Over the break, I made a lot of progress on my baby blanket project. This week I focussed more on online tools to keep me motivated rather than learning new things, partly because I wanted to continue working on my blanket instead of doing something new and partly because I needed some external motivation. For motivation, social media really helped me. Seeing other people being able to create things and have fun with things they create was really inspirational. Instagram, TikTok and Facebook were my main sources for this. All around these apps have a lot of good creators on them to help motivate people getting into the crafts. Some creators/pages I found most inspiring were CindysCrochet on TikTok, @free_crochet_patterns on Instagram and -The Canadian Crocheters- group on Facebook. These all helped keep me motivated in one way or another and made me excited to crochet every day! This week I did a lot of crochet work! I completed the base of all of my squares for my baby blanket and completed the pig square features. I also completed the other baby blanket I was working on in the previous post, made and stitched together a pillow, made this leafy headphone accessory and made a small whale plushie on my own! This week was very productive for me and I did not feel drained of crochet at any point. I also think these creators inspired me to do more with my crochet hook than I was doing previously, as I had more time. This made me more excited to get back to my projects instead of getting tired of them!
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This week for my learning project, I tried to document my progress using iMovie. iMovie is an app for creating trailers or videos and do some basic editing to them. The app has a lot more option on the MacBook version, but I used the iPhone version and found it moderately straight forward. I did not use a tutorial for this project as I found most things on my own. This app has many basic features like photos, videos, voice overs, music, and text. Although I felt like I could do everything pretty easily, I also found out that I do not know how to make an interesting video. I feel like my video is quite boring in a viewers’ perspective, so I could work on that if I was looking to make a more entertaining video. When opening the app you are shown this screen to the right. It gives options for starting a new project, including a ‘Magic Movie’ which would make the video for you for the most part. I did try this magic movie, but it made a horrible video so I scratched the entire thing. Below that there is ‘Storyboard’, which would only give me an error message – so not very helpful. At the bottom there is ‘Movie’, which is what I used to create my movie. This section was very clear to me, allowing me to add things wherever I wanted or delete parts of clips I did not like. When working on the movie you are able to see the movie in the upper half, and the storyboard on the lower half which is very helpful to me. You can play the movie in its entirety or only certain parts of the movie using the play button and scrolling to the section you’d like, which really allows you to focus on certain parts. You can also select certain parts of the storyboard and they will become outlined in yellow to indicate which part you are working on. Doing this will give you many many options of things to do to the clips. The one I found most helpful was the ’Split’ button. ‘Split’ allows you to take one section of video and split it into two, so you may have multiple effects on the same clip at different parts. You can also drag the ends of the clips in to delete certain parts in the beginning or end, by shortening the clip on the storyboard. The ’+’ button on the left side allows you to add more media into the video. This button covers most of what is needed to make a video – the visual. I found this part pretty straight forward. Sometimes the media I added would go to random spots, but it is easy to fix. To fix this, you just have the select the clip you want to move and drag it to the part you want it to be at in the storyboard. In the classroom, I think video is a very helpful tool to increase accessibility of the lessons and class. However, I am not sure that iMovie is the best as it is only available on Apple products and does not have any special or unique features to it. Mine also did not give me a tutorial option, so it may be difficult for students to pick up this form of creation. However, I can see videos substituting for in-class or simultaneous lessons, with video lessons or lectures made by the teacher for students to do on their own time, in their own space. I also think we can reach the augmentation of lessons with the editing process that comes with video making. This allows the teacher to fix mistakes, make things more concise and review lectures before students see them, as it is easy to forget something in a lecture on a busy day. For modification, I think videos and video editing reaches a new level in the way that we can easily work and present together, including people with long distance gaps. This would allow for people to collaborate on projects from their own home, instead of travelling or limiting the perspectives in lectures. For redefinition, I think video always redefines education in the way that it is consumed. TEDTalks for example, reach hundreds of thousands of people instead of just the three hundred people who are in the room with the presenter – something that is even hard to picture for me. I enjoy video making, but I also find it hard to keep up with. It is much easier for me personally to sit down and write about my ups and downs in this learning journey, instead of filming it in the moment of it happening. It also put a lot more pressure on me to take photos of me while I was crocheting, which is very hard to do. I am sure videos are the favourite of some people, but they are not mine. Here is my video to show how bad I am at making them! This week I looked into reading patterns online, instead of the video help I usually use. I was looking for something cute to make for valentines day, but this quickly become very hard for me. I tried to use this pattern for a heart pillow, and got lost over and over. This picture shows my most successful attempt, and even still there is a giant hole at the top and I could not replicate this for the other side of the heart. I decided that 3D crochet work was not something I am ready to do based off reading right now. Then I switched to this pattern of a flat heart, which was much more successful. I was able to make this heart many times, fairly quickly. The online confusion with this pattern was the vocabulary. I am used to the term ‘triple crochet,’ but this form uses the term ‘treble crochet’! This is confusing because it’s also called the ‘double treble crochet’ in the UK. Other than that though, this project went pretty smoothly, and I was able to follow the instructions. I am definitely getting closer to being able to understand patterns in the full crochet terminology. I wasn’t totally sure what I was going to do with all these hearts, but I was inspired by this chicken pillow shared by @fiberfairy on TikTok. I think it would be very similar to the animal blanket, and simple to make with hearts instead of little chickens. More than that, I was able to continue work on my animal blanket and start putting some circles into squares for the background! This part of the pattern has the most diversity in stitches, as there are five different types in the first round of work. This features the single crochet, half-double crochet, double crochet, treble/triple/double treble crochet and chaining. I know a lot more stitches than I did when I started this project, and I am more understanding of how to build projects and make specific aspects of shapes – like corners or gaps in the patterns. Next week, I would like to finish this heart pillow before Valentines day, and get more of the circles done for the baby blanket. My sister also asked me to make her a hat, with no given pattern so maybe I will try that after these two projects! For the most part, I believe that the age of participation is a good thing. This new availability allows for anyone to share what they care about as well as interact with others of similar groups. I think the age of participation is interlinked with our need for representation in medias today as well. When we do not feel represented, we now have the opportunity to recreate things with new and inclusive media. This idea and process can be seen in this Shelley Moore video, which expresses the idea of representation. Within educational spaces, I also think this builds a community of students who feel welcome to participate in class and included in conversations more so than before. The want for participation is seen in the development of education throughout history. For example, the inclusion of people with different gender identities, skin colors, abilities, religious beliefs, etc. into mainstream schooling are the more notable movement towards participation. But more than that, we see students obtain better results when participating in a more active-learning approach, whereas schools in the past have traditionally done a lecture-style class. Within the same framework, schools and people are encouraged to celebrate diversity in the classroom and world more than before, where they were previously encouraged to all be the same. This active participation and welcoming of all views in the classroom, creates for a more well-rounded education for all students – filling in the gaps of understanding we often see in the older generations. The idea of the looking-glass-self (“we know ourselves through our understanding of how other understand us” – Micheal Wesch) is an important human concept. I recently heard the quote “to be loved is to be known” (Timothy Keller) and I feel as though these quotes relate to each other. To be known, understood, and truly seen for who you are by someone else is a true feeling of love, and we must be able to show ourselves, to be seen as ourselves. Thus, the need for participation. Moreover, people learn from other people throughout their entire lives. This being said, with our need for representation and want for participation - the best learning can be done from students who are different from yourself. If we narrow it down to just cultural inclusion and representation, the most inclusive and educational we can be is to hear everyones voices, as discussed by Banks and adapted by Gorski here. Participation is inclusion, and that is necessary to education, now and in the future. |
AuthorMy name is Paige Belcourt and I am currently a student a the University of Regina. I am working towards a degree in Secondary Mathematics Education with a minor in French, as well as a certificate in inclusive Education. Archives
April 2024
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