That's a Wrap

Well, I have come to the end of my pre-service tech course. I have learned a lot of great skills that I will incorporate into my future teaching and I made a lot of great progress in recording and sharing my music. I did not achieve everything that I had hoped to with this project as I did not finish creating any music videos, so I am not ready to share my songs on video platforms, such as youtube. That being said, I made a lot of great progress, I learned so many new skills, and I ultimately am coming away with 4 professionally sounding recordings of my songs that I can share on music sharing platforms like soundcloud. I also shared my songs on Twitter and Tumblr. The following are the three songs that I uploaded to soundcloud this week.

Guide Me is a song I wrote regarding my Faith. I wrote this song during a time in my life where I was really frustrated and confused. There were a lot of hard decisions that I needed to make and this song was me crying out to God, that He would give me guidance because I wanted to make decisions that would be pleasing to Him and that would guide me along His chosen path for my life. 

Wish Upon a Star is another song that I wrote for my now husband, Colton. I wrote this song for our second dating anniversary. The song represents the time I spent crushing on him and pining for him and how that has transformed into our relationship now, where I no long have to pine for him because I have him and I love him. This is one of my favourite songs because it is catchy and because I really felt like it successfully captured the feelings that I experienced throughout this relationship.

Little Girl is a really emotional song for me because it is inspired by my childhood. I was a very happy child, but after my parent's divorce, I began struggling emotionally and mentally. I felt like I could not be honest about how I was feeling because everyone expected me to be happy all the time and I often felt like my feelings were not taken seriously because I was so young, so I wrote this song to validate other children who may be seriously hurting and recognizing that their feelings and pain are real and are justified, but that there are people there for them to help them through it.

Although this course has come to an end, I plan to continue working on recording more songs, creating videos to accompany them, and sharing them on even more platforms. This project has given me the motivation to get started with this project and now I hope to continue what I have started, even though the course is finished. 

My Home Studio

Natalie McMillan (March 10, 2018). Improvisation [Photograph]. 

So, technically it is March Break and technically I have the seven weeks and posts required to make this project considered complete, but I really have enjoyed this project, I do not feel like I got as much accomplished as I would like to, and I would like to utilize the equipment while it is available to me as a Brock student, so I have decided to continue working on this while the ball is already rolling. That being said, the recording equipment became available to take home this week, so I was able to get a significant amount of recording completed this week! I may not have had ALL the necessary equipment that I needed such as a microphone stand or a reflexion filter, so I did have to do some improvisation. As pictured on the right, I used a mix-match of boxes, textbooks, and a jug full of used 22 shells as my mic stand and one side of my guitar box as my reflexion filter. Problem-solving at its finest! I am excited to say that this allowed me to get three more songs recorded and by next week, I should have them edited and polished enough to share online!

Going Live!

Things just got real this week because I have officially shared my first song online! Right now, it is only shared on soundcloud, but in the future I hope to create videos to accompany my songs and then I will also share them on youtube. I do not know if I will be able to achieve that before the end of this course, but it is still part of my future plans. Below is an embedded version of the song that I have shared this week, it is called Truer than True. The focusrite recording equipment from the makerspace is going to become available to take out next week, so I am looking forward to being able to take it home, so that I can get a lot more recording done next week and hopefully share a few more songs. Up until now it has been a long process because I am only able to get into the Makerspace a few hours a week, but if I can take the equipment home, I will be able to get a lot more accomplished!

"Truer Than True" is a song that I wrote for my husband when we got married. I came from a broken family and this experience coupled with living in a world where divorce is normalized, love and commitment were something that I was afraid of, but this song represents the realization that love is real, that it can last forever, and most importantly, that ours would last forever.

In class this week, we did a jigsaw activity to learn about a variety of different teaching tools and resources. I learned about a multitude of new technological resources that I can use in my future teaching that I thought were incredibly interesting. A few learning objects that I would like to highlight are Nearpod, Gradecam, and Classcraft.

Nearpod [Online Logo]. Retrieved from
http://gcisdleadwithtechnology.blogspot.com/2017/09/nearpod.html

Nearpod is essentially an interactive presentation platform that allows teachers to create and run lessons that students can watch from a personal device and interact with. During these lessons, teachers can include videos and other multimedia, they can input practice and assessment activities and receive immediate feedback, and they can create a platform for sharing thoughts and ideas as a class. This is a wonderful tool that ensures that students are engaged and participating with the lesson and it would be a phenomenal tool to use in a flipped classroom setting as it allows for the option of letting students work at their own pace.

Gradecam Logo [Online Image].
Retrieved from https://twitter.com/gradecam

Gradecam is an incredibly interesting tool that is essentially like a personal scantron tool. Gradecam allows teachers to create multiple choice assessments that can be graded quickly by taking a picture with their smartphone. Although I do think that this is a really cool tool, I also think that it would be more efficient than effective, especially for elementary grades because scantron tests can be intimidating and they are often not the most effective way to assess students. That being said, I still think it is definitely a note worthy tool.

Classcraft Logo [Online Image]. 
Retrieved from https://www.classcraft.com/

Classcraft is another new tool that I learned about this week that I think is incredibly innovative and useful. Classcraft takes gamification to a whole new level by transforming your classroom and your students' motivation through on online game. The gaming world includes curriculum driven quests, gamified classroom management tools, and student engagement tools. When exploring this resource, I did realize that a lot of the awards revolve around aids and privileges that will give students a leg up on class work and their grades, which I do not believe is the most equitable way to run a classroom. If I were to use Classcraft, I would use privileges and disadvantages that did not affect a student's ability to succeed in class, such as being able to eat in class or have a few minutes of free time, etc.

Taylor Swift Vibes

I finally started recording vocals this week, which gave me Taylor Swift feels as it made me feel like a real life musician. It has been amazing hearing my songs come together in such a professional and polished way. It was a little embarrassing at first because there were employees in the Makerspace. They were helping me with the process, but I felt a little shy singing in front of them. It did not take me long to get over this though and to just sing my heart out. I found it was made easier by having the headphones on because all I could hear was my own voice, so it was easy to forget about the other people in the room. I was only able to get into the Makerspace to record once this week because it is not open during reading week, so I will record vocals to my other songs next week. Then, my next step is to perfect the recordings, then export and share them with the world! I also came across a really great site this week called songfancy.com. I came across this site on Pinterest and I wanted to share it because it has a lot of great tips and ideas for songwriters such as myself. There is one post in particular about building a social media presence, which will help me with the next step of this project!

 

                             Natalie McMillan (January 16, 2018).                                    Hollywood Gossip (October 20, 2017). Taylor Swift in the Studio 
                            Taylor Swift Vibes (Photograph).                                           [Retrieved from https://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/gallery/taylor
                                                                                                                             -swift-in-the-studio/]

In addition to my recording this week, I also had to create a movie trailer for my genius project, to advertise it as if it were a movie. I had a lot of fun creating my movie trailer and I felt like it was a really great learning experience because it required me to do a lot of problem solving and exploring. I used Movie Studio to create my video, which I had never used before. I liked how this program gives you a lot of freedom and it is fairly easy to use. I made great use out of online tutorials to help me with things like fading my music out, changing the speed, and creating text effects. All in all, I had a lot of fun creating it and editing and I am honestly quite proud of the final product. If you are interested in watching it, head over to my Movie Trailer page and enjoy!

Natalie McMillan (January 20, 2018). Movie Editing (Screenshot). 

Making the Makerspace my New Home

Natalie McMillan (February 13, 2018). Garageband (Photograph). 

I spent every possible minute that I could this week in the Brock Makerspace to use their focusrite equipment and garageband. In doing so, I have been able to use the EQ presets to find a sound quality that I am happy with and that I feel matches the sound and timbre of my guitar. I discovered that if I choose the "natural acoustic guitar" amp and then select the "acoustic guitar improve 02" EQ preset I can get the most authentic sound. Once I was happy with the sound, I continued recording the accompaniment for a few of my songs. Despite spending so much time at the Makerspace, I only managed to get the guitar fully recorded for three songs. This leads me to consider if maybe I have bit off a bit more than I can chew with this project. I am going to focus on these three songs for now and my new goal will be to create professional quality, polished recordings of these three songs and then share them on soundcloud. I would love to continue this project even after this class and someday create videos to accompany my songs so that I can also share them on youtube, as well as record my remaining songs as well. Next week I hope to begin 

recording my vocals!

With all the time that I have been spending at the Makerspace, I have also found myself gaining interest in some of the other equipment that they have available there. For example, I participated in the 3D printing workshop this week and was able to print myself a key chain. There is so much available at the Makerspace and I am really glad that I have started to take advantage of all that is has to offer. If you are a Brock student and you haven't visited the Makerspace, I urge you to go do that ASAP! 

In addition to the recording that I have been doing this week, I also finished my Powtoon presentation, which you can watch here. Powtoon is such a great tool and I can not wait to introduce it to my future students and to encourage them to use it for presenting projects and other class work. I have also been preparing for my Movie Trailer that I am required to do for this course. I have come up with some ideas, but now I am trying to think of where the best place to film would be. Next week this should be ready for you to view! 

Thank You Art & Lutherie!

In class this week, we discussed assessment. There are no curricular expectations specific to technology, thus when assessing technology it needs to be assessed in relation to other subjects. We were given the challenge of looking through Ontario curriculum documents in order to gather ideas of how we could assess a Genius hour project. Some connections I found were in the science-technology, literacy, and social studies curriculum documents. The Science and Social Studies documents often discuss the use of technology as part of the inquiry process. In addition, technology use is a significant aspect of the media literacy strand of the literacy curriculum. Although technology and genius hour can be assessed in connection to these subjects, it may be more accurately assessed if one were to pull in other subjects/strands according to each individual student's project. For example, my genius hour project could be assessed using music, math, and literacy expectations.

Colton McMillan. (February 1, 2018).
New Guitar (Photograph).

Speaking of my genius hour project, my new guitar came in this week: my beautiful Art & Lutherie guitar! Do you know what this means?! I was finally able to begin recording! I fiddled around a bit with the focusrite recording equipment and garageband in the Brock makerspace room this week and I got the guitar accompaniment recorded for my song called "Truer Than True". This is one of my favourite songs because I wrote it for my wedding and my husband has been asking me to record it ever since. I was not able to record any vocals this week though because I have been fighting a cold all week, but I really feel like I have begun to make some real progress this week.

That being said, I am not completely satisfied with how my guitar sounds in the recording because it has a sharp, electric sound to it and I don't feel like it captures the warmth of an acoustic guitar. Recording with a mic would be another option, but I decided to take some time this week to research tips and strategies for achieving an authentic acoustic sound with direct recording. I have learned about Visual EQ, which will allow me to filter out certain frequencies. I discovered that learning about how to use visual EQ is a learning curve that would require a whole other project in itself. Thankfully, this site taught me that Garageband has an acoustic guitar preset option that sets the EQ to sound like a clean and clear acoustic guitar. So, next week I plan to play around with the EQ presets to improve the sound of my guitar and continue with the recording stage.

Natalie McMillan. (February 6, 2017) Recording Selfie (Photograph)

A Bunch of Munsch

In class today, we learned how to use Google Forms to create online assessments! Google Forms allows teachers to create tests and quizzes with an easy-to-use tool. The following Google Form is the assessment I created based on the story "50 Below" by Robert Munsch. Go ahead and try out my assessment by watching the following video and completing the quiz. Good luck!

Nicole J. (June 9, 2013). A Bunch of Munsch (Youtube video) 
[Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJD9SkutNxQ]