Killer! I love this idea of using YouTube and other online resources to learn a skill. I actually taught a “sprint course” at the end of the school year called Learning with YouTube. The school just cancelled the whole “sprint course” thing right before we were going to start it up again after the second semesters exams. However administration and lack of rigor caused the fun courses that teachers got to offer at the end of the year to be canceled. Either way I taught Learning with YouTube, which was fun for the kids as they had to make weekly presentations. These presentations would go back and forth from one practical skill to one not so practical fun skill that they learned via YouTube. It was a blast to end the year learning everything from how to change oil in a old chevy, to how to balance a check book or cook lasagna.
Either way I now get the same chance to learn a new skill and present it to all of you! Awesome! So after many mind boggling adventures of all the weird stuff I could get into I decided to go for a more practical skill. I want to learn how to make inexpensive stage lights. I have been teaching drama to 7th through 12th graders now for 5 years and have put on over 10 major productions. Problem is not the result of these radical performances but the lack of money to purchase professional grade stage lights. After these adventures of learning via the web, I plan on knowing how to fully orchestrate the product/make inexpensive stage lights.
Taking over a drama class was an adventure in itself. I started as an assistant to a veteran drama teacher who had about 20 students. However when the school decided to make me the lead teacher, the class size jumped to 73 my first year and now averages between 55 to 65 year round. I would like to think I am a very organized and systematic manager but what I inherited from the last teacher was a lot of junk. Let me say that again, I had tons and tons of junk to go through and organize. So between the jump in how many kids I had to manage and all the props and tech equipment to sort threw I had a lot to do. The point I am getting to is that I found all kinds of stuff, some bad, some weird, and some good stuff as well. With little to no money to buy proper stage equipement like lights the veteran teacher had made coffee can stage lights.
http://www.nachi.org/forum/f19/folgers-coffe-has-come-out-new-product-43227/
http://blog.thejamesmachine.com/tag/coffee-can/
Photo and lamp by After many productions we have just made due when it comes to lights. My stage crew and I would get into the electric lift and go up and redirect what lights we do have for each show. Making adjustments to direct light where it needed to be. My concern and problem is that we don’t have enough lights and I want to learn how to make more.
So my journey begins to bring IL Drama more lights for our ever growing class. After an essential search via YouTube this is what I found:
So great video right? Yes and No….. Unless something isn’t working with the video, there is no audio explaining how all these wonderful pictures come together. There is no explaining how to make these cool coffee can lights come to life.
My journey continues….
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