Web Authoring

I recently had the opportunity to create a website about my music classroom. We used the Sites tool as one of the many programs offered through google.com. I titled my site Ms. Lovell's Music Classroom. I thought this was a great idea to incorporate a page that states a little about myself and my experiences in music and life in general.

I also created a page that is titled "Attendance and Grading" that gives my students simple instructions on what must be accomplished and how attendance is mandatory in order to get a good grade in my class. I created a page titled "Classroom Rules" as well. This page lists a few short rules that students must follow and we will get along and have a great time.

 I created another page called "A Letter to Parents and Students." This page includes many of the reasons why I am so very excited to start the new year with all of my students both old and new. I also created a choice page called "Maintaining Vocal Health." This page contains some pointers and ways to keep your voice healthy for singing and speaking as well. The next page on my website is called "Music Resources." This page was very helpful to develop since I will always need internet resources for my music classroom.

What went well-I was very happy that we had created the Music Class Resources Wiki page because I ended up using some of the shared resources from my pbworks wiki page to complete my website "Music Resources" page.

The next page I included in my website was a "Tech Projects" page. This page was useful for me to post examples of projects I had completed in TPTE 486 for others to see some of my technological work. I did have some problems with this page...

What did not go well- I successfully uploaded some of the required files on my "Tech Projects" page; however, I was unable to upload one of my finest works with that being my "Musical Instruments" flipchart. Evidently something happened to my .flipchart and it changed into a .ashx and no one knew how to fix this issue. I was successful in uploading my flipchart to my dropbox so that I could use it in the future.

The next page was the "Web 2.0 Tools." I chose to create a web 2.0 tool page about Audioboo. My fellow Art Education major and I got together to form this page. This was very easy to accomplish because it was a collaborative effort.

The next page is titled "Welcome Note." This page is pretty self explanatory.

What could have gone better- The "Welcome Note" is listed at the bottom of my links at the side of my homepage on the tool bar. Since this is a "WELCOME" note I would like for it to be at the top of my links on the tool bar. I know that the program makes everything go in alphabetical order, but I think this is definitely something worth noting about.  

I really enjoyed this course and I have most certainly learned a whole lot about technology and the many contributions the internet provides to the education of the classroom through web 2.0 tools and the projects that we have created to help us in the classroom such as using the Promethean board for the Inspiration program, and the Active Inspire program. Thanks for such a great semester of learning!

My imovie: A Journey Across the Pond

I recently created my very first movie in the Mac program called imovie. This was one of the most fun activities I think I have completed this semester in TPTE 486. 

What did go well- I did not really know a lot about the program prior to the introduction of what imovie was all about. I found it extremely helpful to follow the directions on the step by step plan laid out in our manual for this project. I was very happy that I was able to come up with a theme for the imovie based upon my experience in Europe a couple summers ago. It was very easy to put the photos in the program by dragging and dropping. I found it quite easy to use the Ken-Burns effects with my pictures as well. The cropping was very easy to accomplish as well. I was very happy to use some songs from the itunes sound files for my video that both sounded very European with the soft piano ballads. I think the music added a nice affect to the overall outcome of the video.

What did not go well- I followed the step by step guiding tour through the program and the only discrepancy I found between Dr. O'Bannon's instructions and the manual was the step in the manual that said we had to change the resolution of every picture to before inputting the photos into the imovie program. I did this as the directions stated trying to get ahead and the next class day Dr. B sad that the resolution should be fine if we took the pictures from a digital camera, which is what I had done. I got all of my photos from my personal collection. This little sidetrack was fixed in a few moments as I had to go back in and restore my pictures with the original resolutions so that my photos did not look grainy or distorted.  

What could have gone better- I thought that the next time I did an imovie I would name the pictures with the lower cased letters and an underscore separating the words with no problem for easy identification. I will also not change the resolution of my photos if they are taken from my camera. I can easily upload them into imove and it will work out perfectly. 

 

Here is the video I created about my study abroad trip to England in the summer of 2009. I created this movie in the imovie software for Macs.

Animoto

Here is an Animoto project I made about my Summer 2009 study abroad trip I took to England.

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Google Forms

Here is an example of a Google form.

Active Inspire Project-"Identifying Instrument Families"

I recently completed a project with the Active Inspire software. I titled this flipchart "Identifying Instrument Families." I made a title page with examples of instruments from three of the sections found in a bad or orchestra program. My second page is a very detailed video made by a fellow music teacher. I found this useful video at youtube.com and it gives a basic overview of each of the instrument sections for the brass, woodwinds, and strings sections. My next few slides are titled "The Woodwind Family" "The Brass Family" and "The String Family"and each of the slides have a chart that has the name of the instrument covered up by a square shape to see if the students can identify the instruments by looking at the picture and listening to the audio clip provided for each instrument. After the class tries to identify the instrument a student can then come up to the interactive board to move the shape over to see if their answer is correct. I then listed my references, student performance indicators, student objectives, NETS-T standards, and textbook I used to complete this project.

What went well-I was aided by the active inspire software because it provided me with a photo of each of the instruments that I needed to complete this project. It was also fairly easy to change the colors, fonts, and move objects on every page.

 What did not go well- It took a lot of time to download and embed each of the sound files to my slides because the software did not include any of the sound files for any of the instruments with the exception to the trumpet, which I found bizarre. I also had a little bit of a problem with my video showing up on the appropriate page, but I finally figured out that problem. There was also a problem with my the name of my flipchart ending in a .afx instead of a .flipchart. Dr. O'Bannon nor anyone in the class could figure out why my flip chart was acting the way it was. I created it in the Active Inspire software but for some reason the file changed. As a result, I could not upload my project to my Tech Projects page. It could have been the file size that kept it from downloading and uploading the flipchart. I wouldn't take anything out of my flipchart though because I think all of the information that I included is essential for my project.

What could have gone better- I think that if the Promethean software could include more sound files this would definitely help out music teachers and keep them engaged in making flip charts and things of that nature. I also know that being more knowledgeable about the software in general will create a better environment for the students in the TPTE 486 classrooms to engage in projects such as this one.

Here is a screenshot of the title page of my flipchart!

Instrument Families- Web Diagram Activity

Diagram-Instrument Families I recently created a poster board with the Inspiration program. I entitled the learning board "Instrument Families" as my main objective to cover. This particular standard is covered in the first grade edition of the Tennessee General Music Standards. Each of the four families entitled "Brass", "Woodwinds", "Percussion" and "Strings" have four instrument examples included as examples of each family. The "Percussion" family includes instruments such as the bass drum, cymbals, gong, and snare drum. Members of the "Strings" family include the cello, violin, viola, and bass. Some members of the brass instrument family include the tuba, trumpet, trombone, and the french horn. Finally, members of the woodwinds family are the clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and the flute. I also included pictures of each of these instruments for easy identification on a poster board or as a handout. What went well: It was fairly easy to come up with a topic because I have an extensive background in intrumental studies and I thought this would be the simplest way to make a story board that was not cluttered and easy to read. I had a seamless transfer of the pictures I had gathered to the Inspiration software by using the insert graphic tool.It was really easy to attach notes about each of the instrument families to the sub-categories Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion, and Strings. It was also really easy to make the main category "Instrument Families" into a hyperlink I found at a website that is extra student friendly for first graders to learn more about the different instruments and their families. What did not go well: It was a bit confusing to figure out what each of the tool's function was at the bottom of the Inspiration software. I had a little trouble making a text box and putting my State Standards and NET-T standards inside the box. I origianally had to draw a text box, but it wouldn't let me put a border around it until I clicked the rectangle on the tool bar and created another box to put my information in. I also had to make my project a little smaller in size so that it would fit on a poster board which was a little tricky. Dr. O'Bannon helped me with the formatting of the differentiation in shapes of my sub-headings as well. What could have gone better: I believe that if I had origianlly set my font size, color and shape of my different headings and size of my over all project by using the ruler I would not have had to go back in the program and change all of these minor details. Overall, I was very pleased with this software and I know it will come in handy for me in the General Music classroom. I am happy that I was introduced to this creative program.

Scavenger Hunt for Art on the UT Knoxville Campus

Caitlin Hammer and I were recently given the opportunity to take part in a scavenger hunt to find art in many different lines in nature on the University of Tennessee campus here in Knoxville. What went well-We found many different examples of the various types of lines in park benches, windows, road markings, trees, railings, and on the cement pavement. We ended up not having a problem with collecting pictures of our examples and we were ready to upload them to the computer in our classroom in about 30 minutes. Caitlin uploaded the pictures to her email and she sent them to me via email, and my task was to upload the pictures to Picasa web albums and make a slideshow out of the pictures with descriptive captions describing what we had discovered. What did not go well- When I uploaded the pictures to my desktop I named them with the first letter of the title capitalized before realizing that all of the titles needed to be lowercase. So I went ahead and added them to Picasa but then I had to go back and change the titles of the pictures to lower case so that they were in the proper format for the assignment. What we could have changed- Other than the title mess up there wasn't anything that I thought we could have changed to make the project better. It was a fun experience and I'd love to do another scavenger hunt in the future. How will I use this in my classroom- I plan to use the Picasa web albums as I will take pictures of my choirs at their performances and concerts and make them into a slideshow and make them visible at parent teacher conferences and open houses for parents to see their children in action on the stage. I will also take pictures when we are on tour and make slideshows for my students to have as well. Picasa web album: Slideshow Google Presentation

Scavenger Hunt- Art on the UT Knoxville campus

Me & UT!! :)

Scavenger Hunt

Glogster-All About Me!