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

Week 7 Blog

I, like many of my colleagues, found the Lynda training for Audacity significantly less overwhelming than the GIMP training.  As a musician, I have played around with GarageBand before.  I find that a lot of knowledge that I had for GarageBand can be applied to Audacity.  I feel as though adding effects to a track in Audacity may be much easier.  I suppose each tool is designed for a specific job.  GarageBand is more for music recording, whereas Audacity is more ideal for podcasts.

From looking at the Lynda tutorial, Audacity looks fairly straightforward- make a selection, delete; make a selection, add filter; place your time stamp, generate silence.  

When I was teaching grade 8, I actually had my students 

> Read a Robert Munsch book

> Record their voice in Audacity, save as mp3

> Upload audio to their Google Drive (make public)

> Get link from the audio

> Generate QR code from that link.

The idea behind it was that our Kindergarten students would be able to scan a QR code on a Robert Munsch book in their classroom and follow along with the recording as they read.

For example, here is "More Pies" by Robert Munsch as read by one of my former students.

Although I used Audacity with my students, I did not have an in depth understanding as to how to use it; especially for editing.  I know that this program can be incredibly beneficial in the classroom to diversify your teaching.

Assignment 3