2012

2011
Term 4

How can we use our passions and multiple intelligences to exhibit Russell Street’s hidden stories?

26.10.11

Today we went out for our ‘wonder walk’ to ignite our wonderings about some of Russell Street’s hidden stories.  Here is a slide show I made with some of the pictures we took.  If you know of any hidden stories about one of the photos please share!!  Check out the movie here.

How can we create a music video for the digi-awards?

05.09.11

Well we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!  Well done Alexandra’s  (Tik Tok) and Millie’s (Geeky) groups because you have finished your first draft of your music videos!  Gess’ Meow video is almost there and Tomas’ Fizzy pop song has a bit to do yet.  Now, there are a few little touch ups we need to finish then we reflect on the whole process.  Well done team, I am really proud of you!

23.08.11

Day 2 of recording our Music Videos.  Wow.  It has been pretty crazy.  We have been recording in the playground, in the hall, by the library, in class, some of us have not even started recoding!  But it has been exciting and motivating.  It is amazing to see the key competencies in play – managing self, relating to others’, participating and contributing, thinking, and using language, symbols and text.  It is interesting to see that the better you are at using the key competencies positively, the better your group will work, the more you’ll get done and the better you will feel!  It is a win-win situation! 

21.08.11

Lights!  Camera!  Action!  You should have all your planning done and all your materials ready to go.  This week we are videoing your Music Videos.  Your group will be assigned one camera, one laptop and one computer.  Make sure to use only these machines so you don’t lose track of your scenes.  This week we are only going to be collecting the scenes so no editing or anything yet. 

15.08.11

Last week we mapped or planned some of our ideas for your music videos.  We spent 5 minutes at the beginning of our session to set ourselves some learning goals for the afternoon – we also set some teamwork goals.  Here are your goals that we wrote down:

    It was interesting that when I brought the video camera out, there were a lot of people who were not following their group goal.  Excellent to see the majority of people working hard and co-operatively to complete set tasks.  I have the video cameras booked for next week!  I am really looking forward to it!   

04.08.11

It has been a great start to term and a great start to our 3rd Stage of our Inquiry: How can we use our bodies and animation to tell a story through music, drama and dance?  It’s quite interesting how our title or essential has changed as our Inquiry has developed.  This week we have researched some music videos and asked the question: what makes an awesome music video?  We came up with this criteria:

What makes an amazing / awesome Music video?

• original have an idea like the OK Go video
• can be based on the song
• facial expression and focus like acting
• lip-sync
• sometimes they can be like the real music video
• keep in time
• don’t over do it - KISS
• Good story line building tension like the Kora video
• A lot of camera angles and changes/colour like the Destiny Child video.

Term 3 here we go! We are going to be making movies! Our plan is below:

underline;”>12.07.11

I am so impressed by the way D3 has been working to complete their parodies.  The people who have finished, I can tell how proud you are of yourself – you are grinning from ear to ear!  Well done!

It has been a very slow process though.  I have only managed to record 3 parodies per day in between teaching etc.  But the process has been very exciting, the rest of the class have been wonderful in carrying on with their own learning and even helping each other with minor problems.

The sound quality is pretty good too.  Check out these finished parodies:

Jack, Grace, Sam D, Alexandra, Jayden, Gess, Sophie, Sam P, Kiana and Bree.

04.07.11

Well last week we were all really focused creating our drumbeats on monkey machine.  Far out, what a mission!  It was a difficult task to complete and I congratulate you for giving it your best go!  But we were working too slowly to meet our end of term deadline for completing this part of the inquiry.  So this week it is time to add our voices to the mix.  Over the weekend I helped speed up the process and sorted out the GarageBand files for you so that you can record yourself.

Sam P was ready to record his and he did a great job for his first record.  The class gave him some specific feedback about them not being able to hear his words clearly enough.  Good advice.  So it will help if all of Room 3 practice singing and pronouncing your words clearly so when it’s time to record, you are ready rock steady!

Lazy Song (Instrumental) by fuse711

19.06.11

Hi, well done to all of you who have been working hard to write your parody this week.  I have noticed that some of you have said in your weekly reflections that it was harder than you thought.  Now all of you have an idea for what you are going to be singing about and you have almost finished your first draft, this next week we will be focusing on:

• Re-crafting our writing: print out your words, glue it into your focused writing book, find song on the server and re-craft your work… Is this what you want to say?  Is this telling a story?  Are you repeating words?  If so you will need to edit them.
• Making the beats for your song: as I showed you on Friday use monkey machine and listen to your song, what is the kick drum doing?  Try to match it on monkey machine, what is the snare doing?  Try to match that too and so on until the beat sounds similar to your song.
• Export drum files as MIDI’s and rename them as e.g. ‘nicversebeat’ or ‘nicchorusbeat’ so we can later import them on GarageBand.

How very exciting!  Please come and talk to me if you get stuck.

09.06.11

After we watched the below videos about parodies we came up with the following:

• Song choice – choose an easy song that you will be able to easily change and copy;
• Current Events – choose a topic that is HOT in the world right now!  Watch the news, what’s going on in the world or in the country?  What event is in contention at present?
• Research – you must have knowledge of topic so you can create a clever, humourous or witty parody.

So keeping these in mind, here is what we have to do:

08.06.11

Have a look at the following examples of parodies: What are the key parts to writing an excellent parody?

Baby:

Fireflies:

Friday:

How to write a parody: