Let’s find out!

I wish I had more time. I wish it hadn’t been so many years since I had taken a course. I wish my brain had kicked into gear a little sooner.

I think I fell into every pitfall I warn the kids about; topic too vague, research out of control and disjointed, lack of focus at first and letting things take priority over this work. (Too bad that it was other work for this course.) That and my Long Range Plans and lesson plans at school, not having an aid for the last month and trying to stick to my gym schedule.

I should have been more personal and specific with my topic. I need to get out of the mode that I always have to do something for the good of my students and my job. I need to do something for just me, Dr. Lamb gave me that choice and I blew it. I made it more personal by the final product, but that in and of itself was a process to get there.

I should have paced better, but I am not really sure how I could have done that since every minute was taken up. I felt guilty a couple of weekends when I let John talk me into going to a hockey game one Saturday night. That’s not good either.

I think on my way to and from school. It takes me 40 minutes. I can’t blog when I get there because the blog is blocked and I don’t have time anyway. I usually go to the gym right from school and take my reading with me. I got better at blogging, but it was really hard for someone who was taught to write and rewrite before the final product. Blogging isn’t meant for that.

I sent the almost finished PowerPoint to Karen who writes for a living. She is the daughter who when I sent my rough draft of my Christmas letter out to the kids (e-mail) to see if I had any misstatements about their activities in the past year sent it back to me full of red editing with a little note that said, “Mom, sorry, I write for a living.” She didn’t even give me a chance to edit it. Anyway, she didn’t find too many errors. I probably added a few after she saw it.

I will think some more, but right now all I am wishing for is some sleep.

My project is finished. I had two purposes beyond what I learned from the research. I wanted to do a presentation that would interest people and I wanted to highlight a little that I learned. I hope I did both.

I also thought that it was so close to Valentine’s Day that I would do a take on that theme. It was fun once I got into it.

I looked at a couple of formats but really decided not to try a totally new on, I was overwhelmed enough. Everytime I think of PowerPoint I think of Luke when he was at the Naval Academy. He always talked about “Death by PowerPoint” when talking about his classes. It still makes me laugh.

I hope there is enough movement and distractions in the presentation without being too disjointed. I also hop everything works. We have 2007 versions of all the Microsoft on this new computer programs and they are really different. Even though I save it in the old format, I sometimes loose something. I tried from school today and it wasn’t too bad, but I added more tonight.

When deciding how to present the information that I found, I felt that I needed to show at least some of the information actually in use. If my project was to learn things that I did not know, then I shold prove that I can use them, not just list them.

The fact that it is very disjointed information left me to jokingly offer to do a Crazy Quilt. I gave a quick search for an electronic one that would flip pieces to reveal a skill or cool tool, but I didn’t find anything.

I thought about the movie out called The Bucket List and considered putting this information in the form of my very own Bucket List of things I would like to be able to do. I may still regret that I did not take this method.

I decided to have a little fun this close to Valentines day and write a Power Point Love Story based on personal experience enhanced by some of my new skills.

As I looked at the information I was finding in my search, I found myself in an area of evaluation I usually do not find myself for extended periods of time.

I usually search with primary students or for my own information and since I am not a techno-geek by any stretch of the imagination, I do not usually find myself evaluating information I do not understand in the first place.

I had to make determinations from a position of what my gut told me and in the process had to make a couple of rules to go by.

• No downloads that I could not fully trust. I downloaded Kidspiration, but some of the cool features from websites were out. I was however willing to follow written directions. http://www.technologytrish.co.uk/ppttipspageturn.html
• Websites that had verifiable legitimate connections were prefered over randon people with a site. http://listserv.buffalo.edu/user/user-ref.shtmlor AT&T Education.
• I also had to limit the sites that I understood. I always tell the kids that “You can’t use information that you don’t understand.”
• I also judged information by whether I could use it or not. After all, this is a personal inquiry.

My concept map was done in Kidspiration. I downloaded a trial version of this rather than Inspiration because I work in a K-5 school and I would get more use out of Kidspiration. I have mapped out the basic information I would really like to know more of on an immediate basis. There will always be more to know.

My main topic is things I want to know.

Cell Phone – I want a unique ring tone. Aram Il’yich Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance is my choice. It is the tune used by the Buffalo Sabres and without them I would have never gone out with John the first time.

Here is a NY Times article and blog on cell-phone ringtones that is interesting.http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/a-baffling-new-phenomenon-customized-ringtones/

I do not want a monthly service for a tone of ringtones, I only want one. I didn’t think it would be this hard.

Pictures – I wanted to be able to use pictures to enhance my lessons. According to enGage “Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning.” It is the create and use part that I would like to know more about. NCREL enGage

Every state has Social Studies Standards that cover State and Local history and awareness. In South Carolina that is in the 3rd and 8th grades. There are lots of resources about the state but local information can be hard to come by especially in small towns. That is where the camera can come into play.

The following pictures can be used in the study of local Aiken, SC.

 Shortcuts & Hints - lets me find hidden features within Microsoft Office , listservs, and the internet and the shortcuts to use those sources effeciently.

This was tough for me because I lot of what I wanted to learn was to find things that I didn’t know existed. It’s kind of like the old adage that you can’t ask  a question if you don’t know what you don’t know.

So I asked people questions. Our son, Luke is an A#1 techno geek. Just ask him, Mr. Gadget Man himself. His phone can do more than all the technology in my house. He was semi-helpful. Just because there is a new baby in the house he doesn’t have as much time. Go figure!

I talked to our Tech at school and Mike gave me some direction. Our Technology Coach was helpful with stuff at school, but it is kind of hard to demonstrate Smart Board presentations in this setting. It will however serve me well at school.

Several of our teachers also gave me some good pointers for school. Anne and Karen gave me suggestions, but blogging  and listservs is as far as I will go. I do not need a myface or facebook account.

I did a lot of searching under the terms features, tips, tricks and help. There is so much out there and a lot of it is hard to follow or is poorly organized. I found some very useful information.

Now I just need to organize it better than the web does.

As I read through the explanations of weaving – for the umpteenth time, I see that I have created my own problem here. Annette Lamb tells us that ”In many cases, students are running out of time as they put together their project. Rather than weaving a fine fabric, they create a quilt of unrelated pieces of information.”

Well, except for the fact that all of my information has to do with Technology I would like to able to do, it is not related at all and will be a quilt of unrelated pieces.

That gives me an idea. I can create a Technology Crazy Quilt. We can call it what it is and no one will think I am trying to deceive them!

I was meeting with one of our Kindergarten teachers a couple of weeks ago when she asked me (we’re about the same age) if I had trouble getting things done as I got older. I told her that the one thing that I had become aware of was that I could not multi-task as well as I once could. I find myself telling myself and others, “Just let me get this done or get past that.” Although we both agreed it was comforting to know that we were not alone, it was also alarming to admit that age may have somehow started to infringe on our lives.

I am not sure what it is due to, if it is age. I have considered that when mothers give birth we are given the “multi-tasking” power to keep up with home, husband, children, church, friends, family, work and anything else that comes along. Do we use it all up or does nature just figure that we don’t need it anymore?

My second theory is that we just have too much going on and our brains and bodies are screaming “WAIT UP!”

My third theory does have to do with age. I thought if this (my brain has always worked funny) the other day when I was at the gym on the treadmill. I had done my 45 minutes on the recumbent bike (don’t try to read The Blue Book on one of those) and it was my treadmill day, not my weights day. I had set the treadmill for manual and put in 30 minutes and my speed. Toward the end, the machine slowed down and flashed Cooldown on the display. Well, I didn’t want to go slower so I increased the speed again. That was fine for a couple of minutes until it did it again. Very frustrating! Do our brains and bodies start flashing Cooldown when we get to a certain point in our lives?

I keep asking myself why I am struggling to keep up with these assignments and wondering how I ever got my Masters with all three kids home.

Back to work!

I don’t know what I did different in the two pictures, but Hannah’s works right and the picture of the kids doesn’t. Maybe the enlarged picture of the kids would be too scary!

This was just a quick check… I have to get to school. I usually leave by 6:15 so I better get moving.