The First Post: Some Deets

Welcome to LIVELY UP YOURSELF! This blog shall serve to educate and inform people about the global impact of Reggae music. Reggae has its roots in Jamaica, but there is now so much Reggae from all over the world from so many different countries. From Germany to Japan to The Gambia, Reggae music serves as a unifying force which brings people of all races, creeds and colours together. The Reggae music stemming from diverse countries across the planet provides us with an insight into other cultures and allows us to explore our commonalities. This blog shall serve as a forum for documenting all of the information gathered to complete the Genius Hour project for the EDBE 8R73 ICT class. The end project is to teach myself how to use the Apple Final Cut video editing software that I recently purchased. My Genius Hour Question is: “Can I teach myself how to use Apple’s Final Cut editing software to create a short film which educates the viewer on the international presence of Reggae music across the globe?” The goal is to create a short film which uses the theme of global reggae as its driving force. Through profiling musicians from various countries, I hope to show the global effect of reggae music in our modern times. I hope to be able to learn how to use the Final Cut software to edit the film and coherently assemble all of my ideas on the topic together in a brief, seamless narrative. I am still brainstorming on a lot of the different ideas that I have written in my notebook (yes, an actual paper notebook, that is my style), but I hope to be able to post the ideas I have for the content of the video as well as the learning techniques that I employ to develop the style of the short film through editing. I would like to measure my progress by first coming up with the principal reggae artists that I would like to profile, and then begin work on the technical aspects of this challenge which imply learning some of the attributes of the Final Cut editing software. I think that if I post each significant discovery in regards to the software, this will demonstrate what I have learned and hopefully by the end of the project show a knowledge achieved through a self-taught learning process. I plan to utilize web content such as videos, articles, photos, podcasts, etc. to develop information about the different artists featured in the short film. I shall also draw upon my extensive reggae record collection to select songs featured in the film. I feel that some of the driving questions behind this project may be:

"What is the impact of Reggae music across the globe?"

"What is the relationship that binds together Reggae music and musicians from such varied countries?"

"What are some of the different countries that Reggae musicians come from?"

"How did this style of music come to be so popular internationally?"

I really like this idea of the Genius Hour project as it is definitely more interesting to come up with one's own idea of a subject than be handed a stock option. This way, students get to pick a topic, challenge or theme that actually interests them. I am really curious to see how these projects turn out and think that this would be a great activity to try with high school students in the future.