Author: em04 (Page 2 of 2)

Music Midterm Post: Flute

November 5, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

Hello! This is my midterm post for EDCI 306A with Dr. Hector Vazquez. I chose to do the flute for a few reasons:

Rekindle my love for the flute/music: I played the flute for 3 years back in middle school from grades 6-8 and grew to really love it. I’ve grown up as a dancer and so music has always been a big part of my life. I enjoy listening to music in my spare time, while I study or workout. In grade 6 when I first started learning, I felt it was a chore to practice my skills at home. As time went on I started feeling more encouraged to improve and learn new songs. My good friend Kate also played the flute in the band so we enjoyed practicing together at recess and learning songs that were popular at the time. Music become one of my passions and it taught me skills that I carry with me to this day.

Challenge myself to learn individually: In band, of course we had a band teacher who led us through learning our instruments. Other resources that helped us included peer support, band teachers and online music theory books. With all these tools, learning a brand new instrument was a supportive process. With this project for EDCI 306, it is pretty individual journey. We do have each other as support especially if you can find someone who chose the same instrument. Hector is also available to support us throughout our journey but it is different than having a set class to learn instruments in a band setting.

Use my previous skills from middle school: I chose the flute because starting to learn an instrument from no prior knowledge is quite hard. Learning the mouthing techniques (embouchure) is a hard skill to pick up but once learned it sort of stays with you, similar to the idea of riding a bike! Even though I stopped being in band in grade 9, I still wanted to keep learning new songs and improve my technique. The skills I had back then are slowly coming back to me which I am glad about. I hope to find my passion for learning the flute like I did in middle school!

The goals I had set in my music goal sheet from back in September were: know the scale, understand notes on sheet music associated with the letter notes, practice some simple songs; twinkle twinkle, hot cross buns. I succeeded in most of these areas as my prior knowledge from middle school band helped me out. The aspect that I fell short in was understanding music on sheet music while playing a song. Even though I was working on very simple songs, I did take a look at more complex songs just to see some sheet music but I had a hard time actually reading it. For the next month, I hope to focus more on reading sheet music and practicing that skill. As for knowing the scale, I did this successfully with the help of some graphics I found online. I googled “flute notes with fingering” and this provided some really helpful images.

Here are some examples:

Here are some videos of what I worked on September/October:

Hot cross buns:

Twinkle twinkle little star:

Scale:

My plan to achieve my future goals:

Now that the midterm point has been reached, I need to make sure I follow the rest of my plan to reach my next goals. From now on I need to start practicing my simple songs with the sheet music without writing the letter notes associated with each note on the staff. I hope to achieve the ability of playing these songs fluently without needing to take too many breaths or pausing/stumbling. Once I feel fairly confident with these songs, I will then start practicing my longer song. I have chosen to do uptown funk by Bruno Mars. I learned this song back in grade 7 (almost 7 years ago!) so I hope to regain the ability to play this fun song! I used a YouTube video in the past so that is once again my plan and then use the sheet music to read it as a play.

For the next month, I need to set more of a schedule for myself and set specific times to practice. I defiantly neglected practice time and should’ve been more strict with myself and make sure I get enough time at home to practice. I look forward to continuing my journey with the flute and am excited to keep growing as a musician! Thanks for reading!

Inquiry Project: Entry 2

November 3, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

Hello! Since my last climbing post, I’ve gone a few more times and made some breakthroughs! My friend Ava (who is my climbing partner) and I have set Wednesday evenings as our climbing day. This has really helped me to make sure I am making the time to go to the climbing gym and actually see some progress, it also helps keep track of how often I’m going. Last week, Boulderhouse had a Halloween event on Friday the 28th which included climbing competition, local drinks and a dj. It was also their 7th anniversary and they had various contests including a costume contest, early bird registration and the climbing score competition. This created a really fun environment and a strong sense of community. It was cool to see the range of abilities at this event as there were many people who came with a friend and it was there first time climbing. On the other hand, me and Ava met someone who was on the youth Team Canada for speed climbing. We enjoyed observing his techniques as he flew up the wall.

The climbing competition itself on Friday was a scramble competition which consisted of many different circuits on the wall as usual but the catch was the coloured tapes were all white, so the levels were not displayed. Each circuit had a number associated with it at the start of the run and so if you complete it, you log it on the online competition score sheet. Each registered climber keeps track of their successful climbs and plugs them in online. Boulderhouse staff then add up how many circuits each climber completed and their difficulty to decide who makes it onto the leaderboard. It was such a busy night so Ava and I didn’t get too many runs done because of how many people were there! I ended up not even logging my climbs in the competition because my goal was not to try and win (I also didn’t stand a chance) but rather just to improve my technique and push myself.

This week, we went climbing on Tuesday instead of Wednesday as we both had plans. Instead of 8 pm, we went right after school more around 4 pm and it made such a difference! The climbing gym was so nice and empty and this gave me a new sense of confidence to try circuits I haven’t tried before and test out some more difficult levels. When the wall is busy, it can feel like you’re holding up the others while you try and figure out a circuit. Having the freedom of no one waiting to go after allowed me to try and fail more difficult circuits until I was able to complete them. On the slab wall, there was some large volumes (A volume is an extension of the wall- multi-sided climbing feature that attaches to the wall similar to a climbing hand hold) which provided a unique challenge. I enjoyed experimenting with these and I spent some time working on this circuit which was a green tape.

Next week, my goal is to work on some overhang climbs. I feel like my upper body strength has improved and I’d like to work on my grip strength more. I have been sticking to the slab wall but I want to push myself to work on a wall I feel less confident on. Till next time!

Weekly Reflections: Week 5 Internet Graphics and PowerPoint

November 2, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

This week left us with newfound skills with powerpoint, confidence in creating resources and a class powerpoint with some pretty funny graphics. Michael dove into using images and graphics in effective ways to support and engage learners in different settings. Connecting to what we learned from Rich the previous week, slides with different graphics were presented to us in class and we had to compare them and how effective they were. The example was how to use a bike pump. The first image was simply a packaged bike pump, which really doesn’t provide much context especially if you’ve never seen one used. The next one was more like a diagram of multiple steps and they each had a photo next to it. This was much more helpful was the viewer can read the written instructions and connect it to the image next to it showing exactly how it works. Connecting this to education, teachers often will throw images onto a slideshow that are either irrelevant, distracting or plain confusing. When you take time to find a visual that helps students visualize and understand material growth can happen.

After we saw some different examples of graphic creation with different softwares such a powerpoint or photoshop we were given the freedom to create something using the skills we just learned about. People took many different routes as some created some really interesting math worksheets while others went on a more silly path and made some funny images. I decided to use canvas as I’ve used this website before to create other graphics. To erase backgrounds, I used a website I have previously used that I found on google. Here is my creation:

I had lots of fun putting my teachers into a car with some interesting characters! I can only imagine how much fun students would have doing this in class, I know our class had a great time.

In the past, I’ve used canvas to create social media graphics to support a local political campaign. My high school teacher Mark Nuefeld ran for Saanich Council last fall and I helped him with his social media by creating instagram posts. I used canna for this and it was a very user friendly site to use and play around with. Here’s some of the graphics I created:

Weekly Reflections: Week 4 “Connecting Nature and Technology”

October 26, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

This week we had the pleasure of meeting Kirsten Pierce who is a teacher at Lansdowne Middle School. She came in and talked about the importance and possibilities of connecting nature with technology and using technology to grow students understanding of the world around them. Kirsten described it as technology enabled place based learning. We learned about some really valuable tools, resources and perspectives that involve technology supporting the classroom.

There are so many valuable websites surrounding indigenous education which can take learning to the next level. Kirsten showed us a list of resources that can help identify territories and land, word lists, language databases and YouTube for local historical videos. Using these resources, educators can introduce the concept of a two eyed lens. From my understanding, a two eyed lens is a way of seeing the natural world around us with multiple perspectives and acknowledging it’s past, present and future roles. When going on a nature walk or field trip with a classroom in the community, it could look like identifying native plants and talking about its importance to indigenous communities. Creating this connection between exploring these places in the present and understanding its historical importance can help foster an awareness for respecting nature.

Another great tool Kirsten showed us was a variety of plant identification apps. We got to experiment with these outside as we went for a walk in Finnerty Gardens here on campus. My group used the app “seek” and it was very engaging. It was exciting to explore the garden and find new plants to identify as the app gives you different level badges as you find new species. This created a goal for us to actively look at what was around us instead of just going for a walk and not noticing things around you. Apps like this could be downloaded on iPads and children could take turns going for nature walks and identifying plants to then relate it back to a classroom project.

This class provided me with a new lens on the relationship between technology and nature which I will carry with me into the classroom. I look forward to exploring different projects and possible lessons involving the tools we learned about this week with Kirsten.

Weekly Reflections: Week Three “Rich McCue”

October 22, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

After two weeks of long weekends and no Monday classes in session, we were back in the classroom! While Michael wasn’t here, we had Rich McCue leading our class through some very relevant, hands on and informative activities and discussions. Rich brought a great perspective on technology in the classroom and technology education as a whole as he has also taught EDCI classes here at the University. Rich shared different types of media used in a classroom including videos, slideshows, read along stories and explained multi media learning theory.

He really went in depth with explaining how to make and use videos effectively. Something that surprised me was that he said when there’s text on the screen during a video, it becomes a distraction and doesn’t help the student. I feel like most educational videos I’ve personally watched had an element of text on the screen at all times. It makes sense that it’s a distraction as the viewer is focused on reading the text, not the video itself. The same idea goes for having a small corner frame of someone talking in a video, such as a screencast. We learned how to use this tool as a recourse for future lessons. It was difficult at first to get everyone on the same page with the process of downloading the extension as people were on different devices, Chromebook, MAC, iPad etc. but once this was overcome the process was not too challenging. We were instructed to create a video with the screencast tool and record our screen while we demonstrated the use of a website/game. I chose to do Water Boy and Lava Girl which is a game I played in my childhood. The screencast extension records my screen and also records my audio of me talking.

https://youtu.be/R9shX3CusGk

This would be extremely helpful when creating lessons as it could be a tool to create instructional videos for students to watch at home for extra support. I’m really glad Rich showed us this resource and I hope to continue using it and growing more confident in my abilities to use it in the classroom!

Inquiry Project: Entry 1

October 12, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

My Recent Climb

The month of September was a busy time with school starting up, my dance schedule and getting back into routine. I unfortunately didn’t get into the climbing gym as much as I had hoped as I didn’t make enough time for it. I went climbing about once a week with my friend Ava but it wasn’t regular enough to see some real improvement. Ava and I have been experimenting with different times to go and climb as we’ve discovered it’s difficult to make the most of a session when the climbing gym is very busy. As the wall reset happens on Tuesdays every week, Wednesdays are packed. We usually go in the evening but the past few times we went it was hard to get a chance to work on circuits without feeling rushed.

We went yesterday Wednesday the 11th at around 8 pm and stayed till about 9:30 as people started clearing out as the night goes on. Boulder-house closes at 11 pm so it’s defiantly a younger crowd of people between 9-11 pm. I noticed yesterday that the slab walls were very popular so I focused more on vertical and overhang climbs until people started leaving. Something I really appreciate about climbing is the community that surrounds the sport. At first I was very intimated by advanced climbers as I didn’t know much and had a fear of failing a circuit in front of everyone. I quickly learned everyone is there to work on themselves and watching fellow climbers fail and succeed is how you learn. I felt so inspired as I watched advanced climbers complete really difficult circuits but it also taught me useful skills and techniques. I would observe how they place their feet, start the climb and hand placement. Giving fellow climbers tips and advice is a huge part of building community. A useful climbing term is beta which means specific advice, direction or instruction on how to complete a climb. For example climbers may say ‘Hey, what’s the beta for this climb?” or “Can I offer some beta?”. This really came into play during my climb.

Improvements/What did I Learn

When we first arrived I was feeling intimidated, nervous and undetermined to try new climbs as the gym was very busy. People tend to congregate around the newest/most recently reset wall of the week. This week it was one of the slab walls. I really enjoy the slab walls as it has a large focus on balance which is one of my strengths in climbing due to my dance background. I didn’t get as much time on the slab wall as I had hoped just because of how busy it was but this also was a blessing in disguise. I tend to ignore the overhang wall because it causes me the most difficulty but I made myself try it as it one my only option at one point. I pleasantly surprised myself after I completed a climb that I previously couldn’t finish. Putting yourself out there is so important and remember that everyone there is focused on themselves and their own skills.

As the evening went on, I made my way to the slab wall as it started clearing out. There was one blue tape climb (4th ranking of difficulty) that many people were working on, including my friend Ava . At first I had the mindset of “I’m not going to try that, there’s no way I could do it” but I snapped myself out of it and decided to give it a go and see how far I make it up. My first attempt, I didn’t make it up far as I started it wrong and my footing was incorrect. I stood back and watched some others try it. One person in particular caught my eye as they did it completely different as the others but were successful. I tried it again once they finished and got up much higher! I learned the importance of watching fellow climbers think outside the box and adapt their ideas to what works best for you. Although I didn’t complete the whole circuit, I made progress which I hope to continue next week.

Green tape level on the slab wall- July 13 2023

Free Inquiry Project: Rock Climbing

October 10, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

Why did I Chose this Topic

For my free inquiry project I am going to pursue my hobby of indoor rock climbing, specifically bouldering. Bouldering can be described as the type of rock climbing where there isn’t the use of a harness or rope, instead there are large crash mats below the walls to catch the fall of climbers. Since climbers aren’t supported by any gear, the walls are typically much shorter is it would be quite unsafe if they were the same height as walls used for rock climbing with a rope. Bouldering is quite a popular activity as it improves upper body strength, coordination , balance, flexibility and grip strength. I grew up as a dancer so when I first tried bouldering, certain aspects came quite easily to me such as the balance and flexibility. Other areas such as upper body and grip strength proved to be a challenge that led to frustration as I had trouble with completing more challenging climbs. Through this inquiry project I hope to set goals, track my progress, dive into the technique of climbing and connect these lessons to other areas of my life.

Bouldering 101: The Ins and Outs

I climb at BoulderHouse Victoria but have also visited their Langford location. The wall is 13 feet high with an assortment of colourful holds with varying difficulties. Climbing at Boulderhouse is sorted by a set of 8 coloured circuits ranging from beginner all the way to advanced. Each circuit includes 5-6 problems which offers a variety of opportunities for climbers of all skills to practice and challenge themselves. The climbing wall gets reset on a weekly basis to make sure there are new challenges for climbers to come and work on. The Victoria location gets reset on Wednesdays every week so you’ll often see an increase of people coming to eagerly attempt the new climbs.

The list goes as follows (beginner-advanced):

Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple, Red, Black, Pink

The goal behind offering circuits of ranging ability is to encourage people of all experience levels and backgrounds try climbing. It is also a great way to track your progress as you can look back and compare your abilities to when you first started up with now. It’s a very rewarding feeling completing your first circuit of a new colour which leads to the eagerness to learn and grow and complete the next level. There are multiple types of walls and holds and as you keep experimenting with new circuits you’ll discover which ones you prefer.

Slab: Slab climbing is a form of rock climbing in which the wall is at less than a 90-degree angle from the ground. Slab climbing, which can also be called friction climbing, prioritizes foot work over hand and footholds, as opposed to vertical climbs or overhang climbs which often have foot and hand holds. This form of climbing requires works on a lot of balance and reaching across a large distance as holds are usually scarce. Slab requires mental calculation to think about the most effective way to complete the circuit with the limited holds.

Overhangs: The opposite of a slab is an overhang wall. An overhang is any section of a wall that is more than vertical. Overhung walls tend to be a little more challenging to complete as they require more strength to stay on the wall. Overhangs usually have holds that stick out from the wall more than a slab would as the climber has to grab on and support themselves to make sure they stay on the wall. Gravity is working against the climber during an overhang as they are being pulled towards the ground and have to fight that to stay on the wall.

Vertical: Vertical climbing is what you would imagine: a wall that is about 90 degrees from the ground. Vertical climbs require smart footwork as it’s easy to get tangled and feel stuck if you aren’t thinking about your where your feet are going. Thinking about keeping your weight in your feet rather than your arms can help reduce stress and strain on your upper body causing fatigue and the possibility of falling off the wall and not making it to the end of the circuit.

My goals: What do I Hope to Achieve

I started climbing back in February of this year because my good friend Ava introduced me to it when she invited me to go climb with her. Prior to this the only experience I had with rock climbing was a few school field trips I had been on which mainly consisted of rock climbing with a rope and harness. I really enjoyed my time bouldering with Ava and decided to keep it in my life. About 3 months in, I realized how often I was going and so I bought a monthly pass in hopes of staying consistent with climbing often. When I first started I was completing yellows and oranges and now I can confidently do greens and challenge myself with blues. As I continue learning about Bouldering throughout my inquiry project, I hope to dive into the proper techniques of each type of wall. I tend to stick to my favourite type of circuits and sometimes let fear get in the way of trying a more challenging circuit. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of proper technique to build my confidence with climbing in order to keep improving and trying new things. I hope to achieve a purple level circuit by the end of my project and stay consistent in my climbing and make time for it in my schedule. Thank you for reading and I hope you look forward to climb through this journey with me!

Weekly Reflections: Week Two “Jessie Miller”

October 8, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

This week our cohort had the pleasure of virtually meeting Jessie Miller, a professional in the field of media literacy, social media education, digital trends and keeping a professional online presence. Our time with him was extremely informative as social media and the internet is such a fast paced part of our world. The presence of technology in the classroom is a big one as children are surrounded by phones, television, iPads and video games. The role of technology ranges with different ages which leads to difficulty with creating boundaries and rules for children. Teachers have a difficult task as they are the authority figure at school and creating expectations with technology may differ from their home life. Jessie shared some valuable lessons and perspectives on balancing technology in the world of teaching which I am grateful to have heard.

One topic that stood out to me was keeping a professional presence online as a teacher. Jessie showed us various examples of educators that made some poor choices online that led to some very serious consequences. While he talked about the extreme end of things, we also heard about some strategies and ideas to make sure our social media remains separate from our work life. Jessie talked about making personal accounts private, watching what you post and keeping boundaries with parents and students regarding social media and connecting outside of school. Sometimes parents want to connect outside of school when they find a teacher on instagram, Facebook or wherever that may be but this can cross the line between a professional relationship quickly. Jessie suggested setting boundaries at the start of the year and sticking to them to keep a professional standard. This was an important conversation to have as it is easy to to post photos without thinking about long term effects.

Jessie also talked to us about classroom management surrounding technology and phones in the classroom. This is something that varies from grade to grade as this would look very different in a grade 1 class compared to a grade 8 class. This got me thinking about how to manage rules with different classrooms. In grades where students may have their won cellular device, I feel that the devices should b kept away in a bag/locker during class time. It should be communicated with parents that if they need to reach their child it should be done by contacting the school or waiting till school is over to speak to the child. This does get complex as some family situations may need to contact their child concerning transportation or other important issues so these circumstances need to get taken into consideration.

Overall this presentation from Jessie was very informative, eye opening and thought provoking. I hope to continue learning about the online world and how it plays into a school and the role of a teacher.

Weekly Reflections: Week One “Most Likely to Succeed”

September 21, 2023 / em04 / 0 Comments

I thoroughly enjoyed the film “Most Likely to Succeed” as it gave an inside look into “High Tech High” a school based in California. This high school followed a very unique structure compared to a more traditional school. The teachers were hired on a one year contract basis and given freedom on how to teach their classes which was interesting to see as it’s quite different from how teachers work here. The structure of a set curriculum is a far fetched idea at High Tech High. I feel like the creative freedoms allows the teachers there to really be passionate about their work as they can focus on their areas of specialty and interest. The idea of blending subjects into an inter disciplinary model reminded me of a program I participated in during my 4 years of high school.

From grade 9 to grade 12, I was IGS (The Institute for Global Solutions) which was a program designed to blend social studies and science materials together. The course was taught by team teaching, two or three teachers working together. This was a great example of seeing colleagues collaborating and bringing together their interests. For example one of the teachers was science focused and the other was social studies based so projects were very much intertwined between the two subjects. We would have to take a concept we learned in science which usually related to environmental challenges and apply it to real world issues and examples. This course was entered around thinking of big questions but specifically finding solutions. With the help of guest speakers, informative field trips and even a trip across Canada, we as students were given many opportunities to expand our world view and challenge the norms of school.

Instead of more traditional tests and assignments for evaluation, the majority of our classwork was very inquiry based and self led. For our grade 12 final project we had to create and present a “Do Good Project”. This was a very open ended project and we were able to chose an area of interest to take on and do some “good”. Some students chose to go to an elementary school and teach about gardening, others created school events and some created awareness within the class about certain current issues. The layout of this project taught me how to take initiative and search for resources on my own. These are valuable skills I have carried with me throughout my life after high school. I believe this is similar to the values that High Tech High leads by, being successful in real life vs success in school. Being a part of IGS for 4 years taught me more than any other class during my years of school as I gained skills, connections and mentors that have changed my life; High Tech High provides these same benefits through their adaptable, creative and innovation education.