Sketchnoting and Twine

Today, we learned how to take visual notes created from a mix of handwriting and drawings. I have never heard of this before and was a little hesitant to begin with as I don’t consider myself to be a “good” drawer, however I quickly realized that people of all ages and skills can excel at this activity. I started off by drawing simple lines and objects, and learned about designing titles with thin lines for letters, bubble letters, shading for a 3D effect, and adding other simple details for it to stand out. Unlike simply writing out notes or typing them out, sketchnoting helps with memory recall by condensing information faster and connecting it to visual diagrams that the brain is more likely to remember. On top of that, it is also fun, engaging, and it helps with concentration.

Another neat activity I explored was creating an interactive story on Twine. This software allows a user to create a story in the form of web pages, by typing out any information they would like on the page, and adding double brackets around a word or phrase they would like to hyperlink to a different page. It feels much like an adventure, going from one page to another virtually. You are also able to see the whole layout of your story on the main page, which shows boxes of text that are connected by arrows (the boxes being each new page that is created). Best of all, you can easily publish it to html to revisit it and share it with friends and family all across the world!

Scratch.com

This week we worked more in depth with scratch.mit.com to create a game. I discovered modules that can be dowloaded with checklists for how to create lots of different games. I started with the basic backdrop and the uncoded “sprite,” which is the character that can be coded.

From there, I followed the instructions for what codes should go where. It goes some-what in depth to outline what the code will do. I thought this was a great way to learn more about coding instead of self-discovery because I could see more advanced, multi-step codes and understand how it works. For Example, to add a timer to the side I needed the block “wait 0.1 sec” above the “go up by 0.1.” If the waiting block was not there the time went up significantly faster by 0.1 because it was not waiting 0.1 seconds like normal time would. The game I worked on consists of a boat that travels along the water wherever you move your mouse. The goal is to bring the boat to the island without hitting the wooden structure. It was cool to see the changes that were being made to the game just by adding more steps and controls to the code.

Although the instructions that were given for the module were clear and easy to follow, they seemed to be missing key points and I ran into some complications half-way through when creating a “hit” boat. When the boat goes through the obstacle and hits a wooden structure, it should break into pieces. I created a second boat and gave it a “broken” appearance, however it did not work when we hit the wooden structure. The instructions for this part were vague and so I were unsure whether or not to add controls for the “normal” boat as well as the “broken” boat. After much time and thought, I thought it was best to move on and add more features to the game.

Some of these features I added include a timer to keep track of how long it takes to move the boat to the island, speed bumps to give the boat a bit of a boost, and seaweed to make the boat spin around. Adding these features made the game more fun and complex.

Overall, completing this module was a great learning experience and a lot of fun!! Not only did we learn more in depth about coding patterns but we also had to use our problem solving skills.

Minecraft

Today, we spent the class learning how to play Minecraft. Heidi James, a teacher from Colquitz Middle School, brought a few of her students to our class and talked to us about the learning outcomes that come from playing Minecraft. I have never had an interest in gaming and like many parents, see it as a “waste of time” for children. However, after this class I realized how important it is for adults and especially for teachers to be open-minded and encouraging of students to engage in video games- specifically Minecraft. As Heidi mentioned, Minecraft helps students to develop numerous skills such as planning, cooperation, creativity, and problem-solving. It can also be integrated into many subjects such as science, social studies, english, math, and art.

I was able to play this game with all my peers by simply connecting to a server, which made the whole experience more fun and engaging. The room was buzzing with energy and the sound of voices as we were all collaborating with one another and helping each other out. Heidi showed us a really cool feature where the teacher can control the game by freezing characters, transporting them, switching the game to survival mode with monsters, the time of the day, and so much more. I definitely want to try this with my students in the future as I think it’s a wonderful way for them to learn and have fun!

For more information about Minecraft in the classroom, click on the link here

Teaching piano week 6

Over the last few weeks, I have reflected a lot on what I taught my students and how they have progressed. However, I haven’t talked much about what I have learned as a teacher and what I need to do to be the best piano teacher I can be. At the start of my teaching, I was aware that I needed to start with the basics and to put myself into a beginner’s shoes. One thing that children have trouble with the most is positioning their hand on the keyboard so that their fingers are curved. This is the ideal position as it makes playing the notes a lot easier as opposed to playing them with straight fingers. One thing I like telling the child is to pretend that they are holding a bubble in their hand, and to not wrap their fingers too hard around it or it might pop. Another thing that children find difficult doing is lifting their fingers up to play one note at a time. To help with this, I like to play the “spotlight game”. This is something I made up by telling students that only one note can be in the spotlight at a time. For example, if the student has to play the note “C” followed by an “E”, I would tell them that “E” can’t be in the spotlight until “C” lets go, or “let’s give E a time to shine now”. I believe that the main difficulty for children to do is to remember notes, which is still something I am working on with my students. To help with this, I like to give each note a name. For example, the note C is “Cat”, D is for “dog”, E is for “elephant”, etc. This strategy seems to help them remember notes more effectively as they have something to relate to.

Here are some things I have learned to do through my teaching process:

  1. Simplify concepts and break them down into steps
  2. Be patient! Don’t expect children to understand concepts right away
  3. Have your student bring a notebook to class and write notes inside it of what you covered in class to help them remember
  4. Be specific! Write down exactly how many times they should practice a song, sections of a piece they need to work on, and what they need to do in order to see improvement (i.e. fingering, hand placement, dynamics, rhythm, etc)
  5. Make markings in their music (circling notes they got wrong, dynamic markings, fingering) as a reminder on what they need to watch out for
  6. Make it fun! Give the student lots of encouragement and ask what they would like to learn how to play

Rain chant presentation

Giving this presentation to the class was a good learning experience for myself and for my group. We were unsure of what was expected for this presentation as the guidelines were unclear, so we simply just created a lesson plan on how to teach the rain chant. We began our lesson by showing the class the words to the chant and saying them altogether, followed by saying the words while keeping a steady beat. We then divided the class up into three groups and assigned each group a different section of the chant. During this time, we circulated around the room to clear up any confusion or answer any questions the students had. After, we told the class to chant their part in their own groups first before chanting altogether. The first time they tried this, it sounded like a huge blur because everyone was going at different speeds. We tried this a second time and made sure to keep a steady beat, which helped them to stay in time and end together.

There are many things that we could have improved on to make this presentation run smoother. If we had put more thought into creating it, we would have been able to connect this one topic into many other subjects like how the other groups did. Seeing what the other groups came up with really inspired me to dig deeper and look beyond the topic itself, and to integrate other subjects into it as well for a more meaningful learning experience. Another thing is preparation and organization. If we had put more time into preparing the lesson, running over it, and making sure that everyone knows what they will be presenting, it would have gone more smoothly without any awkward pauses or moments of hesitation. Another important thing to keep in mind for next time is to break sections up into separate lessons and to not add too much into a single lesson plan. Because we had a lot to cover in one lesson, each section was rushed and not explained as thoroughly as it should have been. Sometimes, it is better to take away some components in a lesson in order to really focus on teaching the material well.

Overall, this experience has taught me a lot and I hope to use what I have learned and apply it to the final group presentation assignment.

open learning and privacy

We had the wonderful opportunity to have another video conference session, this time with Verena Roberts, who talked to us about open learning education in grades k-12. This type of learning goes beyond learning in the classroom and allows students to connect to their community and develop their identity. A huge part of open learning is that it requires people from outside the classroom to be involved in education. Building relationships, making clear connections to learning and thinking, clear assessment, and feedback are all very important components as well. A few indicators for open learning practice include the following:

  • Designing for sharing
  • Participatory learning
  • Learning networks
  • Safe learning spaces
  • Expanded learning environments

After the session with Verena, we listened to Jesse Miller talk about safety and privacy with using the internet and how it can impact our teaching career. Jesse began by informing us that tweens are not the only ones who don’t know how to use social media properly and that in fact, nobody does. Technology can be an amazing thing for kids when used right, so it is important for parents and educators to learn how to use it correctly and appropriately first, before educating young ones about it. Something I learned was that every social media platform is connected to another. Even giving someone a piece of information as simple as your phone number can lead to your facebook account, instagram, snapchat, and so on. As future teachers, it is extremely important to be cautious about what you post on social media and how you portray yourself in order to maintain a high level of professionalism and respect.

A few other points that I got from this talk include:

  • understanding the school expectations and policies of the employer
  • Public/parents- understand how the school district wishes to use social media to communicate to the public
  • Staff- understand how the district wishes staff to use social media to communicate and educate to students
  • Students-understand how the district wishes to use social media to educate students about internet trends and online concerns in conjunction with parents, the community, partners, and school board

Teaching piano week 5

After a few weeks of teaching, my students have definitely shown some improvement in their piano playing. I went over technique and scales with the brother and he was able to play a C major scale with both hands. He was playing one octave (8 notes) so I encouraged him to challenge himself and play 2 octaves. This was a challenging task for him as it required him to play another 8 notes, and his fingering got a bit mixed up. I told him to practice this at home hands separately first, and then put them together if he felt comfortable. We then moved on to his pieces. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t able to play both parts (both hands) but after practicing at home he was able to do it! It took him longer to figure out what notes to play as he had to concentrate on two hands at the same time, but I told him to keep practicing at home every day for at least 15 min and he’ll get it in no time. Here is a breakdown of everything that I told him to practice for this week:

  1. C major 2 octave scale- keep the rhythm steady and try playing soft at the beginning and gradually get louder at the end.
  2. Practice practice practice! Consistency is key to seeing improvement, so practicing each piece every day 2-3 times is important.
  3. Once notes are learned, look at other features of the piece such as dynamics (playing loud or soft), slurs( joining of the notes), and chords (playing more than one note at the same time in one hand).
  4. Break the piece down into smaller sections. If you find a particular section of the piece hard to play, practice just that section over and over a few times. This is a much more efficient way of practicing rather than playing the whole piece from beginning to end.

The sister could play her pieces hands together as well and improved greatly from the last lesson I had with her. She was able to play all the notes to their full value and she was able to count how many beats each note had which helped her to keep a steady speed throughout the whole piece. Below is a chart that I made with her to help her keep track of the different notes and rests:

We focused a lot on playing 2-note chords as she found them tricky to play. Instead of playing one note at a time which she is used to doing, her music showed a 2-note chord which meant she had to play 2 notes at the same time. This can be tricky to do especially for young kids who have never done it before. It requires a lot of finger control as you have to play the two notes at the same time and make sure they sound. We practiced the sections of her piece that had these chords and played the chords over and over again, until she felt comfortable. I made sure her wrists were lifted and that finger tips were strong (I told her to pretend that there was honey on her fingertips that made it sticky to play).

Here is a breakdown of everything that I told her to practice for the week:

  1. Work on memorizing fingering (review the hand/finger diagram that we made together).
  2. Look at where your fingers are on the keyboard! Sometimes we forget to look down at our hands when we are so focused on the music in front of us. But looking down every now and then can help us see what note we are playing instead of playing the wrong notes.
  3. Work on dynamics (F for forte= loud and p for piano= soft).
  4. Memorize note/rest value chart.

Coding Board Game for Students

https://www.gamingrules.co.uk/2016/02/08/robot-turtles-review/

This past week I found an amazing resource to have in the classroom to help students learn coding. Robot Turtles is a game where students have to use code cards to direct a robot turtle to the centre of the board to receive a jewel. Once this is done the board becomes more challenging by adding obstacles. Students learn coding patterns and sequences by moving their robot forwards, left, or right on the board and around certain obstacles. If they notice a mistake they simply have to say “bug” and the last code card is removed and thus the command given is reversed.

This game is ideal for younger grades, even preschool aged children are encouraged to play. However, any age can play this game as it is a fantastic and engaging way to learn the basics of coding. This game is great because kids will have fun playing it and not even realize that they are learning the fundamentals of programming and coding.

This game is good for learning coding because the adult acts as a real life computer while the student is the programmer. This helps students because it is a good simulation of how real coding works. Students give direct instructions to the adult and the adult does whatever they say, much like how programming is about “bossing” around computers. Click here for the full instructions of the game.

Copyrighting

It is important to know what copyright is and the rules and regulations behind it. Through my personal experience at school, my teachers would always emphasize the seriousness of plagiarism, however they never really talked about how serious copyright infringement can also be. When sharing information such as pictures, videos, music, and other works, it is important to know whether or not you have the right to do so and to also give credit to the creator of the work. It isn’t a good feeling when someone uses a work of your own without your permission or any acknowledgement.

A creative commons license is one out of many copyright licenses which allows people to have the right to share and use the work of that author. There are different rules and guidelines for each type of license so it is important to look carefully and to follow the right information. Here is the link to the creative commons website for more information: https://creativecommons.org/

A useful tip that I learned when saving pictures is to write the license number of it, the name of the person who took it, and where you found the picture. By doing this, one is aware of where they found the picture and what licensing it is under.

Coding: True and False

Coding in its simplest form can be broken down into 1’s and 0’s. A 1 means it is TRUE and a 0 means it is FALSE. One thing to always keep in mind is that if something is not true then it is false. This system is called Boolean algebra.

When coding it is important to remember that computers have no intuition, so you must state everything and be very specific.

Below is some statements of true and false. It is similar to basic algebra where is you multiply a negative with a negative you get a positive and if you multiply a negative with a positive you get a negative. We are using “!” as the meaning NOT. So if…

  • (!(True)) = False –> Not true (-) x True (+) = –
  • (!(False)) = True –> Not true (-) x False (-) = +

*When working with loops it must always be true to work.

Truth Tables show the outcomes when you combine 2 different coding expressions using “and”, “or”, and “and or”. For example, if the first statement is true OR the second statement is false than the overall statement is true. If the first statement is true AND the second statement is false than the statement must be false, this is because the statement cannot be true if one is true and the other is false. If the first statement is true AND OR the second statement is false than the statement is true. The “and or” table combines the “or” and the “and” so all possibilities are true and will run with the only exception of if both are false.

“OR” Table

A StatementB StatementTrue
TRUEFALSEYES
TRUETRUENO
FALSETRUEYES
FALSEFALSENO

“And” Table

A StatementB StatementTrue
TRUEFALSEFALSE
TRUETRUETRUE
FALSETRUEFALSE
FALSEFALSE*FALSE

“And” “OR” Table

A StatementB StatementTrue
TRUEFALSETRUE
TRUETRUETRUE
FALSETRUETRUE
FALSEFALSEFALSE

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