Questions

Q: During the CultureQuest project experience how did it help enhance:

1. The study of culture?
A: I am fairly new to using computer technology, so most of my studying inthe past has been the 'old fashioned' way.....libraries and textbooks. Doing this CultureQuest project has enhanced my skills on using the internet for research. There is so much more available to the student in their studies when the world-wide web is at their fingertips. I have really learned how to make use of the information that is out there.

2.Project-based learning?
A: I have done most of my past studies as a single, alone student, and have not done much work in a group doing projects. This has been a very useful activity for me, both for working with others in a group and for having the goal of a fixed project. It is really a simulation of a real-life work situation, because in most fields of business and work, employees are put in situations where they have to perform group projects. None of my other graduate classes here at school gave us the opportunity to work in groups.

3. Integration of technology?
A: I have learned much in the area of technology, again because I have used very little computer in the past and most of it was self-taught, not knowing even some of the basics. It has been very exciting to gain more knowledge of what the computer can do and to do this hands-on approach. It has really forced me to learn quickly and see that it isn't as hard as I thought. I learned techniques in doing this CultureQuest that I would not have if we just wrote papers and did more traditional projects.

Sad Week

This has been a difficult week with the passing of my fiance's father. I had to miss my one and only class because of the wake. I am quite drained from it all.

I was able to re-save my digital story on a compatible file that should open up in class. I borrowed a microphone from the professor and did my narration recording at home. It came out pretty well, after several attempts. The tricky part was trying not to clip off the sound when changing the picture frames. I was hoping to keep the voice part going while I changed the pictures, but it doesn't allow you to do that. I tried many times to upload it to the digital dropbox, but it would not go. Very frustrating. Maybe it is too big?
I was not able to show the presentation in class, but will do it next week for our final class.

Final Weeks

In Today's class I was able to put the finishing touches on our culturequest cover page, with some help from the group members who were all there. We are quite pleased with the results. I am not able to open my digital story power point because I saved it in Microsoft Word 2007 and it will not work with the school computers. Professor Gersh loaned me a microphone to finish the recording at home. But I am thinking that I will try putting it in a document and saving it so it will be compatible. (when I have some time this weekend)
I sent in my webquest yesterday and just have some more field work to finish and that takes care of all my assignments for the semester.

blog, blog, blog

Last week the members of our culture quest group met for an hour or so before class to work on our front page. we were able to get some of it done, but still had some questions and problems. Professor Gersh was able to help us with a couple of things when we were in class, but I was feeling a little frustration when I left because I was unable to get a chance to talk to her; everytime I got her attention, she quickly turned away and started talking to someone else.

Also, my digital story power point is saved in a file from Microsoft 2007 and it would not open up at the school computer because they have an older version. I'm a little concerned that I may not be able to present my project if the file won't open up on those computers and I worked very hard on it.
We have no class again this week, but I will try to finish up most of my projects. I still have some field work to do.

I am so thrilled because I got a 100% on the statistics test I took Monday!

spring!

The sun came out today while I was walking from the parking lot to class, after a week of rain, and it felt HOT! Spring is finally here.
We did some cultural exercises that were pretty interesting in class today. With a sticker of a country (unknown to us) on our foreheads, we had to have conversations with classmates and guess our countries from their remarks. At first it seemed silly and rediculous, but by the end, we all seemed to see the value in the exercise from the perspective of cultural understanding.
The second one involved us writing down desciptions of our own heritage, then classmates read them and tried to guess the country we were describing. Again, a little awkward in the process, but ended up being kind of fun and intersting. Another valuable tool and idea to use for student's cultural awareness. I was thinking that I could possibly use a smaller version of this one, narrow it down to focus on the music from different countries/backgrounds as a way to study world music.

class

In class last night we worked on visual and media literacy. It was interesting to hear the different poems each person came up with to describe the picture we saw. And also to see the pictures we drew from the poems.

Our Culture Quest group is progressing nicely and we commented and helped each other with our pages. We are planning to meet early next week to continue our group work.

spring break

We have missed two classes in a row, but I have tried to get some of my projects worked on. It has been a very restful spring break for me, I was still recovering from my illness.
I managed to spend a day at the Museum of Natural History, I haven't been there in many, many years, not since they put the new wing on. I went with my sister and 8 year old niece and daughter, so it was a fun trip.
I am almost done making my power point for the digital story. I had so much fun going through old photos and scanning them and putting the story together. I also used some pics from the internet and I feel like an expert now working with images.
I can't believe we only have about 6 more classes left!

sick

I left class last Thursday feeling very run-down, went to work Friday and got progressively worse. Wound up in bed with a fever of 103, some kind of flu and bronchitis, could not move for days. I looked the color of this print.
I am just surfacing, feeling a little better, but I won't make it to my classes tonight.

Our last class was another slower-pace and I felt that I was able to take in the process we were working on. It was fun and interesting creating our web pages and there were many techniques we learned that I never knew how to do like adding links and images. I hope to be feeling better soon so that I can do some more work on my pages.

Once again, I am thrilled that I could easily access this blog.

HALLELUIAH!

I was able to get into my blog today! I finally remembered to use my email address as the username. What is strange, is that I can type the correct name and password, and it tells me it's wrong. Then I do it again, and it's ok. Something must jam up. I feel better now that I know many people in class are having problems and it wasn't just me.

Anyway, class this week seemed to move at a slightly slower pace, and that was nice. We worked on our digital stories. I must confess, I had no clue what to write about at first, then I just went with the one thing I look forward to all year....my vacation. What's great is that I should be able to find lots of good pictures to create the story, even though I didn't know that's what it would be. The one power point presentation about Ra-Ta-Ta was very informative and interesting. Its great to get creative ideas from other classmates. I think that is one of the advantages to being in a graduate class with other teachers.

Another attempt

I have tried, once again, to gain access to my blog account by resetting my password. I hope once I leave this posting and go to sign in the next time, I will be able to get back here to post again.

We had another very stimulating class tonight with many suggestions for interesting and useful websites and tools. It's a lot to digest in two hours. Creating the graphic organizers on the Inspiration program was really a lot of fun. I'm not sure that I have use for this in my instrumental music class, but I am enjoying learning more computer techniques since I am one who never formally learned things as simple as word processing. I have just figured it all out as I went along, mostly with things like email and simple document writing.

Here is a photo taken of me at PS 24 in the Bronx teaching a recorder class to 3rd graders.

clueless

Well, I am completely stumped. Once again, I tried to access my 2nd blog account, so that I could post, and I wasn't successful. It kept telling me I had the wrong password. So I went to google and reset the password, but I think I was using the wrong 'username'. Once they sent me an email and I saw this username I was able to do it. (I hope I can get back in when I try later!)
This is becoming a time-consuming trial and error. Nothing like hands-on learning!

Monday, February 19, 2007

Do-Over
OK, This is blog page attempt #2 since I have not been able to access my first blog page and entry after many attempts. I thought I had written down the ID and password, but I kept getting the message that I had an incorrect password. The professor was able to read it after I posted it, but I need to start all over in order to be able to continue my blogging.I hope this attempt works! What seems a little confusing is that we need a display name, a title and a blog address and I think I am mixing up all these things.Technically, this is my second entry, but since I am behind a little I will try to post a few entries before our next class to catch up.
Posted by MARE at 12:47 PM 0 comments

First Class

My head was spinning when I left class last Thursday night. The pace was much faster than in any other class I've taken here at Lehman. (most professors put us to sleep, especially in the evening) Professor Gersh is very dynamic and oozing with information. I'm still not sure if this will be useful in my particular teaching field (instrumental, band music) but I am excited to learn more about technology in general. I am a late-bloomer with regards to computers, and have only been using one for about 6 or 7 years. I am mostly self-taught and still very behind with many skills. I look forward to this semester (my last class for my masters degree!!!!) and hope I can keep up with the pace.