Tuesday, June 8, 2010
1st Blog
My main goal for this class is to become more familiar with technology. I tend to be a bit of a Luddite, and I do not use much technology outside of itunes, so I hope that this class will help me get to know how to use technology for different purposes. I do not have any particularly terrifying stories about technology, save for having to reload all of my music onto my ipod after my computer crashed a few months ago. That was not fun, and it took a lot time, but it had to be done. I will say that I feel particularly uncomfortable with file types and other technical info; I frequently save my files as the wrong file, and I have to save it as something else, and I always feel stupid after doing so. The technology that I most depend upon is my itunes and ipod. I am one of those unfortunate people who constantly has headphones in the ears, and I constantly update my itunes. While most will see this as useless nonsense and entertainment, I do plan on using my library of songs in my teaching, and my ipod will save me from having to lug my cd collection into the classroom when I need it. I feel that some students may appreciate my bringing music into the classroom, so I feel this could be a strength. This technology course may also help me to learn how to integrate sound into slide shows, that way I can deliver more diverse presentations to my students.
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I don't know why I never thought to use my ipod in the classroom, but that is a great idea. I too store files incorectly sometimes and cannot remember where they were saved. I love the fish!
ReplyDeleteSorry, I made you drop the fish gadget! How about locating a widget/gadget that features music? Or, how about "Mr. Scarpino's Top 10 songs from History," or something like that?
ReplyDeleteYou are thinking like a real teacher regarding how to integrate your love of music with your classroom practice. Do you find a lot of contemporary music in iTunes that relates to your instructional area? Are there also older genres, artists, and song titles that you can access? Never thought about it before. I always played "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday when the English 9 students read this one particular short story about lynching written by Alice Walker. The song is great for establishing mood and discussing imagery.
Yes! We can practice adding soundtracks to presentations. You can narrate a presentation in PowerPoint, don't know about Google presentations. Also, you can add music and narration to iMovie. Music is tricky if you publish your final presentation -- got to be mindful of copyright issues. We will talk about that too.