Week 14 Blog

Below is a table of my completed work for ETAD 402

Items Required	Completed
Week 1 Blog	Finished
Week 2 Blog	Finished
Week 3 Blog	Finished
Week 4 Blog	Finished
Week 5 Blog	Finished
Week 7 Blog	Finished
Week 9 Blog	Finished
Week 10 Blog	Finished
Mid Winter Break
Week 12 Blog	Finished
Week 14 Blog	Finished
Assignment 1 Text	Finished
Assignment 2 Images	Finished
Assignment 3 Audio	Finished
Assignment 4 Sketchup	Finished
Assignment 5 Video	Finished
GIMP Training Certificate	Finished
Audacity Training Certificate	Finished
SketchUp Training Certificate	Finished
Assignment 4 Embedded Youtube Video	Finished
Assignment 5 Embedded Youtube Video	Finished
Chapter 1 Quiz	10/10
Chapter 2 Quiz	15/15
Chapter 3 Quiz	10/10
Chapter 4 Quiz	10/10
Chapter 5 Quiz	10/10
Minimum of 14 comments on Peers’ Blogs	Finished

This class has encouraged me to push myself further than I normally would.  I really enjoyed the layout of the assignments and how clear your expectations were.  I did not find the workload too heavy, however it was still challenging when learning a new program.  I feel that I did exceptionally well in this class and I really home that the Master's program is fairly similar.

I had some blogs completed late, however I feel that it was a grey area.  This has been my first correspondence class and really liked the flexibility of it.  Thanks Marc for the excellent experience.

Self Assessment

5 Major Assignments                  45/50
5 Chapter Quizzes                       20/20
Blog Entries/Peer Sharing           20/20
Participation and Interaction       10/10

Total                                           95/100

Assignment 5

As I said in my blog, I would like to turn this into a series of video tutorials for my PAA8 - 10 classes and link them to my Google Classroom along with the assignment sheets and the corresponding assessment pieces.  It would be an incredibly large undertaking but I think that it would really benefit my students.

I do think that a tool like this would be great to introduce to students for their own assignments, perhaps in safety videos or presenting alternative building materials.




The process:

I began by creating a script.  I am not much of an artist and I felt that a script would work best for me.  I typed up what I wanted to say and I typed underneath in bold what I wanted to show.  The bold parts made it incredibly easy to see what shots I needed to make.  I feel that was a system that worked best for me.

Once the script/storyboard was created, I began shooting.  I got all of the footage that I needed plus a few more takes, just in case I needed them.  Once I got home, I uploaded all of the data and picked the best shots.  I definitely saw a difference in quality on a bigger screen.

I began to import my videos and chop up what I wanted, in accordance with my storyboard.  At this time, I found a couple clips from bensound that I threw in (Thanks Marc).  I was able to edit the audio in Shotcut and matched to the audio to the video.  While I was playing with sound, I muted the clips that were poopy and brought the volume down on the power tools and the sanding.

Once my video was completed, I exported it and created a new project with overdubs.  The overdubs were completed in Audacity and took an embarrassing amount of takes.  Although it is done, I would like to rerecord(sic?) using my Bluemic Yeti someday if I do eventually create a wood project series.



Self Assessment

Cinematography              25/25
Pre-production                 13/15
Programs                         18/20
Final Product                    25/25
Overall Quality                 15/15

Total                            96/100

Week 12 Blog

Despite what the others feel about the camera angle guy, I felt he was fairly engaging and informative.  I was able to take what I learned from him to compose a multi-angle how-to video.  

For an open sourced video editing program, Shotcut is quite a beast with a lot of options.  I found that once I got the hang of the program, it was much easier to use.  I was getting very frustrated with the program however, because whenever it was doing a "heavy" task, Shotcut would crash.  I see that Germs and Lance were having similar problems.  

Although I was working with fairly large files, Shotcut would be ideal for students that are capturing video on their phones and importing it to their Google Drive.  It seems to be another tool that can be utilized by students when creating choice assignments. 

Working on this assignment has inspired me to create a series of woodworking videos that can be shown to anyone by anyone.  There has been a push for teachers to begin using "Google Classroom" in our division and I have been banging my head against a wall trying to figure out how to use it effectively.  I believe that if I can produce these videos, which would be supplemented by the assignment and its rubric, students can complete their projects wherever they are, whenever they can.

Week 10 Blog

Well, I bought in.

This is my first year teaching industrial arts. When I began, I had project plans created in SketchUp from the previous teacher. As someone who is unfamiliar with SketchUp, I felt deterred from using those plans. Instead, I created plans in AutoCAD because I was a lot more familiar with the program. After I was forced to learn SketchUp and understand the software for this class, I feel much more confident in creating projects.

Right now, my drafting program utilizes AutoCAD and Revit, two programs in the Autodesk suite, which are free under student licensing.  They are fairly complicating to learn, especially for my PAA 8 and PAA 9 students who haven't grasped the concepts of orthographic and isometric views yet.  I found that SketchUp is easier to use and even easier to create presentation drawings for students, compared to AutoCAD and Revit.  I cannot wait to implement it next semester.

Accessibility is huge as well.  As Kyleigh had said in her blog, SketchUp is cross platform.  This is beneficial to education, especially in my school division because we are "buying in" to chrome books.   They are a third of the price of laptops, the batteries last ten-fold and students sign directly into their GAFE account without storing crap directly on the hard drives.  SketchUp can be accessed from anywhere at anytime, which is beneficial for kids that want to work on projects at home.  You can't do that with AutoCAD (well, you can, but I'm not going to get into that).

Enough blabbering about that.

My project began as a painstaking endeavour; John can attest.  I found a trailer in the 3D Warehouse that matched the dimensions of the Flaman trailer.  From there, I researched the legal height of trailers in Saskatchewan without needing a permit.  I then measured from the bottom of the tire to the top of the roof and made sure that it was no more than 13' 6".  I went with a flat roof because that allowed me to maximize the internal space of my tiny home and allow the feeling of "openness" inside.  

I began to feel nostalgic because SketchUp reminded me of the Sims.  Most objects in my project are from the 3D Warehouse, however everything is modified.  The cabinets in the kitchen were the first thing to be modified.  From there, my modification grew.  I went from changing paint colours to manipulating objects.  I took away stairs from the TV cabinet and added shelving; I cut down the ladders and adjusted the colours;  I built the dresser in the bedroom from one small set of cabinets.  I feel that the background is the icing on the cake.  It provides a beautiful environment for my tiny home.  I did not create the background.  Instead, I found a house in the 3D Warehouse and deleted everything that I did not need.

With a project like this, you never feel finished.  When you understand the tools of the program, the possibilities are endless.  

Week 9 Blog

The Design Thinking Model gives students an opportunity to develop solutions to real world problems and make improvements to the tools that they have created.  It allows students to see the practicality of an object while bettering another students' educational experience.


The Model is broken into 5 components:

Empathy - Learning about the audience for whom you are designing. 

Define - Redefining and focusing your question based on your insights from the empathy stage. 

Ideate - Brainstorming and coming up with creative solutions. 

Prototype - Building a representation of one or more of your ideas to show others. 

Test - Returning to your original user group, sharing and testing your idea for feedback. 

Now that I am comfortable with SketchUp, I would like to implement Nichol's Model into my teachings, perhaps in PAA9.  I feel that scaffolding simple challenges such as the tops or the lego challenge are great stepping stones to channel student creativity.  This would eventually lead to innovative designs that would benefit others in a real world setting.

Assignment 4

Hey everyone,

After obsessing over SketchUp for the past couple weeks, I have finally completed my tiny house project.  I began the project by looking at Flaman's trailer inventory here in Prince Albert.  I found a flat deck trailer for really cheap and I "built" my tiny house on it.  I began with 4 walls and customized everything from there.  I felt that I had a better grasp of the program after exploding, modifying and regrouping pre-made objects in the 3D Warehouse.  

Once my home was complete, I found a nice background to place the home on. Although I had to remove the pre-existing house, I am incredibly satisfied with how it turned out.

I will go more in depth on my experiences and feelings about SketchUp in my blog post.

You can access my .skp file here.


Here are my scenes from YouTube:

Self Assessment

Completion                 10/10
Accuracy                     10/10
Visuals in Model          20/20
Aesthetics                   20/20
Scenes                        18/20
Overall Quality             18/20

Total                            96/100

SketchUp Certificate