Flying High

10-26-08
I am expanding my horizons. I am on an airplane using a computer. A “first” for me. Before leaving home, I downloaded a number of the MILI “23 Things” to my desktop and I am reading them here, where I have time and no distractions. It is 6 AM EST and I am not sure my sleep seatmates are too pleased with me, but I am feeling very smug.

I’m now an hour into the flight. I read 3 of the “Things” documents and kept cutting and pasting into a Word document. It has been interesting, informative and just a bit frustrating. I am amazed at how I take for granted that I can log on to the Web whenever I want. I want to RIGHT NOW, as I did not put enough of the linked pages onto my desktop before the flight! Kevin Hodgson’s Darfur project with 6th graders—how inspiring! I want to check it out as soon as I get home.

By the way, the reason I am traveling was to visit my ailing, aging parents outside of Boston. A sister from North Carolina and another from Albany, New York joined me. We haven’t seen each other in a year, and that time we had very extended families with us, so this visit was quite different. I pulled out this laptop to use YouTube to share videos of my grandchildren. The 3 sisters ended up sneaking into the kitchen where we shared outrageous YouTube videos our children had shared with us. Picture three
50-something year-olds laughing until tears ran down our cheeks, trying to croak out “Don’t wake Dad” in a cautionary whisper, but not being able to get it out for the laughter, and our poor mom, in her 80s asking if she can come into her kitchen. So we invite her in and she starts with the “I can’t hear” and “What are they doing” and the sisters collapsing again. It was a nice visit. Back to MILI

I added a blog by a non-MILI participant to my Reader account. I have sent him comments and communications. It was fun to send him an article that I read in an online publication and have him blog about that! Turns out that he had interned with a contributor of the article. Small world.

Interesting side note—When I put the download on my desktop, each page came with a folder of the pieces, the files, from the web that created the page, so there is a listing of gifs and jpegs and such. I did not have time to open the folders before the flight, so I thought the folders might contain more of the documents. QUESTION: what is a widget?,

next time

I started this blog entry in October. Found this draft and others when I logged in today, so I might as well tweak and publish them.
These were the things on my mind:
Dr. Green's initiatives
23 Things
Reader working?
Paranoid--who are the 3 followers
family blog--only works if log in able and want
smart boards and Promethean Boards

I find that here in May, I am still thinking about these things:
What is the Big Picture for the school district and how long will what is currently being given importance last?
How can I learn the MILI 23 things?
When I logged into my blog, there were "3 followers". That freaked me out!
I had set up a family blog, at the pleading of 5 siblings. No one used it!
We were swamped with the gift of new technology by the district and the thought of trying to master it, the new job and the 23 things was stressing me out.

Technology on my mind

It's the statewide teacher staff development weekend and I have technology on the mind. I spent Thursday working on the school Website. It is woefully out of date. It was wonderful to sit for a long span of time with folks who where right there to answer questions. I also felt like such a Pro, as I was working on my own laptop. I actually cannot express how much fun this has been, having my own computer. I really am doing more work at home. Wait, perhaps that should not be fun! Anyway, I learned that although there are parts of the Website that are not seen because they are "off" or password protected, a Google search WILL bring these things up! So I am getting paranoid. I MUST go through all layers of this high school website and bring it up to date. But it will take an eternity--and new current things will be happening every day, too.
With that in mind, what should I be working on this beautiful Sunday afternoon? My top choices are this blog, a Student brochure/orientation handbook that I MUST get done, one of the "23 Things", or the school Staff handbook which was given out with absolutely next to no correct information about the media center--including the names of the staff
I think I'll take the dog for a walk.

I feel like such a Grandmother

Was at the family gathering this weekend and the buzz was about Weezer's YouTube video for Pork and Beans. It is a catchy tune that shows classic famous YouTube people involved in this video and the band involved in the videos that made these people folk heros on the web. Did I learn things--mentos and coke, who knew? It was fun to watch, to talk about, to enjoy --but also to realize that I was the only one who needed to be told why and what each association was. All the 20 somethings and young people in their 30s knew this--had watched these videos from day one. So that was my "a-ha" for the weekend.
I also learned that if I log onto Gmail in 1 account and start blogging, open another window and log onto my other gmail account the machine automatically closes the 1st gmail account and I cannot save the posting. It's the little things that mean a lot!

Interesting look at Web 2.0

This blog's look at a Tiger Woods ad pointed out a fun clarity about Web 2.0. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hope I find the perfect student to share it with, too
http://www.bigmethod.com/blog/