Author: Carla (Page 2 of 4)

Starting again.

November 13, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

Here I go again! I started again respawning at my house far far away from my dead body. I also realized that I got back to level one when I died so that was not the best way to find that out. So I had a choice to make, try and go back to find where I was when I died or forget about it and travel somewhere else. I ended up collecting a few things around my house, making a new set of armour and heading out to see if I could find the cave I died in.

Surprisingly it worked! I was able to navigate back to where I had so unceremoniously been killed by a wizard but there was nothing there. No loot to be seen, all of the items I had been carrying were gone. One more thing I should have checked beforehand but I didn’t so I found out after being confused about the loot situation. Apparently the items you drop when you die will disappear if they are not collected promptly (you only have 5 minutes to get back) and I waited too long between plays so even though I found my cave camp, all my stuff was gone 🙁

Thoroughly annoyed I started going on an adventure to make a map! First I needed sugar cane for paper and I think I have the ingredients for a compass at my home base. I want to make a locator map so I have an easier time navigating around the world. So I started the journey to what I thought was towards my home base but ended up going wildly off course. But, I found what looks to be a pretty cool chasm with loads of materials and a lava flow at the bottom. I decided that my luck with daylight was running out and this place seemed cool so I built a place to stay the night and started digging.

After digging around for a while I emerged into daylight once again and start wandering around again, this time very very lost. The next day I ended up stumbling into a town with townspeople in it. This is the first town with people that I have found so it was a bit exciting for me. I ended up trading some leather for a emerald and ransacking the houses. Now that I’m thinking about it, I probably should have checked if that would have bad results before doing it, but it seems like the townsfolk are still friendly so I guess its okay.

Lastly, here is a video about Minecraft maps which inspired my gameplay last session.

Until next time!

PE rowing post #4

November 13, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

I have been making good progress with rowing but lately I have only been able to do it three times in a week. The end of term is fast approaching so I aim to keep up my three, or more, days of rowing but I’m worried that assignments will pile up. For now I am focusing on what I can do with the time left in term.

I have found the “row with me” videos on YouTube really fun. However, I can’t always keep up and usually pause for a 2 minute break in the middle of the 25-30 minute workout. I don’t see this as too much of a problem since I am still starting out.

I’ve have used this work out a few times now and it’s been good

Lately I have been switching between the previous video and this one

They each have some challenges and I like how the second one has stretches at the end that I can do while sitting on the rowing machine.

That’s all for this update.

Until next time!

Things have changed

November 11, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

Things have changed

After my music midterm it became pretty obvious that I had set my expectations a little high. I’m not sure if it was because of all the issues around my instrument or my pace but I have come to terms with the adjustment. There has been an odd shift in my daily practice as it is less frenetic and focused on simpler movements. However, this switch has flipped the mood of my practice sessions from stressful to feeling much more calm. Now when I play I find that I can focus on one thing at a time and although it is slow I feel like I am progressing.

For my end of term video growth demonstration I will be learning to play the songs “My Paddle” and “Hey Lidee”. Since I got the okay to proceed with these as my final songs I’ve been practicing the chords. Stay tuned for my next update!

It’s Reading Week!!

November 10, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

It’s reading week!

No classes Monday-Wednesday this week, so we don’t have a ECDI 336 class to reflect on this week. However, I spent last weekend doing a 24 hour charity event that I streamed so I thought I would reflect on the digital resources I used for that.

Myself and six others pledged to play games, and stream it all, for 24 straight hours last weekend. We started at 3 pm Saturday and ended a little after 3 pm on Sunday. I can truly say that I am amazed that my computer did not melt during the event. I was attending as a player but I was also the “producer” as I was running the stream, monitoring chat, checking and reporting on donations received, and playing a soundscape for the event.

I was trying to think of ways that I could use the digital tools for this event in educational ways so I’ll run through the tools and how they could be used in schools.

Discord – This is what we used for the players videos and audio feeds. It has some similarities to Zoom, but is meant for smaller groups with the bonus that the chat never goes away. Last March one of my profs used this when we switched to online classes and it was good for screen sharing and asking questions (in text or voice chat) it might be better for small classes.

Foundry VTT – This was our solution for our virtual tabletop. This could be interesting to use as a way to add some gamification to a lesson. You can create a map of just about anything and have students roll dice (digitally or in a classroom) for math games.

Epidemic Sound – This site has hundreds of hours of music available. Yet I don’t know that it would be very useful in a classroom setting with the exception of using it as background music.

OBS Studios – This is a really powerful tool and I have only scratched the surface of it. I think this would be most useful when creating online or video presentations. You can make different “scenes” and transition between them smoothly. For my purposes I had a starting soon, stream, be right back, video clips, and thank you scenes that I would transition between during the 24 hours. I think this would be great to use for a presentation with scenes for talking heads, slide decks, videos, and displaying websites in a seamless manner. Because OBS Studios will record everything for you the video you create can be uploaded to YouTube or sent directly to teachers and/or students. This software lasted over 24 hours and recorded the whole event! I’m impressed with both it and my computer for being able to handle that, not that anyone needs to record a 24 hours presentation.

That’s all I have to say about this for now.

Until next time!

Is this what rage quitting feels like?

November 9, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

I have been exploring my Minecraft world during my sessions and trying to sort of discover different aspects of the game as I go along. I watched a few videos in September on how to get started, and when I find something interesting I’ll look it up but other than that I’ve been going it on my own. However, I think this is when that method stops and I start doing more research into things. I normally play this game as a bit of a ‘brain break’ and start it up with the goal of exploring what I can do. However I find that I end up wandering around and digging/mining without much point to it and the last few game sessions I have left feeling like I didn’t do much.

Last week a frustrating Minecraft session ended when I died in a spot that I am not really sure I know how to get back to. I went outside of a new place I had built at night and was immediately attacked and killed by a wizard. I suppose it wasn’t so much of a rage quit as it was just giving up because I couldn’t be bothered to deal with finding all the stuff I had dropped. So here is when I decided that maybe some time I put aside to playing the game should be shifted to watching some how-to videos. For next week I am going to search out some resources on YouTube or maybe some other blogs and start my game sessions with a plan. Hopefully that will give me a goal to work towards in my exploring of Minecraft.

Until next time!

Class reflection

November 2, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

This class we spent some time in groups exploring different resources for bringing coding into the classroom. I liked the mix of lecture and group activity used today as it gave me information and then time to try out different apps or services. I started off in a group looking at codemonkey, which is a game where you have a selection of movement options (right, left, up, down) to try and get the monkey from where they are standing to a treasure chest on the screen. One arrow is one space of movement so if the money is two steps away from the treasure you need to input “right, right” into the movement before pressing go. The experience is very beginner level which could work with some grades but the site has the most obnoxious music so that would be something to work around. Some other students seemed to really dislike this site but I could see it used well in primary grades.

Next I went to look at the topic I was most interested in which was the unplugged coding

https://csunplugged.org/en/

I like the idea of introducing a topic and having students interact with something hands on, then linking it with an activity done on a computer or tablet. This site is an amazing resource for lesson plans with printables and, as was mentioned in class, some lesson ideas come with videos of classes working through the activities. They also had cross curricular activities so students can learn the ideas around coding without knowing that the activity is promoting that. The group that I was with all agreed that this is a great resource for teachers on call. Overall I was really impressed with this site and I made sure to bookmark it for future use.

The computer science unplugged website also had activities that bridged into Scratch and Scratch Jr. so I decided to check out Scratch next. It is much more advanced than codemonkey and would require more reading skills. Scratch is made uses blocks of code in the shape of puzzle pieces that can be connected to program animations or games. This tool is something I feel would take much prep time for a teacher/TOC to integrate into their classrooms with purpose. Although I was sure there would be resources on lesson planning with Scratch so I did a google search and one of the other resources we talked about came up
https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/scratch/lesson-plans

I had never heard of Commonsense.org but it sounds like a great resource. I struggle at times to be able to gauge the lever of a grade 2 compared to a grade 4 so I see this coming in handy while I navigate the first few years of my teaching career.

Al in all I was really happy to spend time playing around with the suggested apps/websites today and talk with other students about what we liked or didn’t like about them.

Until next time!

Exploring and gettin’ lost

October 31, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

Every time I start playing this game I sit down, and I think “Okay, what am I doing again?”. Maybe if I were playing on a more regular basis it would be easier to progress and look up more information that would help my game play, but time is a hot commodity for me during the school year. For this session I decided to head in one direction and explore whatever I came across. I crafted a compass so I could go in a mostly, straight line. Before I headed out, I visited my zombie spawner that I talked about in my last post. So, after killing all the zombies in there I took out all the candles I had left in there because I think it was impeding the spawn rate. Then it was off on my adventure!

I headed south to explore something that I saw lighting up the sky during the night cycle. It was not very far away and when I got there it looked like Minecraft lava so of course I jumped in! Then I died. So that was a fun learning experience. After respawning and returning to pick up all the loot that I dropped I found that the sun was setting, and I needed to find shelter. However, I wanted to stay in this area, so I started digging and building up a little shelter for myself to spend the night digging/mining in. Which turned out to be great because I was able to mine a bunch of the blocks around the lava but sometimes, they would explode so I should probably investigate what was happening with that.

Once it was day again, I continued exploring south, finding caves to hide in during night to avoid getting mobbed by baddies. I almost made it to a mountain but my time was nearly up and I wanted to head back to my home base because I had a bunch of new items I had no idea what to do with.

So, I made the journey back and I found a merchant along the way, but these people only want to trade for emeralds, and I have no idea how to get those. One more thing to add to the research list. Also, I found out that you can ride lamas, but I do not know how to control them, more research, hahaha! When I got home, I carved up all the pumpkins I had to decorate for the weekend, or forever who knows.

Happy Halloween!!

Until next time!

Third workout blog

October 30, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

Blog Post #3

Starting this yesterday I have switched from using a written exercise plan (I was using one from the concept 2 website, which was great but got a bit repetitive) to watching videos and following along. I am typically able to get on the rowing machine three times a week and I’m always really thankful when I take the time to do it. After my sessions on the machine I am able to focus on my assignments and generally just feel better. However, I have been developing some pretty thick calluses on the palm of my hands so after a session sometimes my hands feel a bit stiff and sore.

For my rowing sessions I have just started following along with YouTube videos from Dark Horse Rowing

This is only a 20 min workout but it is for beginners so I was happy to start here and try other videos throughout November

For my new stretching routine I use with this video but I’ve had to find a work around for the last stretch because I don’t have a band like they use in the video

Then after my workout I follow this video for cool down stretches

The stretching has been great for my flexibility so I’m happy that I started doing it both before and after workouts.

Until next time!

Protected: Midterm Music Blog

October 29, 2020 / Carla / Enter your password to view comments.

Seventh week reflection

October 28, 2020 / Carla / 0 Comments

For this week’s class, a large amount of class time was spent in discussion groups. The groups were created using topic suggestions from students and then a vote to see which 5 subjects had the most interest. We were encouraged to change rooms and get involved in the conversation which was a bit awkward because I had to ask to change rooms but I’m happy that I was able to move around as much as I did. It was interesting to see how many people gravitate to certain topics. I was in a room with 8 people at one point, and the next room I went into only has 2 other people in it. I don’t often participate in a situation where there is a free flow between groups so you are free to visit any of the groups at any time. It was a really great exercise and since each group made a list of points that were discussed the class has a document to reference and some resource suggestions from Michael. One resource lead me to Trevor Mackenzie’s website where I read several of his posts about implementing inquiry and a Google slide presentation that made some good points on parts of the inquiry process. For example, in the slides Trevor points out that when you are using inquiry with a class students come up with questions about their inquiry project but teachers need to find ways to tie those questions to curriculum and learning standards.
We had some great take aways from this weeks class, but I find myself saying that for all the classes I am in right now.

With some guidance from Michael I have been looking more into using OBS and Twitch as a solution to streaming the charity event on Nov 7. After doing a bit more research I think OBS will be the best for having the video, audio, and customization I am looking for. I did a quick set up to see how much time it would take to set up and it was fairly easy. Now I have to create some templates for the different scenes I will be switching between during the stream. I will be using PhotoShop to make those templates but that is a story for another day.

Until next time!

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