Too Much Time on Their Hands

It has come to my attention, via 10 emails, that I have not blogged for a few days. Things must be really desperate if all you live for is reading my useless rambings! So...I thought I'd better post before I receive another 10!

Recently, I spent some time experimenting with something called voicethreads. I know that many of you thought I was just wasting time. I hate to disappoint you all, but I was actually doing school work. Unfortunately, you all were just guinea pigs!

At school right now, I am working on social responsibility with my two social studies classes. The main focus of our unit is the Holocaust. From there we are talking about all sorts of issues. My intent with voicethreads is to start a discussion board with my students. Just like I did in my experiment, I can upload a video or picture and invite my classes to have a discussion about what they are looking at or reading. I think that this might turn out to be a very valuable tool and am very excited about trying it out. That's what I'll be spending my weekend working on.

I know...now who doesn't have a life?????????????????

On Being a Life-Long Learner

Since I began my SFU course in January, I have been exploring the world of the internet as an educational tool. Who knew that there was a world outside of e-mails and spider solitaire! I can't believe all the things I've learned. The only problem is that now I belong to so many sites, I have to write everything down so I remember my usernames and passwords. It would make life a lot easier if I could use the same ones for all sites. But oh no! Some sites want numbers, some sites want capitals, some want my first-born!

Anyways, here's some sites I've been exploring:

• education/glogster


• animoto


• voicethread


• Lit to Go


• Prezi.com


• photo laboratory


• educational blogs


• delicious.com


• google documents


• introduction to podcasts


• wordle


• freemind


• widgets

And the list goes on. Have I really explored these? Of course not! Who has time for that. I've spent most of my time joining these sites; I haven't a clue what I'm doing!!!!!

Hopefully, in the next little while, I'll be able to actually try these out. I'll keep you posted on what I learn! Perhaps I'll even send you links to things like my e-portfolio that I'm supposed to have started!

In the meantime, hang in there! I promise I'll share!

The academic world!

I've just finished reading 80 billion articles on self-reflection and have discovered one thing! I am very tired of thinking! I think I'll reflect on the fact that I need some good sleep and a spa day! Surely by the age of 43, I've done enough self-reflection.

Actually, the articles all have to do with self-reflection of your teaching practice. The articles also dealt with being critical of what you do. As teachers I think that this is a given. I know that I'm not perfect (damn near close to it, though!). There are a lot of ideas I have floating around in my head that I'd like to try with my students. However, it's quite difficult when the resources aren't there.

Alas, I digress...that's a totally different blog!

I have a bone to pick...

I was talking to my mother yesterday. To provide a bit of background, my mom had a knee replacement two weeks ago and is undergoing physio and blood tests, not to mention pain. She's 82 years old. My father, who adores her, is 83 and the most honest man you could ever meet. In my whole life, my father has only yelled at me twice (for which I'll keep secret!). He's a very patient man who spent his working life teaching young men in jail and then through technical school, young men and women, how to do auto body work. He's the light of my life.

Anyways...when I asked my mom what was going on yesterday, she mentioned that my dad was at ICBC because someone claimed he had backed into him with his van and done damage to his vehicle. Now my dad, even though he's elderly, is a very honest man. He figured that maybe he could be responsible so he checked his van...nothing there. Upon further conversation with my mother, I discovered that this was not the first time this had happened. In fact, he had been accused of this once before (I didn't know...but we won't get into that now!).

So, my dad has to spend two wasted hours at ICBC with my mom at home with no help. This is ridiculous. There are actually people out there who are watching for elderly people to blame their stupidity on. I am so angry about this that I'm ready to go to the newspapers about it.

What do you thing?????? Should I????? Or am I overreacting??????

Let me know.

It's snowing again!

I've been thinking about my life as a little girl growing up in Coquitlam. We used to have so much snow during the winters! (mind you, I was a little shorter then!) I can remember building snowforts with my brother and having snowball fights with my dad. We used to strap the old skis on and ski down the hill, right into the front yard. Como Lake used to freeze up every winter and we'd all take our skates down to the lakeside, strap them on and spend the evening as a family on the lake. There would be hot chocolate and shovelling and so many family activities to do. I can remember my dad telling me to 'put the car in third gear as soon as possible' when driving in the snow; I wasn't even close enough in age to drive!

My point is that those were family times. Our snow over Christmas turned into being 'family time'. You couldn't get out to drive anyone to the mall so everyone had to be at home together. The power kept going out so we all had to be in front of the fire, together. It didn't even matter that the ever-present blackberry was clicking away. We were together and that made the holidays special.

I know that this snow is not heavy and will probably turn to rain this afternoon. However, it's giving me a time to reflect on how important it is to take time and be together.