Garage Band

Being a Mac enthusiast and a musician, I chose to blog about Garage Band for my third and final emerging technology post.  When you open Garage Band, you get a menu that looks like this:

From there, you can choose to record an instrument or voice, edit previous files, take a lesson, or create a podcast.

The lessons available with Garage Band are wonderful, and the beginning piano and guitar lessons are included free with the software.  Additional lessons can be purchased through Garage Band and iTunes, and they also offer Artist Lessons, where performers teach you how to play their songs.

When you choose the Songwriting option, you are given all of your tracks on one screen.  Here, you can choose which tracks you wish to include, and add/edit/delete as necessary.  Each track is separate, but is shown concurrently.  The Songwriting tool looks like this:

 Within Garage Band, you can choose to record your own electric/acoustic instruments or built-in software instruments, add your own vocals, and edit, arrange, and mix the song.  No recording studio necessary!

Garage Band is so simple and user-friendly, my husband (an elementary music and band teacher) frequently uses it with his 4-6th grade students to create their own songs, as well as class compilations.  He burns the student work onto CDs, and the kids can take the work of the entire class home as a souvenir.  

Sharing songs you have created in Garage Band is a breeze!  You can export your song to your own iTunes library, create a ringtone for your iPhone, burn your song onto a CD, or create a podcast with your work.

Apple has free, online tutorials here, and the super cool artist-guided guitar and piano lessons are located here.

 Musicians, aspiring musicians, and techies with no musical skills at all can all enjoy Garage Band.  The software takes the expense and the anxiety out of producing high-quality amateur musical recordings and top-notch podcasts.  Rock on!

Sophie, Annie, Woody, and Charlie - lesley's albums on SnapGalaxy

Sophie, Annie, Woody, and Charlie - lesley's albums on SnapGalaxy

SnapGalaxy

    For our Photoshare emerging technology assignment, I was looking for a website that was free, easy to use, and useful; and one that would publish my photos in other areas of the web.  Photosharing websites are useful because one can publish photos to the web without needing to print expensive copies and send them to friends and family members, and also because the files are stored securely in case your hard drive fails or your computer is lost, etc.  I enjoy sharing photos via the internet because my friends and family are literally all over the globe, and grandparents especially love instantaneous photos of our kids, vacations, new cars, lost teeth, etc.  It really helps them to feel connected from a great distance.  Others might use this technology to publish, say, wedding albums.  This way, everyone who wishes to see the photos is able to, and the responsibility to get prints to Aunt Edna and cousin Rick does not fall on the newlyweds.  I have a few friends who are professional photographers, and their custom websites offer this type of technology as well.  The people who were photographed can view their personal password-protected album, and the photographer's copyright interests are protected.  If it weren't for this type of technology, my parents and grandparents would not get such frequent updates on our children.  I recently used photo sharing to quickly get pictures to my grandfather when my husband and I had difficulty remodeling our master bath!  He was instantly able to see close-up, high resolution pics of the two issues we were having (plumbing a new vessel sink, and rewiring the electric to include a dimmer switch and new fixture), and give us advice right then on how to remedy the problem. 
     This assignment turned out to be more frustrating and time-consuming than I had expected.  I am a Mac user, and have used iPhoto for everything.  iPhoto publishes directly to FaceBook,  so I never had a need to use another service.  I started by trying PhotoShow, and when I selected the first photo to upload, I was immediately given the message that my file required a premium membership.  Check, please!  I went on to Pictoma.  This service offered a free 14 day trial, and fearing endless spam, I moved on to the next site.  Viewbook required a paid subscription, and a Google search for FaceRoller kept giving me World of Warcraft results!  I had a better experience with LivingMemory.  They offer easy sign-up, no credit card required, and no scary "free trial".  I was using Safari and it was running slowly, so I switched to Firefox, and it was a bit faster.  I could not find any direct links to share to Blogger, facebook, etc.,  and the email function didn't work either.  I couldn't even send my album to myself!  The last site I tried was SnapGalaxy, and it was by far the most user-friendly.  The multiple flash uploader was fast, and the site instantly offers you a link to share your album.  My next post is the final product from SnapGalaxy.  It was super easy and relatively quick.

Using RSS

iGoogle is amazing, and I can't believe I haven't used it before!  I liked the format so well I made it my homepage.  I am excited to be able to see CNN headlines on the same page with my Facebook feed!  I am very busy, so I really like the Artist of the Day and music features that expose me to new talent without having to search for it.  I think this is a great tool, and I'm planning to search for a few other things, like info from the Indianapolis Zoo and Children's Museum (both of which I am a member), and perhaps the MET Opera so my husband and I don't miss the Saturday Hi-Def performances.

DELICIOUS

I added a direct link (I think) to my new Delicious account in the top right-hand corner of this blog.  My new URL is delicious.com/lesleycc

Podcasting/Vodcasting

I knew nothing about podcasting, except that it was a little empty folder in my iPod!  I have learned now that a podcast is not just an audio file housed on a server, but an audio file (or video in vodcasting) that requires a subscription.  I learned that everything from Van Gogh to plumbing has been podcasted (can I make that a verb?) about by someone.  I found that I prefer the vodcast format because I am more of a visual person, and my mind tends to wander if I'm just listening to words.  I enjoyed finding vodcasts of some of my favoritebands' performances, and vodcasts about grooming dogs, and pruning trees.  The most helpful site I found for information on podcasts in education is Poducation.  This website details not only how to podcast, but why, and how it can benefit your classroom.  I am most excited about the chance to allow students to create podcasts instead of, or in addition to, traditional essays/research papers/etc.  

W200

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

W200

View more presentations from guest2cf09b.