Week 28

Welcome to Week 28 of Keyboarding!

Last week you finished your self-portrait. Almost everyone was able to complete their project on time. A few of you will continue to work on the project during your free time, or after-school. Remember, you are always able to make up your work in Ms. Kline's class! Great job, I am so impressed with the many wonderful self-portraits!

This week, you will convert your AppleWorks file (.cwk) to a .jpeg file format, and submit it to Ms. Kline's server account. Refer to Ms. Kline's Week 15 lesson for help! Because you are saving your artwork in the .jpeg file format, you will be able to post your art to the Internet to share with others. We will also print a copy of your art project for Ms. Kline's classroom "Art Wall of Fame!"

Remember, you should be also finished with lesson 20 in your Keyboarding Online lessons by Friday to keep up with the class.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons
• save your self-portrait graphic art project as a .jpeg file
• share your self-portrait graphic art project with the class using the Smart Slate
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 28 Learning Objective:
We will continue our keyboarding lessons and present our self-portrait graphic art project.

Ms. Kline's Week 28 Key Vocabulary:

• enunciate
  

Week 27

Welcome to Week 27 of Keyboarding!

Happy Spring Equinox! Now the days will be getting longer and summer is not far off!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AxialTiltObliquity.png

Last week you continued drawing your self-portrait. Everyone was able to complete their torso for the second week of this assignment. Great job, I continue to see many wonderful self-portraits taking shape!

This week, you will conclude your self-portrait by completing your background. You may spend a few minutes looking for an image on the Internet to help you draw your background. After this week, you must use your free time to complete this project.

For complete details of this project, grading rubric, and a review of how to use graphic art software, refer to the link to the self-portrait graphic art project below.

Remember, you should be also finished with lesson 19 by Friday to keep up with the class.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons
• conclude your self-portrait graphic art project
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 27 Learning Objective:
We will continue our keyboarding lessons and conclude our self-portrait graphic art project.

Ms. Kline's Week 27 Key Vocabulary:

• conclude

Music & Technology Mix in the Classroom

Attended Ted Lai's Saturday's 9:30 Session Rock Around the Curriculum introduction to GarageBand as a means of infusing music and technology into the curriculum.

Students and teachers are taking the curriculum and setting it to music. The result is nothing less than enchanting!

1. Open GarageBand and select "New Project" then choose "Loops".
2. Name your project.
3. Add a MIDI track of a song you like (we used "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") since it is in the public domain.
4. Deselect Metronome to turn off the metronome (unless you like it on, of course!).
5. Change out the instruments.
6. Add a beat track - look for the Loop Browser icon to select a beat that you like.
7. Add a new track from the menu bar and choose: "real instrument" since you will be using your own voice (your very own portable instrument!)
8. Select "Count in" from the menu bar to help you with timing

CUE 2011 - Podcasting 101

Today I attended a session called iLife Bootcamp Featuring GarageBand '11 with Beth Corwin from the Digital Media Academy, and brushed up on my podcasting skills using GarageBand.

Let's make a podcast together!

1. Open GarageBand from your Applications folder
2. Select Magic Garageband
3. Select a musical style: funk, reggae, blues, etc.
4. Make an opening music riff for the intro/exit of your podcast with Magic GarageBand. This makes a new piece of music that is uniquely yours, and you don't have to worry about copyright issues! If you save it with an iLife preview the other iLife apps will be able to access while it is still a work in progress. Export your new musical riff to iTunes so you can use it in your podcast.
5. Close your Magic GarageBand project after you have exported your song to iTunes.
6. Select "New Project" on the left side of the opening GarageBand menu.
7. Select Podcast and click "Choose" to begin a new podcast project.
8. Name your project.
9. Record your podcast by selecting a voice, male or female, and recording your script. Begin speaking by saying "3, 2, 1..." so that your recording begins smoothly. On the right side of there are various effects you can use to change your voice such as mouse voice, epic diva, etc. Select the "track info" icon on the lower right to find these other options:
10. Add sound loops such as sound effects, jingles, or stingers, as desired, to enhance your podcast: These loops are located in the "loop browser" menu by clicking on the "loop browser" icon next to the "track info" icon:
11. Add the music you created earlier. You will find your music in the "Audio" section of the media browser. Click the "media browser" icon next to the "track info" icon:
12. You are able to adjust the timing of each segment by dragging the recorded sections along the timeline.
13. You are able to edit a track by trimming a segment on either end of the recording.
14. You can adjust the "track volume" of any recorded segment or sound effect. Just click on the arrow on the right of the track description:
15. You will now export your podcast as a .mp3 so that you can share it with others. Click "Share" in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Drop down to "Export Podcast to Disk", change the encoding to .mp3 so that any computer can play your podcast, and save it to your desktop so that you can find it!

Congratulations...you just created your first podcast!!

CUE 2011 - iPads and Reading

First concurrent session: iPad as super-charged reading & writing tool presented by Apple's amazing Dave Douglas:
iBooks, Book Apps and ePub - iPad’s Novel Approach to Reading

Attending this session with Mrs. Soto and Mrs. Mayes was a lot of fun as we learned how wonderful iPads are when used to teach reading and writing!

We not only found amazing Book apps, engaging electronic books, and various eReader applications such as iBook, Kindle, and Nook, but we also learned how to make our own e-book using Apple's iWork Pages software, and save it as the "open ebook standard" known as an .epub file type so that any computer can read it!

Electronic books are particularly wonderful because they have animations, and audio, and seem to come alive! There is multiple language support, so if a reader can instantly translate a word or sentence, or have the book read aloud. Readers can also record their own voices as they read a book aloud. Many books we found were free, because they were old enough to become part of the public domain.

Ms. Kline @ CUE

Ms. Kline will be away on Thursday and Friday this week.

She is attending the wonderful, magical, annual CUE conference for educators in Palm Springs, California.

Computer-Using Educators is a professional organization dedicated to the effective integration of technology into educational curriculum.

In kid-speak, that just means this is where we learn to use the cool technology tools we teach to our students!

Ms. Kline will be taking classes on Google Apps for Educators, Open-source/Free software, iPad, Google Android devices, Web 2.0, wikis, blogs, and all things Internet!

Oh, by the way, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Week 26

Welcome to Week 26 of Keyboarding!

Last week you began drawing your self-portrait. Everyone was able to complete their head and face for the first week of this assignment. Great job, everyone, I saw many wonderful self-portraits coming along nicely!

This week, you will concentrate on your torso or upper body. Like last week, when you only drew your head and face, this week you will only draw your upper body. Never give up. You may need to erase and re-draw over and over again, but you will be successful if you don't give up!

For complete details of this project, grading rubric, and a review of how to use graphic art software, refer to the link to the self-portrait graphic art project below.

Remember, you should be also finished with lesson 18 by Friday to keep up with the class.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons
• continue your self-portrait graphic art project
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 26 Learning Objective:
We will continue our self-portrait graphic art project and keyboarding lessons.

Ms. Kline's Week 26 Key Vocabulary:

• mouseover

Week 25

Welcome to Week 25 of Keyboarding!

Last week you began your second semester graphic art project, your self-portrait. You used the Photo Booth application and the built-in camera on your iMac to take a photograph of yourself. You also created a photograph of yourself with a background you would like to draw for your self-portrait project. Now that you have your two photographs, be sure that you have placed them on your desktop so that you are able to find them quickly. You will use these photographs as your model for your self-portrait graphic art project. For complete details of the project, grading rubric, and a review of how to use graphic art software, refer to the link to the self-portrait graphic art project below. Remember, you should be also finished with lesson 17 by Friday to keep up with the class.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons
• continue your self-portrait graphic art project
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 25 Learning Objective:
We will continue our self-portrait graphic art project and keyboarding lessons.

Ms. Kline's Week 25 Key Vocabulary:

• zoom in
  

Photo Booth Digital Photo and Video Application

Today you will use the software application Photo Booth to take a photograph of yourself for your self-portrait graphic art project.

You may spend the entire period using the Photo Booth application. Try the different built in effects to enhance your photograph. You may take "buddy pictures", but remember, your goal is to end the day with a photograph to use as a model for your self-portrait.

1. Open the Photo Booth application from your applications folder
2. Click "Effects"

The first page has the following effects:

• Sepia
• Black & White
• Glow
• Comic Book
• Normal
• Color Pencil
• Thermal Camera
• X-Ray
• Pop Art

Click the right arrow button to see the second page of effects:

• Bulge
• Dent
• Twirl
• Squeeze
• Normal Mirror
• Light Tunnel
• Fish Eye
• Stretch

Click the right arrow to see the third page of effects:

• Clouds
• Color Dots
• Earth rise
• Eiffel Tower
• Normal
• Fish
• Roller coaster
• Sunset
• Yosemite

Click the right arrow to see the final page of effects. This is the "User Backdrop" page. You may drop any photo into the eight separate backdrops to create your own scene for you photograph. You may use this effect to place yourself in a scene you would like for your self-portrait.

Have fun!