Survey

I have completed the course survey and course evaluation.

Project Finished!

This song took a lot of work to put together. However the more I worked on Audacity, the more I liked it. I wanted to create a song that had a complete rhythm of 5/4 so students could learn how to successfuly dance to this unusual time signature. The original song that I used, "Silent Sea" by KT Tunstall, had a 5/4 rhythm in it, but there was a minimal amount of it. So, I figured out how to create a complete 5 beats, and had that playing underneath the whole song that I created. You can listen to it here:

5/4 Rhythm

The technology in my project, the 5/4 song, was necessary for something like this because I would need an accurate, steady beat constantly going so student have a complete understand of how this rhythm truly sounds. Having the students discover this rhythm while learning other dance concepts in a movement sequence that I teach them is that pedagogy and content that is enhanced by this basic song.

Content-Specific Technology Project...Idea.

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I'm getting pretty excited about this project. I have finally concluded that I will be using Audacity to cut and mix a song. I want students to demonstrate knowledge and skills in the elements of dance focusing specifically on time, a Utah Core Curriculum Standard. Hopefully this will push to develop rhythmic acuity and musicality.

TPACK

TPK, or technical pedagogical knowledge, is knowing how to use technology in general teaching, not a specific subject. An example for dance would be knowing to how to cut and organize music to use in class.

TPACK, or technical pedagogical and content knowledge, is knowing how to use technology for specific methods or strategies. The students here not only use the technology to learn a specific topic, to help them with general development. An example for this in a dance setting would be to have the students collaborate to create a movement combination concentrating on a specific idea (such as head-tail initiation), record it, and present it through video in which other students could make comments.

Video Communication

After much frustration (as you can kind of tell) Chelsea and I finally got Google Video Chat to work!










I was also pretty excited when I got this beauty to work as well:


I preferred both the video messaging on Tokbox and Google Video Chat for different reasons. For a classroom, Google Video would be very convenient in having a discussion with students or parents. Video chat might also work in a dance setting if students had questions on movement and things. Tokbox would probably work better for students or parents that could ask questions or leave a comment.

Web Tools

Honestly, I was overwhelmed when I was shown how many free web tools there are. I had no idea so many existed; I only knew of about 2 or 3. These are the web tools that I used for my internet communication project:

• PB Works
• Picnik
• Google Maps
• Google Calendar
• Google Video
• Google Docs
• Google Groups
• Google Video Chat
  
• Tokbox

Overall, I didn't feel like any of them were too difficult to learn, but it did take time to figure each of them out. Of those tools I used above Google Video Chat took the longest, because there were a lot of problems I ran into at the computer lab when trying to download the tool.
I think PB Works will rule over the web tools when considering what will be considered the most useful in my teaching. Within PB Works, Google Video will probably be the most helpful, since dance students will be able to watch video clips of dancing that I want them to see.
Here is a link to my website:
IPT 286 Dance Page

It's a real video!

After a series of unfortunate events, my video is finally working. It's definitely not a masterpiece, but I can now confidently work through Windows Movie Maker to clarify and enhance this video. I'm actually pretty excited to fix and add to this video in the future.

Storyboard

Here it is, my little storyboard. Now that I have what I need, I can't wait to get started on this video!!!

Instructional Video Idea

For my instructional video, I am thinking of showing the major contributions that Martha Graham made to modern dance, and the technique that she incorporated that we still use today. It is hard for an amateur to show or describe this type of movement, so a video of professionals performing it is probably most accurate and clear. This one aspect of dance history and culture fits into the Dance Core Curriculum.

An RSS

I have actually never heard of an RSS before until I learned about it here in this class. I have seen it on web pages before, but I never thought that it could be done for free, and with such little training. :) I find it fascinating that I can get informational updates without ever having to leave the blog's main page. I believe this would be incredibly useful to students with dance opportunities that are made available by organizations, as well as for upcoming dance concerts theaters are hosting that the students could attend. I've posted a an RSS from Rose Wagner Theater and Capitol Theatre of upcoming performances.

Technology Experience?

Honestly, I don't have an adequate amount of technology experience, but I feel like I have a substantial amount of knowledge to figure out how work my way through it. I can get through most Microsoft programs such as Word, Excel, Publisher, and PowerPoint. I've been exposed to blogs but haven't done much with it. I am a pro at Googling. :)