BP8_RILS_Links_to_Comments

Mitch Canter documents and reflects upon the process of creating his Relevant and Innovate Learning Scenario at his blog, The Exploratorium.  Follow this link to see my comments on this intricate project.

In the meantime, over at Ponderings of a Mid-Life Teacher, Glenn Shelton created the cartoon pictured to the right at goanimate.com as part of the documentation of his RILS project.  Follow this link to my comment.

ETC_Final_Project

    A brief documentary of my Realistic and Innovative Learning Scenario project
                           (Student images used with parent permission)

The Realistic and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) detailed below proved to be a valuable 21st century learning experience for the group of participating students.  As the documentary video shows, the students were highly motivated at the chance to record and produce their very own musical creations.

The following plan documents the plan that I developed for implementation of the RILS.  Although it may appear complicated for elementary school, uJam's ease of use helped to make teaching the skills necessary for the activity go smoothly.

Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) Plan

Overview:

     Working in groups, the RILS will give learners the opportunity to collaborate to create personalized and complete recordings of exercises that were learned throughout the school year.  While traditional study of instrumental music tends to lean toward teacher-centered direct instruction, uJam allows learners to take control of the exercises they have learned by using the original classical tunes to create personally relevant recordings of the music, including accompaniment in the styles they choose.

Target Audience:

• 5th Grade Band Students
• 30 minute lessons
• Groups of 2-6 learners

Materials:

• Computer with speakers, headphones and microphone
• Broadband Internet access
• uJam account
• Musical instruments (optional, students can sing melodies if instruments are not available)

Objectives:

At the end of the scenario, the learner will be able to:

• Create recordings using uJam
• Evaluate and discuss the quality of compositions
• Make analytical decisions about instrumentation and accompaniment in compositions
• Apply performance skills by recording music
  

Procedures:

1. To inroduce the scenario, play the uJam commercial found here.
2. Since the learners are already in a small group, have them choose one of the following roles for the recording project:
• Solo Artist - Performs the exercise for the recording
• Producer - Lends advice on style and musical decisions
• Sound Engineer - Edits and arranges the music using a computer
3. Have the group choose a favorite exercise learned previously to record.
4. Give the performer a chance to practice the exercise, then have one of the sound engineers record the performer.
5. Listen to the default recording and have a producer or editor shot the group the list of styles.  Allow the learners to experiment with styles untl they find one that matches the recorded melody.
6. Teach the editor or producer how to manipulate timing or correct pitch mistakes if needed.  Allow the group to make the musical decisions about changes or corrections.
7. Play the finished product, then lead a brief discussion exploring open-ended evaluative questions like:
• What did you think of your finished song?
• Do you think the finished recording is good?  Why or why not?
• What did you like or not like about the song?
8. Export the song to mp3 and remind the learners they can take home their completed works on a USB drive, or create new works at uJam.com.

Web 2.0 Tool:

uJam provides an online mixer that analyzes user-created melodies and generates backgrounds in a variety of styles.  As well, uJam allows users to edit the pitch and rhythm of the melody, as well as a number of other variables, allowing easy creation of great-sounding music. 

Social Participation / Social Learning:

Collaboration will occur throughout the scenario, as learners will have individual roles where they step forward to lead parts of the recording project, while all decisions about the content, style and edits to the project will be made by the groWeb up.  There will be numerous opportunities for group discussion as the learners make decisions to complete the project.

Making Connections:

The melodies the learners record will be exercises learned previously throughout the year.  uJam will allow the learners to hear and edit these familiar melodies and place them in popular styles, connecting them to the styles of music the learners love most.  As well, the learners will be able to access the software online at home to create more of their own songs, making the connection between learning at school and at the home.

End Product:

Learner created songs in mp3 format

Assessment:

See rubric below.

Reflection:

Student Reflection - At the end of the activity, students will provide written responses to two reflection prompts.

1. What was your favorite part of the learning scenario?
2. What did you think of your composition?  What would you do differently if you had another chance to record?

Teacher Reflection - The teacher will provide a narrative of reflections and recommendations for future implementation following the rubric.



RILS Assessment Rubric:

	4	3	2	1
Creation of recording	Learner created a complete song with accompaniment and a working mp3 file	Learner completed a recording of the song with accompaniment, but no mp3 file	Learner recorded a melody, but did not apply an accompaniment or create an mp3	Learner did not record a song
Evaluation/Reflection	Learner participated in reflection discussion, providing new and thoughtful insight into the learning process	Learner provided thoughtful, but typical responses in the reflection process	Learner provided basic comments in reflection, such as “It was fun” or “It was hard”	Learner did not participate in the reflection discussion
Analysis/Accompaniment Decisions	Learner made decisions about accompaniment style and edits that show great understanding of music and analytical thinking skills	Learner made thoughtful analytical decisions that could be improved from a technical or musical standpoint	Learner decisions about accompaniment were random or thoughtless	Learner did not assist in decisions about accompaniment
Application of performance skills	Recorded performance of melody was musically accurate and showed musicianship	Recorded performance was accurate, but musicianship could be improved	Recorded performance contained many musical errors	Recorded performance was inaccurate and did not reflect prior learning

 

Reflections and recommendations for future implementation:


Implementing the RILS was a good deal of work, but much worth the time and effort involved.  As the documentary video illustrates, the students were quite successful in creating innovative recordings using uJam's simple recording and editing tools.  As well, having to implement the RILS forced me somewhat out of my typical routine.  At first, this was somewhat uncomfortable, but once the activities got going, it was easy to step back and watch the students shine.

When I implement this activity in the future, the biggest factor to keep in mind will be time.  The 30-minute sessions that I planned were enough time to complete the projects, but more time would allow students the opportunity to explore more styles of music and make better edits and corrections to their melodies.  As well, additional time would allow students to collaborate and reflect on a deeper level.

PE5_uJam

To further explore uJam's creative potential, today, I gave it a run for its money by creating a few different versions of a melody inspired by Kanye West's All of the Lights, and remixing them in Logic Pro.  The final result turned out almost comic, but the ability to so simply make the melody sound like anything from an adventure movie theme, to some kind of 80's electro-funk, and all the way back to a pseudo-romantic sonata demonstrates uJam's versatility and and ability to manipulate music.

To start off, I created the piano and french horn sequences heard in the second part of the podcast in Logic Pro as sample tracks to test the abilities of uJam's pitch detection.  I used a very clean and straightforward piano synthesizer to make sure that it would be easy for uJam to process the melody.  The horn parts were created to see if uJam was able to process polyphony, but when the mix was recorded including both the horn and the piano, uJam was only able to display the notes from the piano part in the melody editor.  It did detect the melody correctly with some minor rhythmic variation, but that's still not bad for a free online recording tool.

uJam's custom style menu

After cleaning up the chord progression and rhythm, I started to experiment with uJam's numerous preset song styles.  As I got toward the bottom of the list, I was impressed by the wide variety of styles and the number of synthesized instruments included.  The custom style editor also proved to be simple and useful, as you can combine individual tracks from the preset styles to create new styles, for example laying a pop synthesizer over a jazz beat.

Exporting the mp3's for the tracks I created took only two clicks, and from there it was just a matter of mixing the styles together in Logic Pro.  Although uJam isn't as powerful or flexible as more advanced music creation software like Logic and GarageBand, what it lacks in power it makes up for in simplicity and ease of use.  As I will be implementing the upcoming Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario with elementary school students, I needed a Web 2.0 tool that was simple and quick to use, and uJam turned out to be just simple enough to employ, but versatile enough to create a variety of quality products. 

PE4_uJam

Back to uJam's home

For my upcoming Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) project, I'll be revisiting uJam, a Web 2.0 tool you may remember from one of my previous reviews and my commercial project.  Although the process of creating the previous projects was a good introduction, uJam's online mixer houses a number of reasonably complex music creation and editing tools that I'd like to explore further, and implement an activity using uJam in my classroom.

uJam's Melody Editor

One remarkably useful tool I found was uJam's melody editor.  Although it is unable to edit the pitch of your original recording, it can convert the melody into a wide variety of synthesized instrument voices that can be personalized or corrected in the melody editor.  After analyzing the melody, uJam produces a simple visual representation of the song that is easily editable by clicking and dragging the size and position of notes laid out in a timeline.  When changing the pitch of a note, uJam even gives you recommendations for notes that will sound best with your current chord progression.  As well, notes can be inserted, allowing you to create new parts of the melody in the mixer without having recorded them originally.  This simple and intuitive melody editing feature gives musical novices the assistance they need while allowing more experienced musicians the flexibility and control to compose a song from scratch.

Since I teach band in an elementary school, I appreciate the simplicity of uJam's music editing tool, but at the same time am impressed with what it can offer to more advanced musicians.  Tomorrow, I plan to explore the options for editing the style of the accompaniment tracks that uJam generates, so check back for another post and a few samples of the music that uJam can create.

BP7_One_minute_video

This is my one-minute commercial for uJam, the powerful music creation Web 2.0 tool I reviewed in my previous post.  I hope you enjoy!

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uJam's homepage

uJam proves to be a powerful and intelligent online music creation tool that allows users to turn a simple melody into a complete song with just a few quick clicks.  And amazingly, it does so without the need for any prior training in music or knowledge of music theory.  With uJam, all you need to do is set up an account and record a clip of yourself singing, humming, or playing a melody, and you are moments away from creating a song that makes you sound like you've been performing for years.

uJam's simple recording interface

Recording your performance couldn't be easier than uJam's online interface.  Ironically, finding a set of headphones and tuning my guitar took longer than it did to record my first clip with uJam's online, one-button recording tool.  It was also convenient that the internal mic on my MacBook Pro worked for the recording.

As well, uJam's editing interface is simple, yet powerful enough to create songs in a huge variety of styles from classical and jazz to hip-hop and metal.  After recording, uJam's software interprets the tempo and pitch of your melody and creates harmonic accompaniments that match what you originally performed.  The interface includes controls for tempo, basic mixing, and even allows you to adjust the pitch and intonation of your recording.  The alignment of your recording in relation to the background track can be edited, as well as the timing of the individual notes within the track.  So, even if your original recording isn't perfect, you can always go back and tweak what you played or sang.

In the coming months, I plan to evaluate how beginning band students can be motivated to practice through the use of technology for my capstone project at Full Sail University.  After creating a few tracks of my own in about a half hour, I imagine that students will dive at the chance to record themselves practicing and create accompaniments to practice along with in the styles they love the most.

Also, if you enjoyed the review, be sure to check back later for a one-minute commercial for uJam with some of the tracks I mentioned above.

BP6_Link_to_Mindi's_Mind

Over at Mindi's Mind, you can find another quality visual documentary of a family trip, as well as a variety of resources on Web 2.0 tools.

Click here to take a look at my comment.

BP5_Link_to_Elemental_Learning

Over at Elemental Learning, my friend Tiffany Hansen has created a stunning collage of photos from a family trip to the tide pools at Point Loma in San Diego, CA.


Here, you can check out my comment on the project.

PE3_Premiere_Pro

After an intense week of tutorials, training and music production, I'm glad to be finished with the effect demo reel embedded above.  For this video, I experiment with a variety of basic functions in Premiere Pro, including opacity, color correction, saturation, as well as time remapping and acceleration.  Although one minute only really allows me to scratch the surface of Premiere's power, the opportunity to learn my way around the interface and take a project from its original blank state to a completed product was well worth the time invested.

While working with the Title Creation Tool, I found (to the contrary of my last post) that Premiere contains an impressive collection of preset titles, upper and lower thirds, and font effects that weren't covered in the brevity of Lynda's Essential Training Series.  Throughout the process of creating the project, I also stumbled across other presets, such as different text effects, transitions, and animations.   Although the presets were great, I went with a simple set of custom titles.

One of Premiere's greatest strengths is that if it is unable to do what you need, its most likely that you can accomplish the effect you are looking for in another Adobe program, such as After Effects or Photoshop, and the files are completely compatible.  Although Premiere's tools are sufficient for basic effects and design, I think in future projects, I might prefer to use Illustrator or After Effects to create footage to be edited and rendered in Premiere. 

Well, for now, its back to the world of Web 2.0 tools, so thanks for stopping by, and check back for more videos and reviews! 

Premiere Pro Certificate from Lynda.com

PE2_Premiere_Pro

The first of Premiere Pro's two new project dialogues

After completing the Premiere Pro Essential Training Series on Lynda.com, I am both excited to unleash its power, and somewhat in awe of its complexity.  As I progressed through the end of the course I realized that between Premiere Pro, After Effects, and the other programs in the Adobe Creative Suite, it is possible to do nearly anything you can imagine with video footage.  And, if there's something you can't do, there's likely a plug-in to make it possible.

The second new project dialogue in Premiere Pro

Starting out with Premiere can seem a bit intimidating at first, as you start your project from a completely blank slate.  When you create a new project, you are met with not one, but two reasonably complicated document setup dialogues, each containing several tabs of settings. As well, Premiere doesn't include any preset themes, titles or overlays to get you going.  On the other hand Premiere does contain document presets for nearly every video format imaginable, from the NTSC format used in North America, northern South America, and Japan, to PAL format, all the way to Digital SLR and mobile devices.  Even though I might not need to use most of these formats any time in the near future, Premiere Pro contains the functionality to produce video for nearly any audience, on nearly any platform, which would be needed by media professionals with a vastly diverse worldwide audience.


Although the Premiere Pro Essential Training Series covers some complex concepts in video editing, it is clear that its five and a half hours of training only scratches the surface of the program's power.  Now that I've studied the conceptual workings of Premiere, it is time to get to work on putting that theory into practice by creating a video.  Check back in later today to show you a bit of what I've learned, and if you have any advice or recommendations for beginner users of Premiere Pro, feel free to comment below.

PE1_Premiere_Pro

Although not very flashy at first glance, Premiere Pro's drab panes hide a plethora of professional video editing functions. 

This week for the Emerging Technologies in a Collaborative Culture (ETC) course at Full Sail, I'll be learning my way around Premiere Pro, Adobe's video editing tool in their well-known Creative Suite.  Originally, this week's assignment was based on iMovie, but my professor noted in the assignment that if you already knew iMovie well, there would be the possibility of an alternative assignment.  Since I had already explored most of the functions in iMovie, I inquired, and she suggested that I complete the assignment using Premiere.  As I had already explored some of the other applications in CS5, I thought it would be a great idea.

So, step one of the process was to dive into the Premiere Pro Essential Training Series on Lynda.com, by Chad Perkins.  Like many of the other series on Lynda, Premiere Pro starts with some basic background information, spending a good hour explaining the interface (pictured above), how to set up projects and handle footage, as well as the basics of editing.  After a bit of the technical, the focus of the series shifts to the artistic, and demonstrates how to make good decisions about cuts, pacing, and scene choices.

Soon after, its back to the technical where some of the real power of Premiere Pro is unveiled.  Playing with time is discussed, and not only can clips be accelerated or played in slow motion, but reversing clips can even be done with just a few clicks.  Transitions and titles are also discussed, and although very powerful, seem to be a bit complicated to deal with.

The last page of tutorials

Although you can't see what I've completed above, you can see what I've got left to complete in the Essential Training series.  At this point, I'm happy to find that many of the functions are similar to those in After Effects and other Adobe programs, so it isn't a completely foreign environment.  As well, nearly every aspect of the video is dynamic, which allows amazing creative flexibility.  Overall, Premiere looks like an amazing program, so its back to the tutorials for me!

BP2_Toonti

Toonti allows you to build customizable and personal social networks

.

Toonti is a Web 2.0 tool that provides a platform to build personalized social networks on any topic imaginable.  Since my Challenge Based Research (CBR) project will deal with motivating elementary band students to practice at home, I decided to give Toonti a test run by setting up a social group that the students in my cohort might choose to use in the process.

My iPractice Community home.

One great thing about Toonti is that its basic layout and typesetting is reminiscent of an old version of Facebook, which students of all ages certainly love to use.  As well, creating the iPractice home overall was reasonably simple.  I was happy with the default setup, which included functional bulletins, journals, blogs, event calendars, and even a suggestion box, so for now rather than rearranging the site, I added posts to a number of the areas.  As you can see in the photo, the bulletins section can be used to distribute practice assignments, while the journal area will allow students to create a practice journal to chart their weekly practice habits.  The group also included a blog area, where questions and important topics can be posted for student discussion.  Adding a custom banner proved to be the only difficult part, as it isn't readily stated anywhere that the default size for a custom banner should be 1000 x 300, and the crop function in the Design Wizard was a bit awkward to resize and move around.

Toonti's management options provide administrative control.

As I was setting up the social network with the intent of it being used by students, I was naturally concerned about the site's privacy settings and administrative controls.  Fortunately, the group can be set to private, as can user profiles.  Also, the management menu allows restrictions to be placed on what content users can upload and edit, and offers notifications for when comments or posts are made.

Further exploration showed that the social networks Toonti creates are fully customizable, from colors, to fonts, menus, layout and more.  Or, if the included options aren't enough, Toonti is also compatible with both embedded HTML snippets and custom CSS.

The only drawback of Toonti was that it is still in its beta phase, so sometimes a few buttons didn't function as expected, and some of the functions were difficult to find.  But even though it is still young, Toonti opens the door to a number of options for designing a social network for students to use at home in conjunction with practicing an instrument.  I'm aware that there are a number of other Web 2.0 tools that exist to create social networks for students, so if you know of one that may offer more, or a cleaner interface, feel free to leave a message in the comments.

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iGoogle's modest mask

At first glance, iGoogle doesn't appear to be anything terribly new or very much of a powerhouse.  But a bit of exploration shows that iGoogle's basic login screen and simple default appearance is a modest mask for a powerful tool in creating customizable homepages, including time-saving Personalized Learning Environments (PLE's).  Completely customizable tabs allow users to create a series of layered homepages that bring a massive amount of information together with just a few clicks.  As well, a multitude of gadgets allow two-way interaction with to widely used sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, Blogger, TED, and more.  Also, a number of utilities like calculators, calendars, news and video widgets allow one to set up an efficient digital workspace, while iGoogle's ready selection of games might make the process less simple of a task.  Below, you can take a look at how my PLE is set up for use throughout the Education Media Design and Technology Course at Full Sail University.

First, my Home Tab houses widgets for Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, and Todoist.  Also, there's a box of links to a few resources I use frequently.  Take a look:

My FSO tab houses resources related to Full Sail University, including Viddler, morgueFile, Creative Commons, and Wimba.

The CBR tab houses information pertaining to my Challenge Based Research project at Full Sail.  This page also houses another Todoist widget, as well as a widget for Diigo and links to my teammates' CBR websites.

Links to resources for my Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture course are housed in the ETC tab.  These include widgets for Blogger, Flickr, Google Reader, Google Docs, and other useful sites.

Although I haven't used iGoogle much yet, now that I've set up a thorough PLE I can see how much time and how many clicks I'll be able to save.  In the future, I plan to set up a few more tabs including a set of utilities and tab of links to sites I use outside of my M.S. program.

BP1_Welcome to my blog

Welcome!  Blogging is new to me, so I feel like I'm at the beginning of a yet another road that leads somewhere bright and new.  Although I've read a number of blogs and thought about blogging before, I've never actually had the inspiration to start one.  As all of the new technologies I've studied through Full Sail University's EMDT program have, I'm sure that blogging will prove to be as useful and compelling.

Over the course of the month, I hope to be able to provide valuable insight into a number of interesting Web 2.0 tools, videos, technologies and other topics.  You happen to already taking a look at the first new tool that I will be exploring, Blogger.  Setting up a user account through Blogger was quick and simple, as I already had a Gmail account set up that could easily be activated as a blog account.  Choosing a domain name and theme was also nearly effortless, requiring only a few clicks.  I was also pleased to find that the preset themes were easily customizable, so I replaced the default header with a simple text banner in just a matter of minutes.  Looking around the settings and design options also looks like it has a number of easily usable presets that will prove to be useful as this blog develops.

Future post topics will include using iGoogle as a Personalized Learning Environment, varied software and Web 2.0 tools and links to comments on my colleagues' blogs.  So, please check back and feel free to comment, and we'll see where this road takes us.