Thursday, January 6, 2011

First post!

When it comes to tech classes, I'm usually the one meandering around, looking bored, not because I don't get it but because I'm usually done before the explanation is complete. As a result of this I tend to get very impatient when it comes to technology related topics. They often run at a far lower level than what I'm already familiar with – not that the topics being discussed are irrelevant, I'm just usually running several steps ahead of the crowd. This is one of the reasons that I enjoyed the computer science courses offered here.

As an educator now, I need to begin learning how to teach students that are not working on the same technical level as I am. I'm hoping that this course will show me some new learning resources that I haven't come across yet, as well as showing me how to make these resources available to students no matter what their skill level may be. I've done this with with music, now it's time to do this with passion #2.

Launching off on a tangent for a moment, I want to comment on the video from the first class. For the time, that was a very well put-together collage of different live and animated media. A good use of stop-motion and animated overlay of live film make it something out of the ordinary for the day and age. That being said, as a sound engineer and technician I take some issue with the misbehaving microphone cliché. Most microphone mishaps are either caused by the user or by an inexperienced technician. One of the things that my fiancée did in the Teacher Technology class last year helped at least get her classmates up to the level where most of these problems would no longer present themselves. She took the whole class over to our church, where we both work as sound engineers, and showed them in a little over an hour what every component of a basic sound system, how to connect them in an efficient manner, and how to prevent and/or correct a lot of the problems that occur most frequently with sound systems. This is something that I would like to do this term if the opportunity presents itself.

Anyways, I think that's enough for now. Takes me ages to start, then I start rambling.

2 comments:

  1. Hurrah Chris! Lead me to that sound board-y thingy jigger. :P

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  2. Wish I could. I had to go completely rework my schedule after class today so I could get put into the afternoon Themes class due to the morning ones being absolutely full and neither teacher budging on it. I'm now in out-of-cohort sections of Teacher Tech and Sociology, which does not make me very happy, but at least I'm graduating at the right time now.

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