My Blog List

Monday, December 9, 2013

Pinterest In The Classroom

The past couple of weeks in Educational Technology class at HSU, we've been working with Pinterest and how to work with it in the classroom. I learned that Pinterest isn't just a social network that you can share cute pictures and recipes, but its a means of bookmarking things in cyberspace so that you can reach it from any computer. In essence, this mobile bookmarking website could be used in the classroom. In one project we did in class involving Pinterest, we used the website to find lessons in our specific content area that other users have posted and also pinned some lessons that we found elsewhere on the web. That's just one way it could be used. You could have a classroom account and post lessons so that students can access them. You can gather ideas to enhance your learning environment. People are posting décor ideas on Pinterest all the time. Students could use Pinterest for project ideas. They could even use Pinterest to make a project electronically viewable by the whole class! There are dozens of ways to use Pinterest in the classroom.


Recently, my class was assigned a project involving Pinterest where we get together several lessons, some from Pinterest and some from other websites that we pinned ourselves. With these lessons in mind, we were to construct our own product based learning lesson plan in our content area. Afterwards, we were to complete the project ourselves.

Here is my lesson plan:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6eXfEQz_KJBUExnQkdhalJnaEE/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6eXfEQz_KJBWGY3LUFadzJzemM/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the product of my lesson step by step:
Step 1- Pick a song from the provided list.
Step 2- Write out the solfedge to your selected song
Step 3- Notate the song using the solfedge. Make sure to include the song title, your chosen clef, a time signature, appropriate accidentals, and measure lines.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Can Social Media Really Be Considered Social?

With social media networking like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, people are getting less and less legitimate social contact with other human beings. Why would you get out and talk to people when you could sit on the couch and learn nearly every aspect of some else's life on a computer screen. The article "Problems With Social Networking" states that teens are using social networking to talk to friends they already have and make plans when the sites were initially created to help other make new friends (Hall). This is not just true for teenagers. People of all ages are getting extremely dependent on technology, which brings me to my next concern; what happens if for some reason we don't have any of this technology and social networking? Sean Simmons states, "My generation had computers in the home at the age of six or seven, at least I did. I’ve been using them ever since, and I know for a fact that I could never not have a computer. I live on mine, I rely on it, for my useless Internet wanderings and my schoolwork and my travel and my shopping and the list keeps going." Computers and social networking are also used for scheduling and remembering important dates like birthdays and anniversaries. We may get to a point where we don't know how to use our own brains to do these things. These are just a couple of thoughts to ponder on next time you get on Facebook.


"Problems With Social Networking and Teens"- http://www.life123.com/parenting/tweens-teens/social-networking/issues-with-teens-and-social-networking.shtml

"Technology destroys interpersonal communication"- http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/16170/technology-destroys-interpersonal-communication-

Are We There Yet?

My goodness, folks...I need a break. I am dragging my feet to fall break. It's getting harder and harder to show up to classes (not that I don't, I show up to class 95% of the time). It's getting colder and seems to be raining a lot and I would just love to lay in bed for 24+ hours and that's just what I'm going to do tomorrow night. Three days of not thinking about school or money, and just sleep and TV.

Monday, October 21, 2013

About Me

My name is Lisa Ridgeway. I am a 20 year old junior music major in college. At an early age I began to struggle with confidence in my appearance. It took me years to conquer my insecurities and feel comfortable in my own skin. Music was my way of gaining confidence. I had always been able to sing well and other people said positive things to me and about me when I did. Singing helped me come out of my shell and eventually come to the conclusion that no one could really love me until I truly loved myself. Since then, it has been my personal goal to be confident in myself and show it in the way I carry myself. I advocate self worth no matter the shape, form, color, or type of individual because labels are just words.