The Day of the Royal Wedding

So judging can begin here (insert judging)...


I am one of those people who woke up at 4:30 this morning to tune in and watch what was going on with the Royal Wedding. I think I wanted to be part of the experience in a way because I was not created by my parents yet when Princess Diana had got married. My mom she had woken up early to watch that wedding.   Hearing about all the details and background information about the Royal Family and whatnot, I have learned a lot. It was crazy to see how many people showed up on the streets to support these 2 people and their special day. In a way it shows that the country support royals and what goes on. I know the Royal family hasn't always had the popular vote but hopefully William and Kate can turn that around and give the Royal family the image they are so seeking again. So back to the actual wedding. I think I got chills when William came out for the first time in his red uniform to get in the car to make his way to the West Minister Abbey. Then I have to admit I had tears when Kate made the 4 minute walk down the aisle. Her and William were in their own world during the whole ceremony, I don't know if it could have been more intimate for them. I got choked up when he saw her for the first time and told her she looked beautiful. I don't know how much more romantic you could get. I am happy for the 2. I know I don't know them, but I wish the best for them especially since Princess Di did not have such a successful marriage. Okay I could seriously continue on and on about this but I really do need to work on my final project.


I was one of the few people that took part in our final synchronous discussion. It was actually a good topic and I learned several things. We discussed things about social networks and how to use them in the classroom. It was hard to relate because I don't think I would ever use Twitter or facebook in my second grade classroom only for the fact that I think they are still a bit young. I wouldn't be opposed to the idea if I had an older range of students. I learned several things that I was not aware of that you could do with Twitter and facebook. And here I thought I knew everything there was to know about facebook, haha. As the discussion continued I realized there could be several benefits of using both networks in the classroom but you would definitely have to take in consideration the age group that you would be working with and what you would actually use it for. You would have to set up the students with expectations and goals so that you got the results that you were looking for. I would have liked to get the opinions of others as well but maybe I can just by asking around my own building. Great topic though!


As I write this post I realize that I'm probably going to keep up with it even after this class is over. I like the fact that it's working like a journal and it sometimes makes  me feel better when I can get what I'm thinking off my chest and in writing (especially when I have no one to talk to at that particular moment). But it's time to get back to work on our final project. Again good luck to everyone and it has been a pleasure working along side you!

As the semester winds down

Even though the semester is coming to a close, I have a lot of work to accomplish in this final week. Since I'm very new to Moodle, I have been just learning to navigate around the software to become familiar with its features. However, now it's crunch time and I have to start filling in the information that is required for this final project. My goal is to finish by Friday, then if I have any questions to either pose them to the question discussion board or email the prof. I hope to make final changes over the weekend and submit it with plenty of time before it's actually due. I hope this final project is smooth sailing and that I don't want into a bunch of difficulties... I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. I'll also be getting in some final discussion posts, and blogs and maybe even adding some more information to our class wiki. 


Something else I wanted to mention is this past week I participated in our class discussion using Second Life. I thought the experience went rather well. I wish that the presenters would have liked to use their mics and talked, but the discussions still went good using chat (typing) only. I used a program similar to SL last summer, but my avatar was a smiley face instead. I always like trying new things like that because it keeps things interesting rather than the same old. 


Well I'm worn out for the night, and I'm thinking the weather does not help. Whoever is reading this, good luck with your final project!

Birthday Weekend= Success

Yesterday I celebrated my 25th birthday. Now I can officially say that I'm a quarter of a century old, haha. The teachers where I work joke and tell me they don't want to know my age and that I'm the baby of the building, love them! I spent my weekend down in Columbus. I got to spend time with my family and friends and couldn't have asked for more. I am so blessed to have these people in my life and they make life worth living. My kiddies got a little birthday treat from me today and were trying to guess my age, that's always a fun one! I am however, still catching up on my rest so I don't know if I'll post any to the discussion board tonight or work on our last project. I might have to save that for a day that I'm feeling fresh and I still have some brain power left. Today was a long day and I'm just about to wrap up this blog so I can spend an hour or two on the couch and relaxing. I'll blog later this week updating how stressed or frantic I'm feeling about our last big project. Until then, blog away :)

Online Discussion a Success

I wanted to blog a littler earlier but I've been sick. I had to lead a discussion on Tuesday evening about blogging and journaling. I thought that the overall discussion went well. Several of my peers brought up great points about blogging that hadn't crossed my mind. I think that blogging could be a positive aspect for teachers but a lot of ground work would need to be done. Such as the expectations and goals, and what is appropriate lingo. I think it would be smart to start off with a classroom blog then if the students were capable have their own individual blogs (depending on age). We did discuss on the Tuesday discussion about the positives and negatives or blogs in a classroom. But I mentioned that everything has pros and cons but it's up to the person to lay that all out before. 


I look forward to the upcoming discussions. I like doing the interactive discussion rather than leaving posts after posts. I love being live! Haha. Well this is all I really have today for my blog. Brain power is week when sick. Hopefully I'm better for this weekend since it's my birthday Sunday... (crossing my fingers!)

GarageBand saved Me!

Finally I feel that one of my projects wasn't at stressful. I have been going about my projects this time mostly one at a time. This has caused a lot of stress but at the same time that's all my brain could handle haha. When it came to our podcast project I was a little nervous because, I didn't know how I was going to fill 5 minutes. But I managed and it's about 6 minutes and 40 seconds. I felt comfortable about podcasts because that was the topic I made my other projects about all semester. I knew what they were and how to use them. I just had never made one on my own. I sat down to write my script and remembered seeing one of Dr. Ingrams requirements. It had mentioned GarageBand. I totally forgot that I had that program on my mac and was excited to use it. It was so easy and I actually enjoyed the whole process of making my podcast. For those of you who are reading my blog, GarageBand is like Audacity, but for mac users. Just one of the programs made from Apple. This opened the door to podcasts me and I can't wait to make my next one. I think I'm going to take my laptop in closer to the end of the school year and have my students make one for our final project. I hope to add pictures to it then burn it to CDs for them. It will be a great parting gift. I also want to do podcasts for my classroom website so parents can hear about what we are doing in the classroom. I'm glad this project went smooth for me, now I'll be waiting to see what I got for my grade. 


On the other hand, I'm not as familiar with Moodle, so my next task will be trying to figure it out in order to complete our last project. If you have any easy suggestions or thoughts that might help me, feel free to leave them!

Exhaustion is setting in

It has been a crazy, stressful, no time to think week. I'm glad to have finally turned in my website. It was stressing me out. I'm the type that starts to overthink everything then that turns into over analyzing my work wondering if it is good enough or not. I think what I turned in was good. I could probably go back and tweak some things as well as add things over time, but there comes a point when you have to draw the line for yourself and stop obsessing about it. So, definitely feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, for now before I get busy with my podcast. I know I should have kept up a little better with my projects this semester, but I guess being a first year teacher and thrown into also being a curriculum leader has made me really shuffle my priorities around. I think I have too much on my plate right now but I'm trying the best I can to give attention to the things up next and not look so much into the future (day by day type of scenario). I wanted to start my podcast tonight, to be honest my brain has shut down for the night so that will get done Saturday morning and I'm refreshed from the week. I know, already thinking to myself, "Way to wait until the last minute" but as some people say "It is what it is" and that's just what I have to do right now. 


I'm also trying to stay up on the discussion boards, asyncronous conversations, and blogging as much as possible. I want to get the rest of my points and all of them this time. Sometimes I feel it comes down to, losing track of days and not knowing when the last time I posted was. I'm not forgetful but for some reason this semester is just flying by and I don't realize that I haven't created a blog in over 2 weeks when it feels like only 2 days have gone by. I look to catch up on some discussions this weekend, getting my podcast done, and also hoping to get a head start on anything left for the semester. Only a few more weeks, so time to put my nose to the grind stone... alright well off to post a few discussion posts. 


P.S. Changing up the color of my font again. I get bored after so long, haha.

Sunday is not Fun Day

As I finish up some things for my website, I realize I definitely should have continued to work on it when I first started a few weeks ago and kept up with it. I would rather be on the couch relaxing to a great movie or catching up on grading papers instead of finishing up on my website. But on a good note, at least I'm not just starting my website... that could be very bad. As I put my final touches on my pages, there are several things that I would like to do with my website but I don't know how just yet. I'm hoping over time and with more practice I will be able to add a lot more aspects and interactions to my website without stressing myself out. Some of the things that I had visioned for my website did not happen, not because I didn't want them to but because I tried and couldn't get something to work. I hope my grade for this project does not take a huge hit especially since it's my first time creating a website and whatnot. This project was overwhelming at times but I think the next go around will be smoother and will probably be more amped up with me hopefully gaining more knowledge of the potentials you can do with a website. This has been a great learning experience with ups and downs. Hopefully everyone else is starting to finish up their own website and still have more of their hair, haha. I'll be tuning in later this week to let you know how my podcast adventure is going. I think (and hope) my podcast turns out okay especially since my website was all about how to create and use a podcast. Alright well back to touching up my website. I decided I probably won't turn it in until tomorrow incase there are any last minute changes I would like to make or add. Happy blogging and talk to you all later!!!