Wandering in WonderLand…

My friend Kathy Cassidy wrote:

No one has tagged me for this meme, for which I am grateful. I have been tagged a couple of times for other things, but I have never posted them because I always felt that I would then have to tag others at the end, and that feels too much like a chain letter for me to feel comfortable with it. I decided to break all the rules and do this meme anyway.

If you read this, and haven’t done your own seven things, please do. I won’t tag you, but I’d love to read them.  C’mon.  Break the rules with me.

Thanks, Kathy. I like breaking the rules. Here are my seven things.

1. I made white gold wedding rings for my husband and me which cost about $30.00 . Bill and I were married in 1976. Our honeymoon was 8 summer weeks of traveling across the US in a blue Dodge van (complete with shag carpet) camping and hiking in National Parks. We still wear our wedding rings and will celebrate our 33rd anniversary in June.

2. I’ve never broken a bone and now that I’ve said this, I hope I never do!

3. My dad died at age 60 after a six-month fight with pancreatic cancer. His death was 25 years ago, this month and I still miss him. My dad loved participating in our lives when we were growing up. I wish that he could have seen my children grow up. He knew my daughter for 4 short years and my son for only 1 year. I also wish that he could have known me as I grew as a parent, a professional and a person.

4. I don’t like school but I love to learn.

5. I’m basically shy. Although some folks who know me have a hard time believing this, it is true. I have to work really hard to engage in conversations with people I don’t know, “mingle” at parties and feel comfortable in crowds.

6. My first job ever was when I started teaching.

7. I spent the night on a Czech barge and drank Russian vodka with the crew. Between my sophomore and junior year, I backpacked around Europe with 2 other friends. It was “Europe on $5 a Day”. After traveling down the Danube, we arrived in Vienna and could not find a place to stay that fit our budget. We were approached by a guy who said, “I am a kook. You can stay on my boat.” Turns out he was a cook on the barge and invited us to spend the night on board. We had a great time that evening and slept in an unused room. Before dawn, we felt the barge moving. Our adrenaline levels were high as it was not a good time to be an American in Czechoslovakia. We scrambled to the deck, figuring we were headed to Czechoslovakia. The barge was just repositioning in the harbor and as soon as it stopped we “jumped ship” and hurried out of there.

I decided to join in the fun of taking a picture every day for the duration of 2009. Last year, I enjoyed seeing the work of others as they embarked on this endeavor and looked forward to beginning the project in 2009. Although I began taking the pictures on January 1, 2009, I had not found the group I wanted to join. I had several questions about procedures that were answered by Nedra. Thanks to her, I feel ready to go public.

I joined the EdTech 365/2009 group for a couple of reasons. The membership is not large and I didn’t want to get lost in a crowd. Also, many of the names were familiar to me so I felt that I was among friends. Being an edtech group was another factor. I have something in common with the group, a factor that is a help to me as I try something new.

My photos can be found at Through a Camera Lens .

Okay, so it is a new year. How many times have folks set goals, made a fresh start, or set out on a new beginning just because of the calendar change? So I will try again to be a better blogger. Is this truly something I want to do – well kinda, maybe, sorta!  I’ll go back to Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger and try out his suggestions. I’m sure this could help – actually anything could help. We’ll see… only time will tell.

I have enjoyed watching the ceremony tonight. As China’s athletes come in as the final group to fill the stadium, I can’t help thinking about bringing the theme One World, One Dream. Hope for the Future to classrooms around the world.This will be some type of collaborative project for school children. I’ll be working on this project idea and share it with others when it is ready to go public.

One amazing things for me tonight as I watched the Opening Ceremony, was being able to share it through twitter with my network.

As I begin to look ahead towards a new school year, I hope to make this a more active blog. I still have a few things to write about before the summer ends. It has been an amazing summer of professional development. But that will have to wait for another day. Gary Stager, I will reflect about CMK08!

As anyone can tell from my infrequent posts, I do not have this reflective blogging thing down yet. It is easy for me to maintain a classroom blog but I never find the time for personal reflection through blogging. Here is an attempt to recommit and perhaps less time will pass between this and future posts..

During spring vacation, I spent 3 days hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon with my husband Bill, my friend Deb and her husband Dick. Also with us was Deb and Dick’s son and an archeology grad student. The trip was incredible. We were surrounded by awesome beauty. The views took my breathe away. It was a fantastic experience to share the adventure with friends. The trail was steep and rough. At times it was scary. The last day was hard – just plain old HARD- since we were coming out, going up and up and up some more. The switch backs seemed endless and I felt like I was making no progress. And yet, I did it, slowly, one foot in front of the other, sometimes crawling over rocks, sometimes small steps and much resting. The feeling was unbelievable. I felt that I could handle anything now. Nothing was impossible.

As I walked out on the last day, my head was filled with many thoughts. The Voices! I doubted my ability, I questioned myself (”What were you thinking?” said one voice). This was the hardest thing I’ve done. I couldn’t help but think about things that other people say are hard for them and what I think are easy. I thought about teaching and my own practice. For me, using technology in the classroom is not hard. For others, it is frightfully hard – near impossible. I enjoy bringing new tools into my classroom, to find new ways with technology to do regular things. Some teachers choose to avoid these tools or give up the moment things get rough. Maybe my own lesson learned while hiking the Grand Canyon can apply to these teachers. Take a chance, try using technology in your classroom. It may be hard but take it one step at a time, sometimes teeny, tiny baby steps, sometimes crawling in the tough spots, resting and moving forward. Together with the support of friends, a network of people who understand, the task of using technology and helping children learn in the digital age will not be as hard.

Using technology is not hard. Hiking out of the Grand Canyon is hard – very, very hard!

Everytime I make a new connection with someone  through their blog or  twitter or some other web 2.0 tool,  I am thrilled. These connections establish new friendships, bring new ideas to my classroom work and connect me to places I most likely will not visit in real time. There was a time, in the past, when I was growing up, that I had many opportunities to visit other places. I long for those times and yet, my new friends and connections have filled that void.

My father was in the US Air Force and we traveled a bit. We spent a great amount of time in southern California and Japan.  There were always new friends to meet, and they would share their knowledge of places they had visited. Our homes were filled with items that were purchased in countries and places we had lived. We exchanged stories, tried out new foods and learned about the culture of the land. I have fond memories of my first year in high school at an international school in Tokyo. Americans were a minority in the school and although we all spoke English in class, during breaks, native languages were often spoken. What a wonderful mix of sounds. Often, after school, my Welsh friend, Katherine and I would spend hours in her room, with tea and biscuits, paging through her scrapbooks of the Beatles. . During my college years, my family lived in Denmark and Germany. I was able to visit on holidays and vacations. I had a home base in the summer and together with friends could travel around Europe. Those were the days….

Growing up as I did helped me know that I’m not just a US citizen, but rather a world citizen. My family helped me appreciate other cultures, by inviting people into our home and by exploring the areas wher we lived to gain a better understanding. I still have a fondness for the Japanese culture and it’s influence is evident in my life. I also loved my visits to Farum, Denmark, just outside of Copenhagen. There are so many fond memories of places and people from that time in Denmark.

My life is different now. I went to college, taught for a while, got married, had children, continued teaching and all in the same place – New Hampshire. I’ve been across country twice and have visited different areas of the US but have never traveled the world again. Well – not until I connected online. While some would say it is not the same, I know that it is the best I can have for now. And something else is going on… I can take my kindergarten students to these places around the world. Then, they too, can know about other places they have yet to visit and they too can learn to be citizens of the world.

I want to make a difference and I think, deep down, I want to change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but a small piece of it. I try new things and hope that by learning them, I can pass that knowledge and experience on to others.

This week, I shared the new blog I began for the primary level teachers at my school. I was excited by their willingness to sign up for an edublogs account and I look forward to reading their posts on our blog. In doing so, a tiny bit of my world at school may be forever changed. I hope that I have made a difference in the way we communicate at the school.

After receiving the NH Technology Using Educator award and learning that I would have to say a few words, I struggled with what to say. Those people who know me well, probably wonder why. Trust me, I struggled. Should I smile just say thank you and return to my seat? Or should I use my short moment of fame, to try to make a difference? Looking back on that moment and hearing from other, I think I made the right choice. Thank you to people who gave me the positive feedback on the words I chose to say. Of course, I had my Webkinz friend, Spike to give me courage.

So…. I now am taking the next step and posting those simple words. And after this, I may continue what I started in the summer and begin to post semi-regularly to this blog. And if I do, look out!

Here is the “speech”.

It is an honor to be recognized by NHSTE.
Thank you to the award committee for having selected me as the recipient of this award. Being the recipient of this award in a humbling experience.

Thank you to my dear friend and colleague – Sue for nominating me. Thank you for believing in me.
To my colleagues who supported the nomination with letters of recommendations – thank you as well.

Thank you to Bill, my husband for always supporting me in whatever I do. It helps that he is also a life long learner and loves gadgets and trying new things as well. What other couples do you know that go to a National Technology conference for a get away trip for their 25th wedding anniversary and then end up buying Mac Books for each other?

Thank you to my students and their parents who give me a purpose for learning and exploring. I do this for the kids! I believe that my job is to create an environment where they learn how to learn. I believe our students are windows to the future and my job is to help prepare them so that future is the best that it can be. They need to know early on, how to access and share information. They need to connect with the world and build an understanding of that world – and be able to go forward from there.

My message to all of you about what I do is that I really am just an ordinary classroom teacher. If I can do this, other classroom teachers can do this too. Fortunately, I have the support of my administration for our classroom web presence. This is not true in all schools. The Tech Coordinator /Integrator in my school models the use of technology in her practice every day. She is my support system at my school. I can email requests to unblock the sites I need to the Director of Technology at the SAU office and she makes them available. This should be happening in all school districts. Those of you who have the power to make this happen, must do it. And lastly, I have professional development opportunities 24/7 -through webcasts, podcasts, blogs and the fantastic 06 and 07 K12 online conferences. These are available for everyone. Please, take the baby steps down the road that prepares our students for the future. Come join your colleagues in our Blogger’s corner where you can learn about the exciting things to bring back to your schools.

Today I worked hard learning how to stream. I reviewed the content material, asked questions, experimented, hit snags, reset preferences, still had trouble, talked to others, wanted to scream, posted to the forum, took an outdoor break, came back and still don’t know if I can make it work. Whew! As I filled my basket with blueberries, yanked weeds from the garden and enjoyed being outdoors, I had a chance to think about today. Why didn’t I quit and just back out of this new experience. I could – no one is making me do this. And yet, here I am – logged on again. Checking the forum, watching the chat and actually giving someone esle some help. I feel good. Learning is messy and at times it is not pretty but when something works, when you can connect with someone else, the feeling is wonderful. And that is why I’m back.

The challenges here are not impossible. Otherwise, there would be no worldbridges webcasting at all. All the shows on the edtechtalk channel wouldn’t exist. No one said that there wouldn’t be problems to solve and even if we solve them today, new ones will arise and the old ones may reappear. It is this community that makes it possible for me to return. It is Doug listening to me describe what I did. It is Lisa Durff giving her time to host an open house. It is Lee and those wonderful screencasts for Mac users. It is Cheryl Oakes replying to the forum post. It is Lisa P and Cheryl L letting me share my knowledge. It is Jeff who had the vison of what could be. And importantly, it is every one of us, all of us, working together, trusting that together we will figure this out – and we will do great things! What an exciting place to be – this WCA 2.2 . I can only hope to create such a supportive learning community in the F2F world of my kindergarten classroom.

What have I started?