The other blog

I've been on a short term mission trip with my family this week. It fits with the lifelong learning posts I have put on this blog, so I wanted to mention it. I started a new blog here about worship and spiritual matters. I started one like this a couple years ago that fizzled out. I'm glad to revive it this week and see where it goes.

B&W Worship

Music video projects for church camp

My wife helps at girls week at the local Christian camp.  She wanted to offer my music video project (which I've written about extensively here) as an option for the interest groups.  I think the project transitioned very well to that setting.

First I had my daughter make a song in the format we were planning, then my wife made one as well, just so she could see all the parts of the process.

Our outline was:

• Do some reflection and read some Psalms to find an idea for your praise/worship chorus.
• Pick one verse or short passage to read in the song.
• Make up a melody and record it in GarageBand.  (At camp this ended up being done in a hot van to block out background noise!  Not ideal, but I thought the girls did a great job with it.)
• Import the mp3 file into UJam.com and make adjustments until you're happy with it.
• Download a few versions of it including just background music, one with vocals and one as instrumental.
• Mix the various tracks in GarageBand.
• Make the final video.

My wife made her video in Video Star for iPad (with help from me as the camera person and I added the title at the start in iMovie).  It is an easy way to go.  For my daughter's, we used still pictures and put them into a video using iMovie on the iPad.

At the camp, only one group selected the music video project.  We ended up taking many pictures and video clips, so I compiled them on my home computer in the evenings.  I also experimented with some drum loops in GarageBand on my daughter's Mac.  I really liked what I could achieve between UJam and GarageBand on the computer.  

Because of privacy concerns I won't show the girls' video, but I made a simple lyric video just so you could hear the final result.  

My daughter's video:  (This was the first time I could get her to sing!  I liked her voice and I hope this will help draw her out of her shell.)

My wife's video:

The lyric video of the original song they created at camp:

Learn so we can do - How school gets it backwards

I was just about to write a reflective piece for the end of 2013, but I remembered this post from June.  After reading it, I realize it summed up my key insight from the year very well.  I just have to add this link to my more recent post about teaching like an artist.  That describes how the idea here has grown and it shows how I put it into practice.

In a lot of ways this was a great year.  I saw some good learning take place for students and teachers.

When I was preparing for professional development in March I had an insight that changed much of what I've said for years.  I used to emphasize the joy of learning.  I wanted kids to fall in love with learning.  I have always loved to learn, but now that I wrapped up my 19th year as an educator I had to admit something.

I don't think we'll even get close to making everyone fall in love with learning for its own sake.

Yes, the love of learning can make life exciting, but so can the love of a million other things.  As teachers, we aren't doing a great job of getting the masses to put their affections in learning itself and I am ready to say now that it's OK.  It's like convincing runners to stop running so they can find the joy of painting.

What I realized is that even for all of my love of learning, like everyone else I have probably learned best when I needed to prepare for something important.  In fact, those often were the times I least loved the learning that needed to take place!

To put it briefly, here's why school gets it backwards and students miss the point:

• Teachers say students should do things so they learn.
• Students think they do things for credit.
• In reality, we all learn best when it's so we can do something important.

I am convinced we'll transform education when teachers (the only people in school who see individuals everyday) are passionate about providing those individuals with meaningful things to do in the near future (not just prep for a job years down the road) that require them to learn new knowledge and skills.

Reflective writing for the end of the school year - What matters most in school?

Here's a reflective writing assignment I have for the end of the school year.  This also could be a great activity for professional development with teachers if you've got one last meeting this year.

It involves two resources. First is my randomizer for drawing 5 "cards" which students rank in order of importance. It's a good intro activity to talk about what matters most. All the information about ways to use this is on that page and there are links to other ways to use the resource.

Also, here's a TED Talk by Seth Godin in which he raises some great questions related to what school should be about. By no means do I agree with everything he says, but that's what makes it so good for thought and discussion.  

So for the reflective writing, after some discussion the students should reflect on these questions:

• Looking over the past year or semester, what stands out as most important for your learning and your future?
• If you had to do it over, what would you do differently?  Why?
• If you were running the class or the school what would you do differently?  Why?

30 Hands - A great free iPad app for narrated slideshows

I used to use Pixntell for a simple, free option for narrated slideshows in the classroom, but now I'm sold on 30 Hands.  I have used it with several students at the middle school level.  It lacks a text tool (update: Text tool added as of 8/6/2013.  Great!) and it won't let you pan and zoom, but for a quick narrated presentation or for digital storytelling it can't be beat.

(Another feature I haven't tested yet came with the last update. It allows you to duplicate a slide. The developer suggests using this for animations.)

Below is an example (created with the app itself) of the basics.  I also included a second example where I talk about some games I've made.

The third video below shows how I transfer slides (usually created in PowerPoint) from my computer to my iPad using the Google Drive app.  That process, in conjunction with 30 Hands, is a great way for students to finalize and publish their work.