ABC Duet

Inspired by recent Burgeron stories Sally Lou makes a photo of an alien.

Met with Little Sally Lou this afternoon for her computer lessons.  This week’s computer classes were all about audio, so we played with audio stuff as well as taking pictures using different effects with the Photobooth app on the iPhone. The alleged alien invasions (Anna Cow’s relatives, The Boos, Don)  being discussed on our site may’ve influenced this one.

I had so much fun with Sally Lou, her dad & mom that I got home too late to make a proper blog post for the family.  How many other Nana’s get to have fun like this with their great-great grandchildren?

The DS106 website has this great thing called the assignment bank where students can find and create their own assignments.  I wanted to do something that we could post to the site. I looked around in the Audio Assignments section and didn’t find much that seemed like a six year old Sally Lou and I could do easily together.  So I created my own.  And I decided to toss my 3 year old great-great grandson DJ into the mix as well.  It’s a mashup duet of the two of them singing the ABC song.  I recorded DJ on Wednesday night, then Sally Lou sang her version this afternoon (Thursday).  With a little help from Nana Lou & GarageBand 6.0.5 they’re now singing a duet.

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The Making Of….

It helps all of us learn by sharing with the rest of the family how we created something.  I’ve found I learn by both sharing my process with others and reading how others have completed their projects.  So here’s what I did to create this delightful duet.

I recorded both children using the iTalk App on my iPhone. The original files were in an .aifc format which I could load into GarageBand but not easily onto this site for you to listen to.  I used the iTunes feature of “create mp3 version” to put them into the format that I’ve post here.  And since our free site doesn’t allow us to upload audio media files, I uploaded them to Rochelle Louridge’s Rockylou’s DS106 Blog site and linked to them that way.

Sally Lou sings her ABC’s

 

DJ sings his ABC’s

 

I tried a couple of different ways to assemble audio snippets: Having DJ simply repeat after Sally Lou; the two of them singing in unison, then a combination of the earlier two attempts.  With my desire to keep it short and interesting to the listener I felt the final attempt with a mix of DJ “repeating” after Sally Lou and at other times singing in unison was my best effort.  Here’s a screen shot of my GarageBand workspace.

I was very pleasantly surprised when their ending segments were almost in harmony.  How lucky was that?

I have a few more audio tracks from this week that I plan on editing and posting later this weekend.  Stay tuned!

Storytelling with Sally Lou

I was excited to start teaching my first “computer” class with little Sally Lou today.  (My great granddaughter on the Louridge side of the family.) Her friend will be joining us a little later in the month.  We plan on playing together every Thursday at 4:30 until the big Burgeron Family Reunion at the end of August.

It is amazing what kids can do if given the opportunity.  She dove right in.  Just like her great grandma Nana Lou.  After her dad asked if we were okay with onions as part of our dinner, (We both wanted to say, “Yuck”, although not to her dad.  We were polite and said, “No thank you.” instead.)  Then little Sally Lou used the Paper 53 app to draw a picture of an onion on a plate. She asked if we could make the onion smaller and place it on another picture with a person on it. (Creative kid!) But ol’ Nana Lou couldn’t figure out which app would help her that was easy to use on the spot. Sally Lou then suggested she could just draw the person in the corner. You can see her drawing below.  She is pushing the plate away with the onion on it and her tongue is sticking out. “Ewww….”

“Eww… Yuck… Onions” (Lady sticking her tongue out and pushing away a plate with an onion on it. Drawn by Sally Lou)

 

Silly Sally Lou turns herself old with the “Old Fart” app. Beard? Pipe? And look at that hair doo!

She also liked playing with the “Old Fart” app. Turning herself and her dolls into really old ladies – some very silly. The app crashed a couple of times on us, and I let her know that’s just the way it is with technology – sometimes it doesn’t work and we just figure out how to get around it.  That’s an important lesson for those Burgerons who are just dipping their toes into the digital media world.  Things go wrong all the time – expect it and move on.

This week’s computer classes are asking us to explore “What is a Story?”. So I asked Sally Lou if she’d like to tell a story about the pictures and I’d record it to post on our site.  She wanted to practice to get it just right. I told her that sometimes your first time is the best, but that I wouldn’t record her until she was ready.  After dinner she felt ready and I loaded up the iTalk app on my iPhone. I didn’t have to teach her about the Story Spine. She just knew how to tell a story.

 

Here’s little Sally Lou’s story about the old lady who wanted to swim, but couldn’t because she was too old.  Hmmm… I’m wondering if I’m  the old lady. 🙂

The old lady that wanted to learn to swim.

Then the woman next door helped her some more and more and more.

The woman next door who helped her to learn to swim.

But then after that the old lady got weak and tired. So she went into her house and never swam again.

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I told her about the other Burgeron Family children around the world, and that I’d try to set-up a video chat for us.  I’m hoping Little Boo and Bella Burgeron might want to meet Sally Lou. Any other family members want to stop on by?

I wonder what the story is behind this one? I can’t wait until next Thursday to find out what the story is behind this one? Any guesses out there Burgeron Family?

 

Recording found of “Betty-Lou of Bovine”

An unknown singer sings the song that Ron Burgeron wrote for the love of his life (Betty-Lou Schaeffner).
As it turns out, the melody and chords aren’t the same as the assumed melody of Yellow Rose of Texas. Ron Burgeron apparently added more drama effect to the last phrases, which fits the fact that Betty-Lou didn’t answered Ron’s love.