Just another Education Sites site

Month: January 2024

Take Me Down to The Riptide

Hi everyone,

I have been trying to learn to play the ukulele for my blog. I have started by watching a basic welcome to ukulele YouTube video. The channel I am following is 10-day free ukulele lesson done by Andy Guitar. I did the first two days worth of videos that he has posted. The first video was very easy. Learning three different cords: the C major, F major, and the G major. We also finished the video by playing the song “You are My Sunshine”. We also practiced strumming to a four beat. I found this video a great introduction, he explained everything in great detail, and even gave some extra practice songs at the end.

The second day video I found extremely challenging. He tough us the A minor cord and a new strumming pattern. I found this lesson a massive jump from the first day. I ended up actually going back to the first video to practice a little more before going back to the day 2 video. I got myself familiar with switching cords fluently, but I never was able to figure out the new strumming pattern as it involved strumming the strings with a different finger then what I am used to. The final song he teaches in this video is “Take me Down to the Riptide”. He did not go over this song in nearly as much depth as the last video. I think it is going to take me a couple days of practice before I can move on to the next. He explains it very fast and doesn’t really allow you to follow along as well as when he did the song “You are my Sunshine”.

I really like learning through Youtube videos as the moment. It allows me to go back and restart things if I feel I did not do it properly. Or if I think I missed something I can always go back and check. It is also super easy for me to take a look back at things I have already learned and practice more.

Manage Your Time, Master Your Screen

My daily tech habits are mainly based around entertainment. Most of my daily technology use happens during my free time, I can probably be spending my time in more productive ways instead of scrolling through TikTok and Instagram. TikTok I primarily use for entertainment purposes, as opposed to Instagram I use to learn more information on things I am interested in.  I scroll through recipes, some strength trainers who I enjoy listening to, and keeping up with what my friends are doing. These two sites that I spend the majority of time on is used for leisure and social interactions.

An app I use to help me stay organized is TimeTree. It is a calendar app that you can link multiple people to and share your schedule. You can also color coordinate your events. For example, I have a different color for class, work, coaching, and my football schedule. I also like how every morning it sends me a notification of what I have that day, and also gives me a reminder of my events a half hour before they start. Another organization app I use is Slack. This is an app my football team uses to send information or update players on important dates for school. You can also post links and spreadsheets that need to be viewed before events. The last app that I find extremely important is the Grades app. At the beginning of every term, I put my classes in for the semester into this app and input all of my assignments with the weighted grade that they hold in that course. I can then input the grade I hope to strive for. Once, I get my grades for each assignment, The app will tell me what I need to get on my other assignments to achieve that grade. This is an app I have recommended to a lot of my teammates, especially those who struggle with school and are always worried about what they need on their assignments to pass to stay eligible for the season. They have found this app super helpful. It helps them check what class they have a better academic standing in and what assignment they need to spend more time on or study for.

The biggest distraction for me when it comes to technology is TikTok. This is an app I turn to as a means of procrastination. Whenever it is time to cook, or do laundry I always find myself scrolling through TikTok. I feel I am usually pretty good on limiting my time on this app, and can usually get the things done that I need during the day. I feel I have a healthy relationship with technology. I manage my time well and I have apps that allow me to keep track of upcoming due dates and important meetings. The main boundary I have set for myself is not going on my phone a half hour before I go to bed. This allows me to get anything done that I didn’t finish throughout the day.

 

 

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello, my name is Carson Sombach. I am in my third year of my Kinesiology and Education Joint Degree majoring in Physical Education and minoring in Mathematics. I am also a current athlete on the University of Regina Rams Football Team. I have four brothers, three of which also play on the Regina Rams which is extremely rare at the USports level. If you want to read and find out more about me I have attached an article that was done on my family. I have a passion for coaching football, and have coached at a fairly high level considering I am also still playing the sport.

This is me in the middle with the young football players on the South Saskatchewan Football Team after we won the Prairie Bowl

This is me in the middle with the young football players on the South Saskatchewan Football Team after we won the Prairie Bowl

I have never blogged before, but I am excited to give it my best shot. I will be sharing my insights and reflections on educational technology. I have had some experience with educational technologies where I work. I work as an Educational Assistant in the Regina Catholic School System. The main technology we used was speek to text with those students who have dysgraphia.

Learning the Ukulele Using Technology

Welcome to my blog!

I used to play guitar in grade 4 but I was never good at it, and I gave it up fairly quickly. I have always wanted to get back into learning as I I have some friends who are heavily into music and I thought it might be fun to be able to play with them. Sadly I sold my guitar a couple years ago. Thankfully, I have a Ukulele handy around my house. So, for my learning  project I am going to attempt to learn how to play the ukulele. I am hoping to be able to translate the small amount of basics of guitar I learned in grade 4 and apply it into this learning process. I have done a small amount of research into and I noticed that YouTube will be extremely handy. There were also a couple of apps I have been looking at on the iOS app store that I will look at more in depth. One app that I noticed will be extremely helpful off for me starting off is the Ukulele Tuner – Ukutuna II app, which will help me to have my Ukulele sounding properly for when I begin to play.