ITA Session 12/13

In the morning, the students were just adding the final touches or making a few changes to their beats before they had to take their road test. The road test went fine for most; however, Mariah and Lakoye were way far behind the others when it came just about time to leave. I tried to help them as much as I could before we had to start cleaning up and heading to the bus but it was kind of chaotic because they weren't even close to being finished and I wasn't sure what to do with the students who weren't finished with their road test yet. And since I couldn't ask Pacal, he was busy talking to some other students, I just tried to hurry up and help them get finished because I knew we were running behind schedule for the bus and everything. But when AJ came in and let everyone know that they had to get on the bus, he just told me to let the ones that weren't done yet to save their progress so far. Becasue of the running behind schedule, I ended up mising the bus I was supposed to get on becasue I still had to clean up. The two students that weren't done said that they didn't understand what they were doing and seemed completely lost--I think that was becuase they weren't paying as much attention as they could've been while we were teaching the material. We could've done a bit more screen monitoring throughout the semester to make sure everyone was on task to prevent that.

The ITA Luncheon went pretty good I think, and it was my first one so I was pretty impressed with how it all worked out. The only thing I wish I would've done is said a little something at the mic, at least to introduce myself, becasue when I was called up to the mic with Pacal he just did all the talking while I just stood up there probably looking pretty awkward.

Throughout the semester I wish I would've taken more of the classes that were offered at the STS for some of the programs that we are teaching here so I could've gotten a head start on the other programs that I'm not too familiar with for when it came time for me to teach those units. But that's what I plan on during for the spring semester so I can get a feel for the other programs and be able to catch on quickly to them.

Portfolios and ACID 12/6

Today I worked the whole day for the first time. In the morning, I was with the juniors. That part of the day went pretty slow at first because they had to do their Excel Road Tests and since I couldn't help much with that, I had to sit out a bit and got pretty bored. But once the Road Test was over and they started to work on their portfolios, I was able to become more active and involved with the students. And in ACID, the students were just finishing up their projects. Those that finished early just helped other students. I'm not very sure how the Open House Parent thing went overall because there weren't a lot of parents that actually showed up, but for those that did, I think it went pretty well.

12/6 Morning

Morning Goals:
-Look good for Parents

ACID Session 11/22

Today I didn't really do much formal teaching; Pacal did most of the talking and went over some of the effects in ACID that can be used, and what they do, and how they can be applied, etc. He also talked about the Auto Tune effect that T. Pain and a lot of other artist are starting to use more and more, this got the students attention and focus on effects because of how popular the Auto Tune effect is. After he went over effects, the students had work time of about an hour and a half to work on their projects. And although Pacal told them that the projects need to be finished by the next session, some students, like Jasmine and Lakoye, stil seemed a bit confused as to how they wanted to make their beat or what they could add to it. But becasue I'd been working wth ACID a lot more on my own time, I've gotten a lot more familiar with a lot of its features and effects so I felt I was really able to help them with any questions they had or just as far as what all they could do additionally to their songs. But I think Lakoye was maybe the most frustrated this session because of what she was trying to do with her project. She had the acapella version of some ew R&B song that she liked but she kept feeling like no matter what beat she put to it, it never sounded right with the acapella track. But when I first walked over there and listened to what she had before she decided to start over, she had a reggaeton sample playing with the vocals and even though I thought it sounded nice, she disagreed. I think the main reason why she was so unsettled on a beat to go with the acapella track is becasue she was so stuck on what the original beat that goes with the vocals sounds like and so she was getting to caught up with trying to kind of mimic that in a way which was hindering the creative process of putting together her projet. And when I told her that she wasn't really trying to hear me and kept insisting that she find some sounds similiar to the original beat. Along with that she kept asking, what I thought were very little basic things that she should already know by now, about like dragging a track on to the grid; but I tried to help her any ways. But it ind of seemed like she was just testing me or messing with me as a new instructor because after a while of me trying to help her with somne of the most basic ACID functions her friend Mariah had been looking at her and finally said with a little smile "Lakoye stop it." After that, Lakoye started to chuckle and smile a little bit and leaned back in her chair, so it kind of seemed like she was acting like she didn't know how to do anything on purpose to mess with me since I'm the new instructor and all but I don't know. But yeah, other than that little confusing attempt to help someone, the session went pretty smoothly and everyone retook their permit tests at the end of the session, which Pacal said a lot of them did better than before, even though they all passed the first time.

ACID Session 11/8

Today went pretty smoothly. At the beginning of the class we went over the areas where the students had most difficulty with on their permit tests: track properties and track type, the chopper, grid snapping, clipping, and the EQ. The EQ seemed to be the term that some of them found more difficult to understand, so we had to spend a little bit more time on it than the other areas and just break it down further for them, but we were able to cover everything. After the mini review, Pacal went over their test results with them and told them that everybody passed, but that everyone will have another chance to retake the permit test in order to get passing score closer to 90. the majority of the time after that was spent on the students working on their BTW projects. Some of them seemed to really be involved and motivated; however, others seemed to be a bit lost as to the diretion they wanted to go in making their beats. So to help wih that, in addition to us walking aroud the room and seeing who needs help and answering wuestions and giving feedback, Pacal recommended a bunch of websites for the students to go to in order to get some inspiraton of motivation for their projects. These sites had like little competitions to remix songs and offered prizes for the winners. By the end of the session i think everbody had somewhat of an idea as to what they wanted to do with their projects. The last thing we did today was a little learn at UW quiz.

Acid Session 10/25

Today I taught for a big chunk of the time and I think it went alright. One think that I'll probably need to do next time is bring in like a pad of notes or some kind of reminder so that I can recall the same frame of mind I was in, or the same kind of approach I would've liked to take when I was preparing my lesson. Because today when I was talking about panning, I forgot to mention how else it could really be used instead of just as a way of moving then sounds from left to right an that each sound needs its own "space in time" and that if more than one sound is in the same place in the stereo channels, then you might not be able to hear one or more of them because they would be "fighting for the space." I had that in my mind when i was preparing my lesson but when it came to teaching today, I had totally forgot about it. Pacal covered the mastering section of the session and I that went pretty well. Although wehen the students had to do a mixing challenge, they seemed as if they had just forgot everyhting we had went over today and in the last session about mixing or they just didin't know how to apply them. think that had to do with the fact that everything from the last session didn't get covered becasue we ran out of time and so most of te things we covered probably wasn't as fresh in their minds as it could've been. So for the next time we have to take some part of a session on to the next one, a little more detailed, yet sort of brief, review of what we covered last time might help.