Wander with me on my journey...

Month: November 2019

It’s Electric!

Life has been busy!! Between school, work, home and family I have been having a hard time making time to practice, and it shows! I only practiced a couple times in the last two weeks and it shows. I feel like I am back at square one. My strumming pattern is off, my transitions are not very smooth, but that’s ok, we have so many group assignments that we are working on and of course all of our weekly readings for our classes so I know that this is just temporary and I will be able to come back to the guitar and once the semester is over I will have more time to play and work on my skills.

On Friday, I went to my parents to drop off my poor fiddle leaf fig plant that wasn’t doing well in my basement, my father has a green house and uses growing lights in the winter for some of the plants that need the extra light and care. When I arrived his neighbor was over and went out side for what I assumed was for a cigarette. Moments later he came back through the front door and had his amp and one of his electric guitars! He told me how my father had shared with him that I was learning the guitar and wanted to “jam”. At first, I was very nervous and self conscious to even hold his beautiful piece of art, finally after watching him and working up my nerve I wanted to try. It was absolutely exhilarating! I know that I am not a pro by any means, but wow, playing the electric guitar made me feel like a rockstar.

My parents neighbor was not only helpful by pushing me out of my comfort zone to try something new but he also went through all of the chords on the guitar with me so I can start to get comfortable with more than the handful that are in the song that I picked to practice.

 

Coding Blog Post

Today in our EDCI 336 technology class, Richard McCue taught a lesson on coding. It is important as an educator to have information and resources in all areas our learners are interested in. Although we do not need to be an expert in all areas, it is still good to have some knowledge in all areas and to aid your learners.

Some resources for coding are…

Scratch:

Grasshopper:

Hour of Code:

Designing with algorithms using TinkerCad:

Code BC:

 

Living in Harmony

Well, I decided to share my musical journey with my grandfather. He has always appreciated any and all kinds of learning. It was the running joke in our family, “you ask grandpa one simple question and you’ll be there for hours”, if anyone ever needed any help or had a question that most could answer quickly, grandpa would spend at least 10x the amount of time exploring the question, most times, even diving into the root of the word and where it originated from. So, of course when I told him about how I was teaching myself to play the guitar for one of my classes he got excited and wanted to hear more. I shared with him the experiences I had had to date and when I told him about learning how to tune the guitar he got excited and suggested I take some of his harmonicas to get a better “ear” for my tuning. Not even a week later I was in the hospital visiting him after he had surgery to remove part of his liver. That day, I brought home 6 harmonicas with me, one in the chord of A, D, C, G, and 2 in E. He was going in for surgery and knew I would be coming to visit him so he grabbed some of his harmonicas for me and packed them in with his belongings. I practiced with the guitar and harmonicas simultaneously to “grow my ear” and in time I think that I will be able to tune by ear. Practicing the guitar and the song “The Girl” by Dallas Green has been an amazing outlet and break from my studies and other stress/busyness in my life. At times when I am feeling overwhelmed or stressed with trying to manage school, family, my business, and, or relationships this assignment has been a saving grace by allowing me to feel that I am being productive with my time while also practicing an art which allows me to express myself and find joy in what I am doing. This is what I call “Living in Harmony”.

 

Minecraft in Education

Today in our ED Tech class we had the pleasure of learning from a Spectrum High School student, three Colquitz Middle School students and one of the teachers from Colquitz. We discussed gaming in education and learned about the benefits of Minecraft and how it can be used in a school setting. The game is designed with a student and teacher login access where the teacher can control specific settings, such as, personal settings, world settings, player setting and player management. Within these settings, the teacher has the ability to apply limits or not for the students, for example, there are five different game modes in Minecraft, Survival, Creative, Adventure, Spectator and Hardcore. In class we learnt about survival and creative mode. In survival mode, players are to gather resources, build a base and keep themselves alive by nourishment and avoiding death, whereas, in the creative mode players have unlimited access to every item in the game. The teacher can control the weather, the ability to enter other dimensions, and to bring villagers and monsters into the game. The teacher can also set a timer to allow students to work in a competition style towards a goal or simply any timed exercise. To ensure students are staying on task and listening during breaks for teacher instruction there are tools that can help aid in this.  The teacher can “fly” over the Minecraft world to oversee students working and if needed they can teleport to the student or vice versa. As well, the teacher can freeze the students from the game to quickly get the students attention to give other instructions and save from having wasted class time. In the event that students are misusing or require more freedom in the game than their peers, the teacher can individually select specific options to make available or unavailable to any individual student. Minecraft can be used educationally in mathematics, sciences, history, reading and writing, Minecraft will also further improve the students quality of creativity, problem-solving, collaborations and self-sufficiencies in learning and other life skills.