This week has been a long one as I was sick for a few days but have finally been able to bounce back over the weekend. Today I was able to sit down and do some braiding and find another online resource to add to the growing list. The animated knots website is a cool resource that has instructions and animations on how to do many different types of braids and knots. While their instructions are done with ropes, the basic idea is still the same so it fits well with the project.

More than halfway through the semester and I am feeling  a lot more natural at braiding and I am happy to say my finger stamina has gone up quite a bit too. I did not expect to have tired and sore fingers from braiding but it happened haha. Now with the additional routine of washing the hair before each time and using the spray bottle to keep it damp it has become a lot smoother of a process.

My goals for the next few weeks is too practice at least 3 times a week then attempt to braid my partners hair towards the end of the month! Her hair is super long so I know it will be a challenge having tried before and failed miserably. But this time I will have had a lot more practice under my belt and not feel like I have no idea what I am doing.

SO this week I decided to take some good advice from Kacey and used more water, some shampoo and a good combing before practicing my braiding. In the beginning of the project I had started using a spray bottle with water because that is how my partner usually does it and she showed me first but for some reason I stopped doing it. I definitely will have to keep up with the whole routine because it made everything a lot easier.  Washing the hair first and combing it after made it so that it was much easier to keep the hair apart and together where I wanted it to be in between my fingers. Having a spray bottle with water is also very convenient and I would recommend doing this for anybody else trying to learn how to braid, it is a life saver! Also, keeping a few hair ties handy is a good because that is how you tie the braids off.

I can definitely say I feel a lot more natural and comfortable doing the braiding now although it still has been a bit of a steep learning curve. Here is a video from this week of the start of my braiding process. This week I did not use any videos or walkthroughs to do the braiding, I just worked myself through the process about 4 times. All in all I feel pretty good about the progress I am making.

For this weeks post and prompt I explored using Imovie for my first time ever to make a trailer kind of video from braiding process as I continue on my journey to improve my skills. (video in the post below!)

So for my first time using Imovie I used it on my Ipad which is about 5 years old now so it may be the old version of Imovie. Anyways, for a first time user I have to say it was very easy and user friendly in my opinion. All the controls and functions of the app were easy to find, easy to use and easy to use with each other as well which goes a long way to making a good user experience. Having the ability to use my Ipad to record, edit and format my video into a trailer style clip is a great convenience and I think that is a bonus for those looking to use this app. In Imovie you can use any video or image saved throughout your Icloud or apple devices to create different movies or clips.

I  believe Imovie would be a good tool to use in classrooms where you are learning the video making process or trying to get your students to dip their toes in making their own videos because it is very user friendly. It could be used by students for many other subjects and projects once they are able to build their skills using the application. On top of that many young kids here in North America are already very familiar with the apple ecosystem and functions so for those people they might be able to pick it up that much quicker. While there are many awesome things about Imovie I think one drawback would be that it is exclusively an apple product. This means if you want to be able to use these in your classrooms with your students then you will need access to multiple Ipads or imac or macbooks which could be a significant hurdle for classrooms where resources are already thin. Unless you are in a classroom that already is using mostly apple products, which is unlikely, then mostly having PC’s means you are not able to use this software without an investment of resources.

—- Here is my video, had to upload it to youtube to be able to post it here 

I think that Imovie would be able help students in all facets of the SAMR model depending on the grades you are teaching and how complex the use is. For example in the substitution section, a student could create a video essay in replacement of doing an oral presentation for their report, this way the change that is happening is we are replacing the live presentation with a video format. In the Modification section, you could have students create a specific type of film on their report, like a horror or documentary film. They would be asked to use Imovies many editing features to create their final product, so they are changing how they are completing their project.

Using Imovie to document my braiding this week was a cool change of pace and watching the videos back also helped me see some of the places I was going wrong.  As we are a few weeks into our learning journeys, I am happy to notice some improvements in my braiding. Starting the process is now fairly easy for me but once I get to the middle I still tend to struggle with keeping the hair apart and keeping the strands pulled tight. Still confident though that by the end of this semester I will be miles ahead of where I started.

So during this week I found a website called “aiirprofessional.com” which has been a great resource to help with my braiding practice. The site has sections with instructions on how to braid your own hair, other peoples hair and different styles of braids. Along with videos, the site has a step by step approach to making a simple braid (three-strand braid) which is the one I am focusing on for my project. It is simple and a site I would recommend to others if they were looking to learn the same skill.

First thing I had to get used to doing was combing the hair out enough so all the hair was straight and not tangled up. I can admit that I was not doing that before this week so I think that is why I was struggling a lot more than i should have! I think now the process should be a little easier and a little less messy.

I spent a couple hours on Wednesday and Thursday practicing and I included the best of the best in this post below. Sadly this was the best of the bunch… for now anyways. But comparing it to my first attempts this semester I think there is already progress being made, first because I was able to finish my last braid in one go without stopping. Also the braid is tighter where as my first few attempts it even the better ones were looser all throughout the braid.

A few important tips the site gave for learning to braid for beginners were

1. Practice as much as you can
2. Always prep the hair (slightly damp hair/combed)
3. Create neat, even sections when making your three strands
4. Find a rhythm: find a pattern that works for you when weaving the braid and repeat it
5. Maintain a solid grip on each section, especially the center section

One thing I was thinking about was if eventually will it become like muscle memory if I become good enough at it? If I were to stop practicing once the semester ends would I quickly lose this new skill? Definitely learning about patience doing small, tedious tasks doing this assignment and working out my fingers as well, did not expect for my hands to get as sore as they have been!

For the coming weeks my next few goals is to be able to do multiple braids like this or better and to cut down on the time it will take me to do so.  I also hope to be able to find more time to practice this next week as things have really been getting busy with school and work life ramping up.  That is another thing that I find having to work on, my time management ability. I am also doing semester long assignments in two other classes that ask us to keep notes/take pictures building towards a final summary of your learning so it has been a task on itself trying to balance time for everything. But I also consider that it is only for a few months so it is not all that bad.

https://aiirprofessional.com/blogs/braids/how-to-braid

For this week’s braiding practice I wanted to start somewhere that would me work on the basic parts of braiding at a slow pace. I ended up choosing two Youtube videos to help me start off my journey. One was called, “BEGINNERS START HERE! How To Braid Hair For Complete Beginners” and the other, “4 basic braids for beginners, How to Braid Hair, Easy hairstyle.” Now the second video is one I think I will be referring back to towards the end of this assignment. This is because I hope that if I get proficient enough at a “standard” braid then I will try to learn 1 or 2 different styles of braids.

(My videos from this week)

From where I left off at my last attempt to learn braiding, I picked up with a “three-strand braid” which will be the one style I will work on to really grasp and get good at. I never even knew it had a specific name always assuming that it was just a generic braid so learned something new already! Now where I really find I have to work on is keeping the hair strands separate as they go in between each other. As I attempted to do it the first few times using my hair mannequin, it mostly ended up in a fuzzy mess the first few attempts.

I tried to reflect on what I really hope to get from taking up this new skill and I think a few things come to my head. First, braiding hair is something I have almost no experience or familiarity with so I enjoy it gets me out of comfort zones. Second, as someone who hopes to be a dad one day to a little girl, I want to be able to do these things with them. Lastly, I feel that learning a new skill and documenting the process along the way is a valuable way to show people that we are all good learners, but maybe you or your classmate do better learning a different way. Let people see these processes so that it becomes more and more normal to accept different learning styles in the classrooms. This year I am actually doing a similar assignment in two other classes where we are choosing something to do over the semester and documenting the process.

I am not totally sure how much time I am going to need to dedicate to this weekly to get as good as I WANT to be. However, I am fairly confident by December I will be much better than today. But then I also tell myself that the biggest thing is not to stress about mastering  braiding but to improve little by little, to see what works and what does not and to connect my learning experiences to the kind of teacher I want to be in the future.

As I keep going with the braiding week by week, I think I am going to have to get spray bottle with water to mist the hair as I practice more and more. Hopefully this helps me figure out how to stop the fuzzy messy braids from appearing!

For my Learning Project this semester I have chosen to learn how to braid long hair, hoping that by the end I can make a braid quickly and neatly! I had come up with various options to pick up for this assignment but I narrowed it down to two options, learning how to play pool or learning how to braid long hair. I landed on braiding because I think it will be a skill I can use in my life having two young nieces and also a partner with really long hair. This is something that I actually attempted to do at the beginning of the summer but found myself having zero time and motivation to follow through with it. Another thing that pushed me towards choosing this is that I have minimal experience doing hair or working with hair so it is a pretty new endeavor for me that takes me out of my normal comfort zones.

This assignment is the perfect opportunity to take my time to learn how to braid while documenting all the ups and downs in the learning process. Right now I have a general outline of how I would like things to go and where I want to be by the end of the semester.

As I mentioned earlier I had attempted this before and back then I actually had managed to get a mannequin head with long hair from one of my hairdresser friends. Now I can actually put it to use and not let it get caked with dust ! I hope to spend the first few weeks of this journey working on doing a braid that is not a total frizzy mess, building towards being able to make a braid without too many pauses. At that point I would like to then start working on the time it takes me to do a braid because last time I tried it took forever, working on being quicker and quicker each week. The resources I will be using for this process will be mostly Youtube, websites and personal help from my partner.

By the end, if everything goes well, I will be making a braid in a neat and quick fashion and maybe even trying out different styles of braids. Looking forward to this assignment and also seeing everyone else’s progress and final results!