Networked Learning Project Complete!

Five weeks ago I received one of my first assignments for ED 7714, learn something that I have always wanted to learn to do.  As a teacher I am usually the one teaching and my students are the ones learning, now I had to be the student.  The first challenge was figuring out what I wanted to learn.  I first thought of learning piano because I thought that would be fun and I heard that many years ago playing the piano was something required of a Kindergarten teacher.  Then I realized that I didn’t have piano so I had to think a little smaller maybe the guitar.  The next challenge was finding someone who would let me borrow one for the next few weeks.  I was lucky enough to borrow a six string acoustic guitar from a friend.  Then the real challenge and learning began, how to play the guitar.  I viewed videos of “how-to’s” on YouTube, visited various websites, used my new found Personal Learning Network (PLN)- Google Communities on Playing Guitar and then I began to “play” the guitar.

As I have said in previous posts I am not a musical person at all!  I love music and going to concerts to listen to music not play it.   Let me tell you, it’s tough.  Trying to figure out where your fingers go, holding the guitar the right way and then trying to play actual music is tough!

My original learning goal was, learn how to play the guitar.  I wasn’t specific about playing an entire song because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself.  Just a basic understanding of playing the guitar; I thought “It can’t be too bad to learn to play a song”…I was wrong.

I first learned about the parts of the guitars and the history of the guitar, this was important background knowledge to have since I knew nothing about the guitar.  Next I discovered on YouTube a lot of the songs were too difficult for me to learn.  I wasn’t looking to play a seven minute song I just wanted a short nursery rhyme type song.  So I then I found Kids Guitar Zone and found it easy to follow and broke guitar playing into manageable chunks.  I was finally off on my guitar-playing journey!

My last post about playing guitar showed me playing “Mary Has a Little Lamb”, it wasn’t the best rendition but it was certainly to the correct tune.  I learned I needed to hold the strings down harder to get the best tune and to play a little faster.  I was concentrating so much on holding down the strings that my song was a choppy but not awful.  I found it easier to learn guitar using “Guitar Tabs” rather than notes because I don’t ANYTHING about musical notes and the tabs showed me frets to play on the string.  Things got a little bit better after that. 

Image Courtesy: Lesson 2 E “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on 1 string www.kidsguitarzone.com

So when I came time for me to pick my final song to share my newly acquired skill I picked the beginning of a song that I can use my thumb to hold down the strings which makes it a little easier for me and song that I could find “guitar tabs”.

YouTube Smoke on the Water Unplugged

Image Courtesy: Lesson 2 A “Smoke on the Water” on 1 string                                         www.kidsguitarzone.com

I think I will continue to learn how to play the guitar.  It would be great to be able to play songs for my students during our morning meeting.  I incorporate a lot of music into my teaching and actually playing it for my students would be exciting for them and for me.  I will continue to use Kids Guitar Zone website and YouTube channel because they have a lot of songs that I can use in my classroom and are very basic in their teaching which is what I need.  Overtime I hope to learn an entire song and then maybe I can finally go on tour…”Kindergarten Teacher Unplugged”…it’s going to be a huge hit!!

This work by Anne Marie Lanning is licensed under a
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