Reflection+Journals

Reflection Journal #1 I have never put much thought into defining what I assume to be a credible website. This issue calls attention to the many subconscious decisions we make every day without even realizing it. When I first go to a website, I guess the first thing that I notice is the web address. Depending on the kind of information I am looking for, a .gov or .edu is usually reliable. When I am looking on a .com, I like to see some sort of confirmation that assures me that it is a professional website. Since most of the research I do is music related, I am somewhat familiar with an assortment of musically related websites that I typically look at first. Among those are Oxford music dictionary.com, fluteworld.com, musictherapy.org, etc.. I also try to take advantage of the database systems that the library offers in terms of articles and scholarly journals, and I usually rely on anything that those databases point me to. However, in terms of new sites, I think the general presentation of the site can tell you a lot about the reliability of the information. Annoying ads will usually signify a website's desire to make money as opposed to wanting to educate their readers on whatever information they are presenting. Also, a website where anyone is able to upload any information usually creates some suspicion about it's reliability. Basically, I just like to have some kind of confirmation about the truth of the information I am receiving- whether that be the fact that it is tied to an accredited university of company, or that a human monitored database approves it. It is a hard lesson to teach- I think a lot of ability to be able to distinguish between credible and non credible sources comes from experience and tapping into our own subconscious decisions that are constantly being made.

Reflection Journal #2 I don't think there are many differences in the ways I search for information for myself and the way I search for information for my students. In both circumstances, I want to make sure that the information being presented is safe and reliable. I personally don't read any entertainment blogs (such as Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip blog) because I don't have any way to assure that the information I am receiving is accurate. I do, however, read news online, and in thinking about how I decide whether a news article is reliable, I realized that I trust those sites that I have built up a relationship with, such as nytimes.com or cnn.com. I challenged myself with the question "why do you trust cnn.com?" and went to their website to read about their specific terms and agreements. I found this statement which was particularly interesting to me: "In many instances, the content available through CNN Interactive represents the opinions and judgments of the respective information provider, Subscriber, or other user not under contract with CNN. CNN neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on CNN Interactive by anyone other than authorized CNN employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities." This lines up excatly with what I was saying before- I wouldn't credit John Dough's opinionated response to a CNN article on the CNN website, because he is under no obligation to be reliable nor accurate. However, as this statement above states, when an authorized CNN employee presents information within their official capacities (i.e. an article) they are under a legal obligation to be factual and truthful- and inform the readers when they make an honest mistake. I realized that I trust CNN because I know they have this civic responsibility, and the company has built up such a reputable news source- so if they are inaccuracte, then I guess the whole world is just being deprived of any accurate information. The difference between doing research for myself and doing research for my students is that in doing research for my students I am fulfilling a pedagogical aspiration, while in doing research for myself I am setting aside specific goals to advance my own educational understanding and philosophies. When formulating a lesson plan, it is important to find supplemental material to enhance the meaning of the lesson. Perhaps a game, or alternative method of understanding would be an example of said supplemental material.

Reflection Journal #3 Before Mr. Wilson's presentation on //Word// and all of it's capabilities, I really didn't think of it as anything besides a program to use to write papers on, and maybe make an occasional table or add some clip art. The different features that I was presented with in the class demonstration, like all of the different charts and graphs available, or the mail merge demonstration, proved me very wrong. Although a little overwhelming, the different features of Word offer so much to the teacher and student in the way of their specific educational goals. I thought the mail merge was cool, and could be really convenient, but what I thought was the most interesting and fun to play around with were the graphics and different ways to organize information. I know excel serves really to organize data and numbers, but Word can present information (to a certain degree) in interesting and captivating ways. I played around with a lof the charts and graphs, and experimented with a lot of different ways to present info. I decided to create a calendar like one I could use to hand out to my students to make sure they have somewhere they can refer to for all 'band events.' I realize that the presentation of this calender is very important in terms how I want students to approach their activities in my program. Although it's just a calender, and will be thrown away after one month, the presentation has a lot to do with how the students view the activities. For the past two weeks in this class, we have been talking about how we know if a website is either reliable or unreliable, and most of our findings and descriptions brought up in class have to do with the presentation of the website and what we see immediately after our browser opens it up on our screen. The same goes for handouts and things given out in class. If I want the students to come to these events excited and with a good attitude, not only do I need to approach the events with a good attitude, but I need to present them in such a way in all aspects, including when I'm talking about them or when they are written down on paper. Luckily, word helps me make sure that I can present these events in a lively and fun way, as well as keep the students from feeling overwhelmed with so many events happening in one month (if the format was not organized, and there were just different things written all over the page, some students (specifically OCD) would have a lot of trouble organizing the information in their mind) I did not know how much word could help me with managing my students' attitudes towards a set of information, or, not just my students, but if I need to present any information to anyone (i.e. a board making a decision based on my presentation) I can use the features in word to help organize and present my information appropriately. Some designs that word offers is more professional, for those types of settings, and some is more fun, for settings like my wind ensemble caldendar. Before this project, I did not realize how much I could rely on Word and it's features to present my information in whichever way I deem fit.

Reflection Journal #4 I had never used excel before this project- so at first it was very overwhelmed trying to figure out how to input data and organize it, not to mention look at all of the special features that excel has to offer. I explored with the =average feature which I thought was really cool- it's like a super user-friendly calculator. Then I thought about all of the ways I could use excel in my classroom: to manage my budget, to keep track of information about students, to keep track of trip information (for music tours when I have to coordinate with the travel agency and what students have paid for what), to make graphs and charts about various information to present to other members of my faculty (administration) etc... I know I have a lot of exploring on excel left to do- I have probably just barely touched on the basics of its capabilities, and I know when I do, I will be able to save so much time and effort managing simple classroom information. This project was valuable to me in that it just opened my eyes to the crazy possibilities of this program and how much it has to offer me as a teacher. This experience was very different than my project with word because I had absolutely no familiarity with it, as opposed to word which I use everyday. This assignment changed my ideas about excel in that it really showed me the range of tasks it could help with- from fairly simple (like my grade book) to very complex; before, I thought excel was only useful for math geniuses who already had a strong numbers basis. I would be curious to explore more about excel and see what else it has to offer me, though I think having some guidance on this would do me better than just messing around by myself- I hear that the "help" section has improved, so I may give that a try....

Reflection Journal #5 I have used power point before- but just to make a very dry presentation as a report for class. I was definitely a "Bill Gates" type of presenter, and put everything I was saying up on the screen. Thinking about the two types, (Bill versus Steve) I guess I would rather sit through a Steve Jobs (with only one thing on the screen at a time) presentation if the presenter is as active and captivating as he is. However, that is not always the case, as most people are nervous and scripted (myself included) when they speak infront of people. In that case, I would like to have a lot on the screen at one time, so I can really make sure I'm processing exactly what information I'm supposed to be getting. This presentation, however, if very unlike anything I had done before, and I really enjoyed it. I can envision myself in a classroom being able to use this software to create very effective learning tools that will provide me with a stable backdrop for my lessons. I'm really excited about about this really advanced power point edition- It has so much to offer, and seemingly no limits. It also just makes me wonder what crazy technology that the future has to offer us in the way of teaching/presenting/learning or whatever. During this project I did get a little frustrated, and I was challenged to go back and figure out exactly how to get to the slide I wanted to link to, and many times I made mistakes- luckily I caught them all at the end when doing a final review. Again, (like with excel) my eyes have been opened to the amazing possibilities of the software that is available to us and how -if you know how to use it- technology can make your like sooo much easier! The trick, I guess, is knowing all the little tricks! :-)

Reflection Journal #6 I had never heard that this software even existed before this project- and I have tried to make things like this program I created in Word. Creating documents with pictures and texts (that have to be organized in an appealing way) definitely is easier in this software (once you figure out how to use it) than in Word. My mind instantly goes to a presentation that I just had to prepare for another Peabody class, and I decided to include a handout for the class. I made this handout in Word (never having been exposed to this 'pages' software) and I am thinking about how much time and effort I could have saved by making the same type of document (just with cooler features) in pages. As I experimented and became more comfortable with this software, I thought about how many things exist in technology and elsewhere that I don't know about and how much easier they could make tasks that I perform daily. I guess that is the point of learning- we are always learning about new things and new ways to go about different concepts- a simple analogy I am thinking of is when we learn different ways to solve a math problem. We may learn a long way to solve a problem first, and then later learn an easy, quick way that saves us time, but we still have to use our knowledge from the first way as a basis for the easy method. It's the same with desktop software- although it's easier and quicker than word, I could not have been as comfortable with it in such a short amount of time without my Word experience- changing fonts, colors, adding graphs, charts, pictures, etc. Although now I am thinking, "wow, I could have saved so much time just using pages" I know that I couldn't really have- because my knowledge and experience in Word is what makes pages so easy. From here on out, I can definitely save time, because I have all the knowledge and experience to back to up.

Reflection Journal #7 I never would have considered myself a 'gamer' before our class discussion. In fact, I still don't really. I can have some fun playing some computer games or some mario kart just to pass the time, but never seriously and I never really feel the urge to play electronic games. This project was interesting though because I never considered using games for education (besides games that are made for that purpose, like 'math-whiz 2008') but I guess it makes sense. Since a lot of kids enjoy playing games, it seems like a great idea to use them to appeal to students (since boredom is a prime way to not learn what is being taught in class...) if you really think they can benefit from them. When looking for 'educational' games to use in my classroom, I instantly thought of rhythm games, because I've heard people talk about how playing 'guitar hero' helped them with their musicianship. Since I know timing is an integral component of marching band and coordination, I thought it could benefit a marching band class. After looking for easy games to access and play (and ones that didn't have all those annoying adds on the sides) I found these two, which I think are perfect for what I was looking for. My perception of 'gaming' didn't change too much through this project- I still consider someone is more serious about gaming (as in they experience a drive to play games) a 'gamer' over someone who just gets casual enjoyment out of them. I guess my only perception of games that has changed is just their worth in ways other than just fun. I do feel like the games I was playing required my rhythm skills in order to succeed- and I couldn't even pass the harder levels! Guess I have something to work on.... Reflection Journal #8 After reading Gardner's different intelligences, I don't think I can pin myself into just one category. I think, like probably many other people do, that I embody characteristics represented in many of his intelligence centers. I have always been a strong visual learner, and love solving puzzles, so that would put me in the "visual-spatial" intelligence. However, I know that I learn best when I copy some information down myself, putting me in the "bodily-kinesthetic" category. That being said, I am a huge fan of logic and reasoning by logic, which would lead me to believe I belonged in the "logical-mathematical" category. I think just the realization that so many different learning styles can be embodied within one person shows me that my students will undoubtedly learn in all different ways, and while some of them may have a huge spectrum of learning styles, others don't and may only be able to thrive in one or two learning circumstances. I need to be aware of this idea at all times so I'm sure that I am presenting class material and lessons in more than one way. For example, for a music piece I am working on, I coud have the students do 'score study' for the visual learners, and listen to the piece, for the auditory learners. When teaching the students how to anaylze scores, I especially need to be aware of this phenomenon. Some students will be able to understand the analysis if approached from a mathematical perspective, while others will do better with a theoretical approach. I think what I took away from this article the most was just that I need to be prepared to adjust my teaching styles to fit the diverse needs of my students.

Reflection Journal #9 I hadn't used Garage band before this project- even though I've have a mad for 2 years... I always thought garage band was just a way to blend different beats and strange sounds together to make unique tracks that could be used as funky beats for background music or something- or to mix parts of songs together that already exist. I thought I would have a hard time finding any true value of this software in the classroom. i got to thinking about how the main reason that our society is becoming so technological based is for convenience. Technology makes a lot of things much more convenient- like cell phones, computers, power points, etc. So I don't know why I didn't think about techology making its way into the classroom to make education and learning more convenient. Many classrooms are becoming much more techological centered, but I think it's impotant- especially in younger classes, to make sure there is still a personal element to education and that teachers nurture their students in the same way- and not let techonolgy replace that aspect. Anyway, this software made me realize that techology can be very useful in the classroom, i.e. in this case- I can hear individual students playing sclaes or exercises without having to stop the rest of the class, or having to take all the time to schedule meeterings and meet with students during the day. As for garage band itselt, it wasn't hard to figure out once I experimented with it and played around, pretending to be a student in my class recording my exercises.

Reflection Journal #10 Movies are one of the world's most popular forms of art and entertainment. They use a variety of visual imagery, musical accompaniement, and emotional symbols usually to depict a greater over-arching moral or message to an audience. When I personally go to the theater I am always entertained by the majority of the movies I see; but when I see a movie in class I am often bored to tears because of the manner in which the over-arching message is presented. I believe that I share this sentiment with many of classmates. When I see a movie like Mr. Holland's Opus, it is inspiring, there is good acting, a great score, and the message is not over-presented; meaning the acting is not so obviously trying to prove a point. I think in order to use a movie to enhance my project I will need to not only make my video educational, but entertaining. That will also hopefully inspire my students to remember the movie. I think if I can mix entertainment with an educational message I think that my project will be very helpful as a supplemental tool in my future classroom.   Reflection Journal #11 When we were critiquing 'educational videos' in class, the main criticism was that they are uninteresting, and put you to sleep. In trying to create one of my own, I have found myself constantly thinking "is this going to be exciting for students to watch?" or "what can we add before/after this segment to make it more interesting?" I would hope that the information itself would be interesting to students ( the instrument tutorials) but I know there could be some kind of exciting, flashy intro to add excitement. as well as a fun and inspiring conclusion to make sure students are motivated to join band. I can remember my own high-school self, and I think I have a good sense of what is exciting to students of that age and what isn't. I think I could consider that a strength- some educational video producers seem so far removed from what is interesting to "youngsters." As a weakness, I have not had much experience with filming, so I don't naturally think about camera angles, or centering a shot, or canceling out extra noise, because those thoughts don't really occur to me. I'll have to work on that, and maybe make a check-list when I start filming, so I can remember these details..

Reflection Journal #12 <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="border-collapse: collapse; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;">I had used imovie a little bit before, but mostly just for showing video footage, and not so much with the effects like titles, transitions, adding pictures, music, etc.. The first thing that came in mind when I thought about what would enhance our video, was how I could use captions and video effects to make the video flow. I wanted to only use effects that would enhance the project's goal, rather than to distract students. The challenges I had were in editing some of the audio for the video. I tried to edit the sound effects, like fading in and out, but it took me a long time to figure out how to do go about doing that. The transitions were the thing I had the most experience creating, and I think that using that in combination with the captions, I was able to create a fluid, and organized video. Though the editing process sometimes made me see that our video was a little dense in terms of entertainment value, I think that the video and audio editing really helped to make our video an efficient and informative video in introducing instruments that are played in the band. <span style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="color: rgb(83, 24, 145); font-family: Impact;">Reflection Journal #13 <span style="border-collapse: collapse; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"> This class was definitely different from what I thought it was going to be. I actually really enjoyed doing most of the projects- specifically the desktop publishing (because it was completely new to me) the nonlinear powerpoint, the audio project, and the calender on word, because I think that those would be the most applicable in my music classroom. The main thing I am taking away from this class is the knowledge that technology can be extremely useful in the classroom- IF (big if) you know how to use it, and you are good with it. I am thinking specifically about excel... Excel can save so much time for teachers, and provide services that teachers would otherwise not be able to access. However, if a teacher doesn't know how to apply all of the crazy uses of excel (and I would say that most don't), then it is really no use to them. I am thankful that I took this class and have, at the very least, a basis in the applications we explored. However, I do understand that I will have to spend some more time experimenting with this technology if I want it to be super beneficial and provide me with these crazy functions that we hear about. For me personally, I think that this class was very helpful when we were experimenting with the audio software. Since I hope to be a music teacher in a higher level school, I would really like my students to be familiar with recording software, especially because the industry is becoming much more technology and recording based. I feel like my place in this class as a music student puts me in a position where I know I will HAVE to use things I used in this class, as opposed to maybe a kindergarden teacher who will only use these programs if they choose to. Since the music world is getting to be so technology-based, I will have to keep up with these kind of programs (and others) so I can keep my students informed and ready to continue on in the field on music. Not everyone can be performers, many of music students will end up being recording engineers or working in a recording studio. I know a lot of people who have gone into mixing and creating remixes with their music degrees, so I'll have to be well-versed in these applications (like garage band) to hopefully assign students projects or have them explore in these applications that many people aren't familiar with. I really enjoyed this class, and I can't think of any real criticism that I have. Something I really appreciated is just that every expectation was laid out clearly and the grading and assignments were very fair. I also really liked how we could work on the project whenever was most convenient for us- rather than having to do it right away in class. The only thing that was a little bit of a problem was trying to work on my project from different types of computers. I have a mac at home, so it wasn't too much of a problem for me (since I had all of the applications we worked with) but if I was trying to work in the library, or I imagine for someone who doesn't have a mac, it was a little extra hassle to get to the computer lab to finish a project. That is just a minor detail though, and I was extremely satisfied with everything else in the class.

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