learning. I think as teachers we are always learning and I was definitely learning when teaching my friends a few things I know about the ukulele.

I am excited to keep getting better and better at playing this song.

 

Weekly Reflection

In technology class this week we learned about coding. Coding helps explain the world to our students, and learning it develops problem-solving and different thinking skills. Although I have absolutely no experience with coding, I figured at first glance it would be really difficult and I was unsure of how we could teach this to primary students.

“Coding is a hands-on way of teaching students how to analyze a problem, determine the steps to fix it, and then create code so a machine can carry out those steps. It’s more than working with computers – it’s an approach and a way of problem-solving” – Mike Bernier, Former BC minister of education.

This quote spoke to me. I understand this quote because we are always being taught how to teach our children to problem solve in a calm, collective, and socially acceptable way. Although coding is part of fixing problems and finding solutions, it can also be used to make games. In our break-out rooms, we had some people create games.

A useful link for resources connecting to BC’s curriculum is

https://codebc.ca/

I played around with this website for coding, which I think would be a good resource for primary students up to intermediate.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

 

 

Ukulele – Chasing Cars

The second song I am going to learn this semester is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. The chords are A, D, and AM7. I am excited to do this song because I really enjoy it. It is much slower than Riptide but has different difficulties and aspects. Due to learning riptide, I now have the ability to teach myself this song rather than getting a professional lesson. The difficulty with this song is that there is some fingerpicking instead of strumming within the verses and intro. The chorus strumming pattern is the same, being Up, Up, Up, Up-Down. This song is difficult in a different way than Riptide was. The fingerpicking aspect is going to take some time. This video I have provided explains how to play this song really well and I have started practicing already.

Along with this, I have created my own spreadsheet on the notes, where each finger needs to be when fingerpicking, and the strumming pattern. It is going to be difficult to do this song consecutively without stopping, but we will see how it goes!

I am going to practice 10 minutes a day until the end of the semester to show my growth with this song.

Week 10

Today in class, we discussed the experience of both the positive and negative aspects of learning online. I have been struggling with online learning quite a bit lately.  There are truly so many different positive and negative aspects of it.

Positives for me include not spending as much money driving to the university and paying for parking. I also do not have to pack or buy lunch as I am at home and have everything here. I also normally have time to go to the gym between classes, which I would not do as my gym is close to my house, far from the university.

But, there are many cons. I have made a few friends over this year, as it is my first year at uvic, but I have not met nearly half the people in my cohort. Learning at home is lonely, and it is exhausting sitting in your room where you are supposed to relax, and it also is your workplace and a room you spend 80% of the day in.

We talked a lot about what is made only possible for teaching and learning when conducted face-to-face and when it is only possible for teaching and learning when conducted online.  Although the university has done a good job making online learning as good as possible, using breakout rooms constantly allowing us to talk to one another is not the same as real human connection and conversation. I believe heavily in collaboration between my students and in my learning, and online learning is not the same when collaborating. If there was a happy medium of online and in-person, half and half, then I think I would be thrilled.

This video was in one of Michael’s slides, and it was fascinating to see. Although we have never been forced to learn online, we are always learning online. I taught myself the Ukulele from youtube, math at Camosun mostly on youtube, and now my first year of university online. Digital learning will always be a part of learning from this point on; technology is critical and used every day in schools and at home. We must always learn new techniques and discover ways to make online learning easier, as even when we are back in person, digital learning is always being used. With digital learning comes many different possibilities and different inclusion options. Our students need us to understand how to navigate and have different resources available if needed, as all students need different ways of learning.

 

BCEd Access

The BCEdAccess society is a volunteer run organization that serves families of children with disabilities and complex learners.

Tracy Humphreys, founder and chair of BCEdAccess came to speak about her organization. This was so interesting to me because throughout this whole degree, we have talked about inclusion in depth. It has been clear to us, as teachers in training, that all children are complex. Students need options, and need to be engaged. It is our job as teachers to provide inclusion opportunities into our classroom, whether that being technology, different options of learning, different activities, etc.

It was the most upsetting to me to hear about the families of these children who are complex learners. Although there are many people trying to make learning better for particular students, it is hard to do this in a way where students are not feeling left out or different. This is what is the most upsetting to me.

I also really enjoyed this youtube video Tracy provided us with

Learning and education is a basic human right. No one should feel excluded in learning, only included. I hope that when I become a teacher I can promote a number of opportunities for students that may have different learning strategies. This is always in the back of my mind when creating lesson plans for any of my classes this semester, and after watching this video always will be.

Tracy really helped me open my eyes on this topic.

Musical Growth Blog / Video

As a beginner on the ukulele, my musical goal was to learn how to read basic music sheets and learn two songs. This is the song I decided I was going to know how to play by midterm. The chords included are A, G, C, and F. I have been tracking my progress weekly on this website, and here re the results.

difficulties:

I had a tough time with this. For starters, I have arthritis in my left hand, which is the strumming hand. I found I could not practice for more than 5 minutes a day before it started to feel sore. I could have gotten a pick, but I thought that would be learning how to strum all over again. As you can see, I put on a compression glove that seemed to help with the pain and thankfully stopped my fingers from hurting from strumming as well as there was a piece of cloth between the chords and my skin.

I had a tough time changing from A to G in this song. It took a lot of practice and muscle memory to form my fingers’ memory to do this more smoothly. Although it is not perfect, I definitely got better as time went on.

Another hard part about this song was that there were 4 different strumming patterns between the verses, chorus, bridge, and in between verse strumming. This was ultimately too hard for me to do consistently, which is why in my video, I have demonstrated that I can perform all of the different strumming patterns but not consecutively straight through the song. This is why I decided to make a few different videos of me making the verse, the chorus, the bridge, and in-between notes.

growth:

Ultimately, I am really proud of myself. I was hesitant to start and was having a tough time with this. I got a professional music lesson and used youtube to help me through this song. I then made a music sheet of my own as such:

I did this because I am not confident in reading music. I looked at this as I played my song, remembering where each finger should be for each chord.

Although I could not perform the song consistently throughout, I am really proud of my growth.

Weekly Reflection

This week in technology we learned about how technology services help in the classroom. I think that resources for students online that can be used at home for homework are really important. As teachers, we do not have the time to share all the resources students can use at home to further or help their learning and understanding. It is really important for students to know there are resources, and that they are really helpful when they cannot be at school to ask important questions.

For me, I always struggled with math. I remember going home every day frustrated and confused with what we learned at school that day. For as long as I can remember, I never understood math the way everyone else did. Luckily, there were resources for me to get ahold of to try and learn more at home to be up to speed. One of the resources we went over is a screencast video from the Khan Academy

I used Khan Academy a lot for my math struggles in high school. These videos are truly amazing as it is a professional teacher using a board and explaining at the same time. In my career, I will definitely be using these resources for my students to have at home.

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