Learning Theatre Through Technology

Final Blog Post

2010-04-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

I think that the most useful technology that I have learned this semester would be iMovie. I've always wanted to learn how to use it and I've always been scared to try it, even though it's always been on my computer! I also think that it would be a great project for the students to create a movie with their acting or explore different genres of movies/plays. I'd really love to be able to have a project like that for my students and I think that I have been given the stepping stones for that! I think that using technology is a great way to engage students because their generation (and our generation for that matter) is obsessed and fascinated with technology and it just seems to be so fun! I think that just writing papers or journals gets a little monotonous when students have to do it for every class. Being able to do the same things in just new ways is a way for students to not be bored and stay on top of things. I hope to continue with learning new technology and keeping on top of the ever-changing and ever-improving technologies so that I can give that ingenuity to my students and keep themselves on their toes!

Wikis

2010-04-19T15:38:00.001-07:00

I'm not exactly sure how I would use wikis in my classroom, but if by chance I had the students doing a big group work project, then I could see how wikis could be a good way for the students to share the resources that they found. I also think it would be a great way to share good monologue ideas and/or good scenes. It especially would be valuable after I have taught for a few years and so my students will have all that information from students that came before them.

Internet Safety

2010-04-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

For this assignment, I interviewed my little sister who is 17 years old. I think that the discussion we had was pretty positive. She's always been a cautious person, so I don't think that she is uneducated about what is and isn't safe to put out on the internet. She had some good insight herself and I could see that she really was taking in what I was saying to her and how important it is for her to be good about internet safety.

As for some of the things I read about internet safety, I read

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=4b3d2ee01e31c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

and

http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,5302-1-2769-1,00.html

and

http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,538-1-4830-1,00.html

I've always believe that children on the internet need to be monitored - I know this because I was there once and there were somethings that I did that I would definitely not want my own children, or my students for that matter, to get into. I'm not saying that I did really horrible things, but my friends and I loved to go to a chat room and pretend we were older than we were and we would talk to boys. I shudder to think what could have happened if one of those boys had been a sex predator or something like that. The most important things that I learned from the readings is that it's important to use monitoring techniques such as keeping the computer in an open area and using certain blocking techniques on your children's access. I also would have never thought to have your children just use their bookmarks. I think that that's a great idea. I think that as a teacher, I will definitely be faced with safety issues with my students in concerns with doing research for papers or even information that they put on our class website. I think it's a good idea to at least address to your students the importance of being safe as they surf the web.

My Video Project

2010-04-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

Here's my video! I decided to do mine on Characterization and using stereotypes in order to create characters quickly for things like improv. This helps cover the Core Requirement in Theatre 1 for characterization. I had a lot of fun making this video and I think that the music helps not only enhance the characters that I'm trying to portray, but it makes the video fun for students.

Copyright Assignment

2010-04-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had issues embedding every video that I looked at onto my blog, so I'm just posting the urls for each. Here's the first one: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=172790&title=The_History_of_Storm_Chasing

She does list who the music is by and credits some of the pictures to one man, but the rest of the pictures she doesn't mention anyone to credit it to - and I believe those pictures are the more historical ones. Just a list of where she got each picture would have sufficed.

Here's the next one - http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=15395&title=50_States_and_Capitals__cartoon_song_

This one is from the cartoon "The Animaniacs", but no where in the video is that mentioned or the company that produced this show. Now, they only used a little more than 2 minutes of the show for this video so they're probably ok, but they should have at least acknowledged where the clip was from.

Personal Tech Project

2010-04-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

So, I originally decided to do Vectorworks for this project, but what I found was a really difficult and technological program that I couldn't figure out and wouldn't be able to without instruction. They had instructional videos that I could buy, but I didn't have the money for it, so I decided just to learn a different technology. I had a friend recommend to me learning how to use Sumo Paint. It's an online photoshop that is free and seeing as I've always wanted to learn how to use photoshop, I thought that I would give it a whirl. I decided that I would use Sumo Paint in my lesson to create what I call a 6-word memoir and that it would be a great and innovative way for my students to characterize new characters that they have created. Here is the link to my lesson plan: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ad8lBllpkUnpZGcyZnczdDRfNmY0NWcyaHQ4&hl=en

And here is my own creation/version of a 6-word memoir that I created on Sumo Paint:

My Gospel Presentation

2010-04-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to my gospel insights presentation:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dg2fw3t4_3cnvnz8f9&interval=30

I decided to do my presentation on President Eyring's talk from this last general conference because it was about teaching and leading the youth down the path of righteousness. I also thought it was a good idea seeing as general conference was last week and it was amazing!

Vector Works

2010-02-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

For my Personal Technology Project, I'm going to look into Vector Works. I've already been familiar with Google Sketch-Up, so I wanted to explore another kind of technology that I can use and my students can use as a way to design lighting for the stage. The tech part of theatre is the hardest for me, so any kind of experience that I can get before I'm actually in charge of my own theatre will be a great asset to me. I'm excited to learn more about this program!

Class Website

2010-02-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

So here's my class website - It's just kind of rough, but I'm excited for when I'm a teacher and I can revamp this site just a bit to where it's applicable to my subject and my teaching.

As Per Rick's Request...

2010-02-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

As I expressed earlier, I think that using a blog in a theatre class could be useful, but apparently others don't seem to agree with me. I originally thought that until I took Amy Jensen's class on incorporating technology within a theatre classroom. She showed me how creating a classroom blog can help enhance a student's learning about theatre and the different aspects of theatre. I would like to create a classroom blog that sort of acts like a journal for the students. I think that theatre and acting relies heavily on self-evaluation and looking and expressing inner thoughts and realization. Thus, while it might be better for the students to have their own personal journal because of reasons of privacy, I also think that students can and should be able to learn from one another and each other's own experiences and I think that that could be achieved through having a collaborative blog. Also, it's a great way to get the students to find different resources from the internet about theatre and share them with the rest of the class. For example, say that you're doing a unit on lighting and lighting design. An assignment that you could do would be to have the students find at least one resource from the internet about lighting or pictures from really neat design from a play they like and post them on the classroom blog so that everyone else can see them. Of course one might say that they might not look at each other's assignments and learn from each other. That's when you makes sure that they comment on at least 3 or 4 other assignments. Those are just some ideas that I have :)

Theatre Education Resources

2010-01-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

Finding theatre education blogs was really hard - there aren't a whole lot out there! But I think that I found some really interesting ones! Ones that I really will be able to utilize and learn from others' experiences. Above is my screen picture of my resources (there's 7 there because I was already following my sister's blog and my friend's blog).

The Drama Teacher - www.thedramateacher.com
This blog posts articles about different aspects of theatre and what challenges teachers may face teaching drama.

Musical Theatre Spot - www.musicaltheatrespot.com
Every theatre teacher is going to encounter putting together a musical every year, thus, I believe it's so important to have a blog on here that is completely devoted to musicals and what it takes to put on a musical, which is exactly what this blog is about.

More Places to Go... Pioneer Drama - http://playsandmusicalsnewsletter.pioneerdrama.com/
Another resource that theatre teachers must have is access to play scripts and that goes for new ones and this site not only has lists of good plays, but theatre textbooks as well.

Drama Teacher's Diary; Contemporary Drama - contemporarydramanewsletter.contemporarydrama.com
This blog posts ideas for lesson plans and gives tips for teaching different aspects of theatre. It's a great way to get new ideas!

Dennis Baker - www.dennisbaker.net
This blog is about this actor from New York who also teaches - he has great insight to new ideas and different ways to teach theatre.

Using this Blog

2010-01-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

I love the idea of using a blog in my classroom - I think it's a great way for my students to actively express their opinions and for them to do journal writing, which I believe to be very useful when working with some sort of art subject like Theatre. I look forward to learning different ways that technology can help enhance a student's learning, especially when technology is so captivating to my generation and the generations to follow. It's seriously mind-boggling the way that technology is growing and I'm so interested to see what new things will pop up within the next few years that will help me in my teaching.