Sunday, October 24, 2010
W4 Reading
I kept on reading this week in anticipation of writing a Literature Review. I have found the some of these articles, while they initially looked good aren't going to be a big help in my AR project and I will have to so some additional searches. Also, I have the folder option on EBSCO host working so I can save all my research there as seen below from this weeks reading summaries:
Friday, October 22, 2010
W4 - Final Video AR Project
In this video I provide a brief overview of my Action Research project and invite you to join-in.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
PE6 - Doing Multiple Takes in Garage Band
For PE6 I was going to do a video on how to make a techno song in Garage band, but unfortunately it didn't work so well. Instead, I am going to show you how to do multiple takes in Garage Band. This is excellent for improvising a part or recording a difficult part again and again until you finally get it right.
This is a hidden feature that is not available on any of the menus and you have to do some setup to make it active. It works for all instruments as well as vocals. Enjoy!
This is a hidden feature that is not available on any of the menus and you have to do some setup to make it active. It works for all instruments as well as vocals. Enjoy!
Monday, October 18, 2010
PE5 - Mastering, (re)Mastering, and Controlling Your Final Sound in Garage Band
Ever wonder what "digitally remastered" means? Want to know how to control you sound profile in Garage Band using mastering? If so, then this video is for you. It took me awhile to truly understand these concepts. If you are planning to do anything serious with Garage Band you will need to understand mastering and the compressor to get "your sound". Watching this movie in HD will give you the best sound quality.
If you are interested in dynamic range and the "loudness war" this is a video which compares and contrasts older recording to digitally remastered recordings. However, everyone is using compressors now (including radio stations) so all music is basically loud with little or no dynamic range.
If you are interested in dynamic range and the "loudness war" this is a video which compares and contrasts older recording to digitally remastered recordings. However, everyone is using compressors now (including radio stations) so all music is basically loud with little or no dynamic range.
PE4 - Adobe Contribute CS5 - Blog Manager Software
I haven't done much with the Adobe CS5 Suite so this week I thought I would dig around and see if I could find any lesser known useful Adobe tools. Currently at FSO, we use the Apple iWeb application for managing our AR website. Adobe Contribute is similar to iWeb and is designed for for managing blog sites like Blogger where you are currently reading this blog post. Adobe Contribute can even replace iWeb.
To begin I started up Adobe Contribute CS5 and created a new "Blog Connection"
Adobe Contribute is a generic blogging tool so I specified that I would be connecting to Blogger. Adobe Contribute can also connect to WordPress, Mobile Me, and TypePad.
So far so good.. I entered my username and password and successfully connected to my Blogger blog site. Next, I tried to pull up an existing blog page (BP11) where I would make a simple change. It took Blogger nearly 60 seconds to retrieve and display the page. This slow response was perplexing so I performed a quick check of the machine and Internet connection and everything seemed nominal. To make sure this wasn't a anomaly I tried the same process again with the same slow results.
After making a few simple edits to an existing page (BP11) for test purposes I decided to publish my changes back to Blogger and received this perplexing error message. How could the images, audio, or video files not be unsupported? I didn't add any audio, video, or images to my post and simply added a few lines of text. Bravely I clicked "OK" to find out what would happen next.
This is where things started to get even worse. For some reason this edit created two RSS Feed updates with the subject of "##TITLE##" and the content of "##CONTENT##".
Thankfully, these strange entries do not appear on my main Blogger page so this must be something internal to the process which Adobe Contribute uses to update pages. This is where I decided to stop my exploration before something really bad happened and destroyed my Blogger site or corrupted the RSS feeds of my followers.
Before admitting defeat, I did a quick check for software updates and none are currently available for Adobe Contribute. This tool has ample training material available in Lynda.com so I reviewed the blogging videos just to see if I made a misstep. Unfortunately, I could not find anything that I had done incorrectly. I was really looking forward to a good experience using Adobe Contribute CS5 so that I could work-offline and have an application to manage my blogs. Unfortunately the simplest of tasks are slow and produce warning messages and strange RSS feed messages.
If anyone of my followers is using Adobe Contribute CS5, I would like to hear from you and learn if I am using the tool incorrectly or if this behavior is normal. In any case, this post was written with the editor on the blogger website and not Adobe Contribute CS5.
A wise philosopher once said, "It is better to learn from the mistakes of others since you may not live long enough to make them all yourself."
To begin I started up Adobe Contribute CS5 and created a new "Blog Connection"
 |
| Adobe Contribute Creating a New Blog Connection |
Adobe Contribute is a generic blogging tool so I specified that I would be connecting to Blogger. Adobe Contribute can also connect to WordPress, Mobile Me, and TypePad.
 |
| Connecting to a Blogger Blog |
So far so good.. I entered my username and password and successfully connected to my Blogger blog site. Next, I tried to pull up an existing blog page (BP11) where I would make a simple change. It took Blogger nearly 60 seconds to retrieve and display the page. This slow response was perplexing so I performed a quick check of the machine and Internet connection and everything seemed nominal. To make sure this wasn't a anomaly I tried the same process again with the same slow results.
 |
| Editing a Blogger Blog with Adobe Contribute |
After making a few simple edits to an existing page (BP11) for test purposes I decided to publish my changes back to Blogger and received this perplexing error message. How could the images, audio, or video files not be unsupported? I didn't add any audio, video, or images to my post and simply added a few lines of text. Bravely I clicked "OK" to find out what would happen next.
 |
| Warning Message when Publishing a Change in Adobe Contribute |
This is where things started to get even worse. For some reason this edit created two RSS Feed updates with the subject of "##TITLE##" and the content of "##CONTENT##".
 |
| Strange RSS Feed Messages Generated by Adobe Contribute Publishing |
Thankfully, these strange entries do not appear on my main Blogger page so this must be something internal to the process which Adobe Contribute uses to update pages. This is where I decided to stop my exploration before something really bad happened and destroyed my Blogger site or corrupted the RSS feeds of my followers.
Before admitting defeat, I did a quick check for software updates and none are currently available for Adobe Contribute. This tool has ample training material available in Lynda.com so I reviewed the blogging videos just to see if I made a misstep. Unfortunately, I could not find anything that I had done incorrectly. I was really looking forward to a good experience using Adobe Contribute CS5 so that I could work-offline and have an application to manage my blogs. Unfortunately the simplest of tasks are slow and produce warning messages and strange RSS feed messages.
If anyone of my followers is using Adobe Contribute CS5, I would like to hear from you and learn if I am using the tool incorrectly or if this behavior is normal. In any case, this post was written with the editor on the blogger website and not Adobe Contribute CS5.
A wise philosopher once said, "It is better to learn from the mistakes of others since you may not live long enough to make them all yourself."
Saturday, October 16, 2010
W3_Reading
This was the focus of my reading this week:
Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges . By: Hricko, Mary; Howell, Scott. Information Science Publishing. 2006 372 pp. (ED508842)
Online learning is one of the most important topics in distance learning, but practitioners and researchers have experienced difficulty in defining the process. "Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges" approaches the topic by finding a common ground to properly analyze online assessment and measurement. "Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges" explores the development of online assessment and the way practitioners of online learning can modify their methodologies in the design, development, and delivery of their instruction to best accommodate their participants. It acts as a handbook for educators, trainers, support staff, librarians, human resource managers, and anyone interested in online assessment.
Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges . By: Hricko, Mary; Howell, Scott. Information Science Publishing. 2006 372 pp. (ED508842)
Online learning is one of the most important topics in distance learning, but practitioners and researchers have experienced difficulty in defining the process. "Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges" approaches the topic by finding a common ground to properly analyze online assessment and measurement. "Online Assessment and Measurement: Foundations and Challenges" explores the development of online assessment and the way practitioners of online learning can modify their methodologies in the design, development, and delivery of their instruction to best accommodate their participants. It acts as a handbook for educators, trainers, support staff, librarians, human resource managers, and anyone interested in online assessment.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
PE3 - Garage Band - Getting your Compositions and Music Out (Part 3/3)
In this practicum I learned that it is extremely easy to get all sorts of media into Garage Band and even compose using a MIDI keyboard. But this made me wonder, was Garage Band like "Hotel California" where you can checkin anytime you like but you can never leave? What are the options for moving things out of Garageband to share and remix? It turns out that Garage Band offers nearly every option a audio enthusiast or musician could want.
After you are done with your composition, you can send it to:
For those working with MIDI files, Garage Band will even let you output sheet music. Is this exciting or what? Now I can finally finish my Cello quartet, broadway musical, and opera. Garage Band is more than just a drag and drop loop remixer. It is a full featured studio program and I haven't even tried using a guitar or microphone. I wanted to try filters and create an autotune filter and then sing a song, but there's always next week. The sheet music I printed for the Happy Song in Part #1 shown below.
 |
| Garage Band Export Options |
- iTunes
- a Ringtone for your phone
- a PodCast
- an MP3 (Export Song to Disk)
- or to a physical CD
For those working with MIDI files, Garage Band will even let you output sheet music. Is this exciting or what? Now I can finally finish my Cello quartet, broadway musical, and opera. Garage Band is more than just a drag and drop loop remixer. It is a full featured studio program and I haven't even tried using a guitar or microphone. I wanted to try filters and create an autotune filter and then sing a song, but there's always next week. The sheet music I printed for the Happy Song in Part #1 shown below.
 |
| Musical Score from Garage Band |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)