Hi Anita Here is my video of me playing Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid for my final video for the musical growth plan. I am having trouble putting it into two parts as it is too big to send as one video.
Well, today’s the Big Day! Time to put together all the skills that we have learned from January until now. 
Did the musical goals and practice schedule that I set for myself pay off? Yes and no. Although I most definitely improved, I honestly had hoped to be better by this point. That being said, I found it a lot harder to stick to my musical goal plan than originally anticipated. When I was younger and taking lessons I was practicing around 1-2 hours per day, except for those times when I shirked practicing and ended up cramming a weeks worth of practicing into the hour before my piano teacher would arrive for my lesson. I’d be lying if I said that hasn’t happened at times this term. I wish there were a way to be able to have extra classes scheduled in at U-Vic specifically for practicing. It would help someone in my position have some dedicated time away from home in which to practice without disruption. For example it would be great if there could be one music class per week in the class room and one specifically for practicing. I think this would have really benefitted everyone. I definitely find it difficult to maintain a regular practice schedule. To be honest, this point in my life is pretty much one of the last moments in which I would take up learning anything else. I am finding I rush through most of my assignments for all of my classes already, so finding extra time at home to practice is not easy. I actually hope to take up piano in the near future partly because I think it will be a valuable and fun skill to have in my classroom, but also because I would love to learn to play well again.
This week, my practicing was coming along very well, until the 18th when I became increasingly concerned about my other assignments and all but stopped practicing. 
Having all of the kids home, (including the older ones who work and are home social distancing), even though I love it, is making it challenging to find quiet time to both practice and get my other assignments done. I find I am having a TON of interruptions. Until I actually looked at the final assignments from my other class and the realized the amount of time they would require, I was feeling fairly confident about timelines. I also assumed that everyone would be equally as focused on their group projects for all classes, but that hasn’t exactly been the case. My husband works for school district 62 and thankfully will be off for a week starting the 23rd. He has big plans to put the kids to work in the yard, which will keep them out of my hair for a few solid hours in the day and will give me more time to keep practicing. Although I haven’t stuck to my practice schedule this week as strictly as I had hoped, I am still working on the things I need to. If I don’t concentrate, my finger work goes right back to where it feels comfortable and not where it should be. Although playing the song itself is sounding better, I am still working on this. One week to go! Practice! Practice! Practice!
My learning goals and my action plan for our Musical Growth Assignment for the first half of the course was not what I had originally planned for myself. I found it harder to get in regular practice time given the busyness of our family life. Although I knew if I didn’t practice regularly, I wouldn’t improve the way I had hoped and planned, yet I still pushed practicing aside in favour of the needs and interests of my family as well as my other assignments. I was determined to get back on my original plan of practicing every day, so I established set practice times every day after school whether anyone was home or not. If the kids were taking lessons, this is exactly what we would have to do with them, so why not for me?! So, I followed my plan and, not surprisingly I got better…quickly. Regular practice makes all the difference, however, I still find that I needed to slow myself down to focus more on my finger placement. This is something I had struggled with back when I was taking piano lessons as a child. I have a tendency to find ways to compensate, but I know if I am going to take up playing again, to get better in the long run, this is something I will have to do. For the following week, I will continue with my daily practice, focussing on my finger placement.
Zack and I began this project back in January and it has been something both of us have thoroughly enjoyed doing together! He loves being involved in and helping out with whatever is going on around the house and has always enjoyed hanging out in the garden with me. With this project, Zack felt like he was part of my schooling as well, which helped him understand that school takes time and effort and is something we need to takes seriously. For me, it helped me find another way to spend time with him, something that has been weighing on me heavily since starting University. Whatever subject I was working on for homework, Zack would always ask if it was time to do homework for my ‘gardening’ class. We had fun planning out what seeds were going to plant and in through this, Zack learned that there was more than just one variety of each type of vegetable. We have always had a garden, and though he has always liked puttering about out there with me, he is now asking if we can plant all sorts of vegetables and is outside pulling rocks from another garden bed with his Dad as I write this. I hope this is just the beginning of a lifelong passion for gardening for him. With all of the assignments I have been given this year, working on this free inquiry project was always something that I looked forward to. Despite initially feeling that it was just one more thing added to my already heavy load, I am very glad we were given the opportunity to choose to be able to do a project like this. 
Side Note: We transplanted the cukes into bigger pots because they were growing so rapidly. Unfortunately, these cucumber plants, that were once growing so well, have started to show sign of serious distress. This past week we have had some beautiful weather and we put the seedlings outside to get used to the elements and brought them back inside after a few hours. I am concerned that the seedlings might be suffering from shock coming from too much exposure to the sun, too soon. We hope that they will survive, but are planting some new seeds this week, just in case they don’t.
On Tuesday March 17 2020, our tech class ventured into new territory. We had our first ever class online! I was actually kind of surprised at how well it went. The directions were easy to follow and with a little assistance from Rich, which I always seem to rely on, it went pretty smoothly. I have to admit I had some difficulty with the in class assignment and couldn’t get it to work properly. It’s funny, if I were in class, I would have had no issues asking for help. However, Despite not being in the same room as everyone, I felt as though I had everyone’s eyes and ears on directly on me when I spoke. It felt was too intimidating to ask questions. (Just me being a chicken…) I wonder if anyone else felt that way. I know Rich had shown us ways to get the Instructors attention without having to say anything to the class, but I was still too uncomfortable. I realize how much improvement I have made this year in regards to the amount of tech skill I have learned and what I can use with relative confidence. However, in comparison to my cohort, I am lagging behind. When things settle down, I still plan to take a course of two to build on my skills, so I don’t lose the ones I have and can continue to learn and practice new ones.
https://zoom.us/j/8851682531
With the weather getting better, Zack and I have been getting outside, pulling weeds and getting the garden ready to plant some greens that can withstand the colder nights, but would do well under cover during the warmer days. Our seedlings are continuing to grow at such a rapid pace that we are going to have to transplant some of them into bigger pots by next week. We will have to get busy cleaning out the pots we used from last year and re-plant most of the cucumbers and a couple of the tomatoes. The cukes have almost doubled in size and are now measuring 21+cm and the tomatoes have as well, measuring 9+cm. We were super excited to see that our second batch of sweet pepper seeds have sprouted. I didn’t think they were going to. Some of them are just poking through the soil and others are as tall as 2.5cm. I think the recent increase in temperature and burst of bright sunshine were all the encouragement that the pepper seeds needed. When we transplant the bigger plants from their current pots, we will replace them with basil and cilantro seeds so we will have some great edible companion plants to keep pests away and encourage lots of juicy tomatoes, crunchy cukes and sweet peppers. We might even put a couple of test plants out in the greenhouse under the cover of a regular milk jug which has had the bottom cut off. It essentially acts like a mini greenhouse inside the greenhouse, which still might be too chilly for these types of plants.. With the forecast looking fairly good for the next little bit, we look at trying this this weekend. 
For our last EdTech Group Inqu
iry Blog we discussed the outcomes of this project. We discussed the shortcuts we studied, why we were interested in this topic, the pros and cons to these shortcuts, and a quote that we thought was very powerful.
The shortcuts we researched:
-
- Spell Check -function that allows users to scan a document for words that have been manipulated
- Talk to text -(aka: voice recognition technology) -tool that takes audio content and transcribes it into written words.
- Text to talk –assistive technology that reads digital text aloud.
Firstly we were interested in this topic because:
- We wanted to learn how to prevent student’s dependency on technology shortcuts.
- Does the use of autocorrect and spell check prevent students from learning valuable grammar skills?
- We wanted to know if students reach a competent level of literacy and grammar skills, will they diminish with the increased use of shortcut tools?
The pros to including these shortcuts in the classroom:
- Can help students with learning disabilities
- Students can focus on getting ideas down without worrying about editing
- Poor or limited motor skills
- Vision impairments
- Limited English Language
The cons to having these shortcuts in classrooms:
- takes away from the students’ learning
- students stop thinking about the little details of their grammar and spelling
- students rely on these shortcuts
- if you don’t know it, when there is a list of possible correct options given, you don’t know which one to choose.
A quote that we thought was very powerful is:
“Technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching”
(Glowacki, 2015)
Overall, we think this project was very interesting and important to keep in mind in our future classrooms.
How will we each utilize these tools in our own classroom?
To be totally honest, I am not entirely sure how many standard ‘tech tools’ I will use in my future classroom. It depends entirely on the needs of my future students. With the ever increasing challenges facing both the students and the teachers in the average classroom today, I will use whatever technology available to be of help to my students. I do however feel very strongly that technology shouldn’t replace the learning of basic literacy skills. I believe all students should come out of school with a solid foundation in reading, writing and the ability to comprehend and apply what it is they have learned. Although it frustrated me at the time, I had a grade 6 teacher who used our class as part of his masters thesis. We spent a lot of extra class time working on spelling and grammar exercises, learning how to restructure sentences to make them stronger and more complete. In whatever assignment we were working on he would always ask us to rewrite the sentence to make it better or re write it create a knew way of writing it. We had to edit EVERYTHING he gave us. Although I wasn’t happy about using recess or P.E. time to work on these skills, it definitely paid off. At the end of gr. 6 he had us write copies of the gr.12 English exam and we all passed it. Of those kids in that particular class only two of us did not go on to College or University, and I am sure our stronger language skills helped us in our other studies which led to us choosing to go to College or University. Although I would definitely stress having strong basic literacy skills, I think the most important thing is to be able to utilize all the skills available to you to maximize your learning opportunities.
“Technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching”
(Glowacki, 2015)
flicker@morbergCCBYNC2.0
So much for gardening this week! It seems like there has been such a small amount of time available, between the cold crummy weather and other commitments to get outside and work in the garden before darkness sets in. However, with todays time change, and the sun being out for more than an hour or two lately, we will definitely get outside in the garden. As for our seedlings, they are growing faster than I had anticipated. The tallest cucumber plants are now 13 cm tall and the tallest tomato plants are 6.2 cm tall. I am concerned that I will have to transplant the cucumber plants into bigger pots very soon, but don’t have enough available sunny spots in the house in which to leave the pots. Zack and I will keep a close eye on the plants over the next couple of weeks to monitor this. Unfortunately, the second set of pepper seeds that we planted failed to produce. Zack and I will head out to the store this week to see about purchasing some pepper seeds. I think we’ll also pick up some basil and cilantro seeds as well. According to a companion planting website called Farm Flavour, they recommend, ” a few companion planting basics:
- Planting sweet basil, cilantro and parsley around tomatoes can not only protect the tomatoes from pests but also improve their flavor. Tomatoes also get along well with marigolds – and they look pretty, too! (Farm Flavour, Feb.2011).”
When it comes time to put the plants out in the greenhouse, we’ll pick up some marigolds and a few nasturtiums to further attract the bees in the neighbourhood to drop in on the plants in the greenhouse!
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