Thursday, November 18, 2010

Month 5 Blog Entry for AR or CBR

1.     What are you doing to set up your cycle 1?

My cycle one consists of four parts: my target audience filling out surveys, my target audience recalling family members that were involved in music, target audience comparing the behavior of known musically inclined relatives/friends versus the behavior of relatives/friends who were not musically inclined and then they will generate an opinion of music education. This is how I will set it up. First, the target audience will be given a survey to take. From that survey they will take into consideration the next phase of my cycle 1. After recalling their relatives/friends who were involved in music and were not involved in music, they will recall certain traits, characteristics, behaviors and friends each one associated with. From all of that, they will generate an opinion as to whether music education has a positive, negative or no affect on human behavior and development. Because there aren’t any persuasive questions, the information gathered from the survey will be totally unbiased.

2.   What kinds of data are you planning to collect and analyze to show that your AR project is effecting changes and growth for yourself, your intended target audience, and your AR project setting: Quantitative (e.g., Surveys or Self-Report instruments), Qualitative (e.g., field notes, personal logs, record sheets, interviews, video taping, audio recordings)? How will you measure and report the results of these data once collected? Please answer both of these related questions thoroughly.

The data I will be collecting is both qualitative and quantitative. The quantitative data (survey) will provide a baseline by telling me what the target audience knows about music education and it’s benefits. It will kind of serve as a pretest. The qualitative data (interviews) will serve as a support beam. It will back up anything that was stated by the survey that the target audience participated in. The way I will measure and report the data will be through the use of charts, graphs, tables and bulleted stats through the use of Google Documents and Microsoft Documents. The thought of creating an iMovie presentation is also a great idea that has been up in the air because it will give the viewer more visual stimulation and keep their attention.

3.   How is your Action Research textbook assisting you with your AR design and development process?

After reading part three of the book, I realized that the instructors at Full Sail have this AR thing down to a “T”. Everything that I read, I have heard it or seen it before throughout my time here. With that said, the book has greatly helped me in designing and developing my AR. The “to do” list on page 77 clearly shows me the map of things that I need to do and things to be done before I can go to another part. The part of the list that stood out was the part that read, “keep it small, focused and manageable.” After reading that and listening to the comments that Mr. Moten left, I realized that my problem was too broad/general. Then Mr. Moten suggested that I “validate”, the information I’m researching instead of raising awareness of the topic, which made a ton of sense after I thought about it. That really kind of got the ball rolling again on my creative side because I was stuck as how to go about my AR for about three days. So it helped me substantially.

4.  How has this month’s course helped in shaping your AR project?

This month’s course PUSHED ME. There is no other way to put it. It pushed me more work done, be there for my group members and better understand the information that I'm finding/researching. Now that I have a better understanding, my brain is going to overdrive to find ways to better my AR project and I’m feeling great about it.



Wednesday, October 20, 2010

PE6_Garage Band

Piano Lesson 9
In this lesson he teaches about playing the blues which is a favorite genre of mine. I learned that when playing 12-bar blues, the solo can be played using the pentatonic scale which is a scale of 5 notes instead of 7. The solo can be enhanced by using a sharp 4th which raises the 4th note up a half step.


PE5_Garage Band

Piano Lesson1
The part of the piano lesson that I learned the most from  is the chord progression part. I have always had problems with my fingering when playing chord progressions because they seem to have a mind of their own and become stubborn sometimes. But the way that he taught it really simplified it for me.



PE4_Garage Band

Guitar Lesson 1
Garage Band is a great tool for anyone who is involved in music. They offer lessons on a number of instruments ranging from piano to guitar. The first video I watched is the Guitar Lesson 1. Since I have never played guitar in my life I found the things that he said very useful. As a music major I was familiar with the terms he used and the different parts of the instrument but not playing. One thing that I found out which was cool was that all of the strings, starting with the lowest pitched string, are a major 4th apart from each other.


Saturday, October 16, 2010

PE3_Google Earth

So you're in class and your teacher tells you that you will have a quiz on constellation shapes and names. Google Earth has a "Sky" feature that allows you to "turn on" constellations and their names will pop right up along with the shapes.


Photo provided by Tremeris Sanders.

PE2_Google Earth

Let's say that in Google Earth there's a landmark that you want a friend to see. You have the option to email the snapshot. All you have to do is go to the landmark, click on the envelope right under the words "Google Earth" and a drop box will appear giving you options to send a picture of the current view or send  a link which will open the view in Google Earth.


Photo provided by Tremeris Sanders

PE1_Google Earth

Google Earth a great tool in itself but it also has educational values. One feature that will give you the majority of the educational value is the "Fly To" feature. Using the "Fly To" feature all you have to do is type in an address, city, or state and Google Earth immediately "flies" to that location. Once you're there you have other features under the "Layers" tab that enhances your "visit" such as "turning on" the roads and borders, looking at pictures of the streets and it even shows the weather.
This feature will be vital to my AR because I can use it to go to certain parts of the world and show my students where most of the famous composers in music history come from.


Picture of Full Sail University on Google Earth by Tremeris Sanders.

Friday, October 15, 2010

BP9_Google Earth

The web 2.0 tool that I am going to explore this week is Google Earth. Google Earth is a wonderful tool that allows you to explore the world in 3D from anywhere. A couple of its features that I found to be stellar are the 3D buildings, the ability to see the moon and all of its lunar features and the ability to see distant stars, comets and planets. I am especially a big fan of the sky feature. As I just stated you will have the ability to see stars, comets and planets but what I didn't tell you is that you also have the ability to look at different constellations and nebulae as pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. Also you can click on planets in our solar system and track their orbit.
But the main reason I chose Google Earth is the feature that allows you to become a world traveler. Becoming a world traveler allows you to see countries, monuments, and other great things in 3D right from the comfort of your own home. With that feature I will travel Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Spain and other countries to gain/give insight about instrumental composers, their history and maybe even show how their music reflects the living situations that part of the world was in and how simple things like the terrain or geography of a country can inspire beautiful pieces of music. So in essence, with Google Earth, I can teach literature, english, geography, science, astronomy, art history and music history all while integrating technology in the classroom.

BP11_Comment on Jeri's Blog

Please follow this link to my comment on Jeri's blog.

BP10_Comment to Patricia Ort

Please follow this link to my comment on Patricia Ort's blog.

Friday, October 8, 2010

BP1_Google Reader


The above picture is a screenshot of my Google Reader.


My Google Reader RSS subscriptions are as follows:

1. Educational Learning

My rational for these selections:

1.     Educational Learning
This blog is important because it’s essentially the focus of my Action Research Project. It lists numerous reasons why music is important in primary education and how students can use what they learn when learning music in everyday life.




I absolutely love this blog. Even though it has the history of rock and roll with Elvis Presley, I’m more concerned with the link on the blog that goes to dsokids.com. On this website there is a game where you choose the correct musical period each composer belonged to. And if that doesn’t get the students’ attention, there is a paint shop where you can paint different instruments. I think I have found a new favorite website because it has so much potential.




This blog is along the lines of loving and hating it. If you’re a music educator you love it because it has so many valid points. If you’re an administrator trying to cut the music program because you’re trying to “balance the budget” then you hate it because it has so many valid points. This is a must see for any music educator.




This is the auxiliary blog that I think everybody needs in their research. It’s a start-up blog with information on the iPad being incorporated in the world of music education.




This blog is very in-depth as far as the history of music education goes. It stated how near the end of World War I the quality of school music began to increase. The information on this blog ranges from music education after World War I to the founding of the Music Educational National Conference (MENC).




Monday, October 4, 2010

BP5_ZAMZAR

Zamzar - Free online file conversion

The web 2.0 tool I chose this time is Zamzar. Zamzar is a free online conversion tool. It converts word documents, image, music, video, e-books, compressed files, and CAD's. For my Action Research I will be mainly converting video clips of bands (.mov, .m4v, .mp4) to audio (.wav, .mp3, and .aac). A giant advantage that Zamzar has over other converting software is that it's free and the process to convert the information is very simple and easy to follow. When I convert video files to audio files using Zamzar I can store and manage them using the website.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

WK 1 Reading


The Importance of Music Education in Public Schools

This article is in favor of music in schools and it shows that one of the greatest minds in history, Albert Einstein, was a skilled musician himself and that his discoveries sometimes came from his musical training. For someone of his stature to feel as strongly as he does about music and its effects on the human mind back then, why is it that music education is still trying to find a place in today’s education system.

Blankenbehler, G. (2010, June 12). The Importance of Music Education in Public Schools.  
     Retrieved October 03, 2010, from http://pitchperfectmusic.org/articles/importance-music-
     education-public-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-728


ABC’s of Surviving in Tough Economic Times

This article is more of a list things to do, people you need to know, and the importance of parents as a whole whose children are involved in music in their schools.


Jaeger, K. (2009). The ABC's of How to Survive These Tough Economic Times. Retrieved October 03, 2010, from http:/http://www.menc.org/v/general_music/the-abc-s-of-surviving-in-tough-economic-times/

Multiple Intelligences
This article stresses the importance and how no matter what subject a student is having a problem in he/she can learn to play music. In learning to play music it will open the door for improvement in other subject areas in school.


Jeter, D. (2009, January 20). Multiple Intelligences. Retrieved October 03, 2010,                from http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/music_education

Benefits of Musical Education to Children
This article goes hand-in-hand with my ARP. It tells how music creates deep emotions in humans when it’s played at weddings, it relaxes us as infants in the form of lullabies and how it even develops skills necessary in the workplace such as teamwork and discipline. This article is filled with little known facts that we overlook everyday that can be attributed to music.


Droscher, E. (2006, June 10). The Benefits of Music Education to Children. Retrieved October 03, 2010, from http://www.edarticle.com/k-12-subject-areas/the-arts/the-benefits-of-music-education-to-children.html





Saturday, October 2, 2010

BP4_Pandora Radio

Pandora is an internet radio which is an "offspring" of the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project is a group of musicians and technologists who assembled thousands of musical "genes" into one site. This way when you type in an artist's name, other artists in the same genre and time period will also play. The thing I like about it the most is that it gives you a brief history of the artist/composer that is being played, as illustrated in the screenshot below.


The only disadvantage is that after you skip so many songs you can't skip anymore and the commercials kind of throws off the mood.

With Pandora you have to set up and account with an email you already have. This will be your username. When signing up they also ask for your birth year because children under the age of 13 can't use Pandora because of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which is a great plus.


Last but certainly not least, Pandora is compatible with Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile.

BP3_Diigo Group


The above image is a screenshot of my ARP group in Diigo.



The above image is a screenshot of myself in the Ripples Group on Diigo.

BP2_iGoogle Screenshots


The above image is a screenshot of my iGoogle homepage.




The above image is a screenshot of my FSO Tab on my iGoogle page.




The above image is a screenshot of my AR/CBL Tab on my iGoogle page.



The above image is a screenshot of my ETC tab on my iGoogle page.