Week 3 Thing 6

Lots of learning this week! I've always wondered what all the fuss was about fickr. I'd read about it but due to our Nazi filter at school, I had to remember to get on at home. Without any guidance, all it looked like to me was just another online photo site. Was I wrong! There are so many cool tools. I love the trading card program and can't wait to tell my teachers about it. I know my learning support teachers will love it. I just returned to school for a tech camp and found that flickr is accessible! I can't wait to share it. I don't know if the students can access it because I was told the teachers computers have more web access than the kids but that might be OK. I did come across a few pictures that wouldn't be at all appropriate as well as a link to "girls of flicker" among the third party sites. That's just 1% of the site though. As far as non-educational uses go, I had fun playing Flictionary and Palette Generator is really cool for scrapbooking or decorating.
I really love this class for so many reasons. The main reason is that with so much going on at work and with life, I don't always get/take the time to follow up on everything I read about. I'm an intelligent woman but terms like "mashup" would throw me because I didn't have the time to figure out what it meant. This class is helping me to realize that all I need to do is take the time, sit down, and actively learn and I'll have no problem. With what I learned this morning at tech camp and a little peace and quiet, I was able to create hyper-links in my text!

Mary A. Philson

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Originally uploaded by megsmom11

This is one of Punxsutawney's Phantastic Phils. We have them all over town and I as I was looking through flickr for a cool picture to represent Punxsy, I kept seeing them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the one I wanted, which is my favorite, so I joined flickr and uploaded my sister's shot of my daughter and nephew and me. (At first I thought it was my sister in the shot and was a little worried that she'd be annoyed that such a bad picture of her would be on the web. Sadly, I realized it was me. :( )
The Phantastic Phils represent Punxsy and the business or organization that sponsored them. This one is Mary A. Philson and stands next to the Mary A. Wilson Elementary School. I love it because it is made up of book covers from childrens books! The satchel beside her usually has paperbacks that visiting children can take with them after visiting. She was sponsored by Jeanne Curtis, an elementary librarian for at least 30 years. She's now at our middle school but her heart will always be in the elementary schools.
If you're ever in Punxsy, you can't miss our Phils but I'm not sure if Mary A. is back at her post yet. The weather has been a bit rough on her so she's out for a few repairs but she'll be back - good as new.

Challenges?

In deference to Lifelong learning habit #3, is a problem really a challenge if the fault lies with poor attention to detail? I have spent the better part of the past week tearing my hair out, trying to figure out why no one else seemed to have any problem getting their avatar in the right place and the right size. What was wrong with me? I was dogged in my pursuit of the answer. I Googled directions, I searched Yahoo! endlessly, to no avail. I'm very stubborn and felt proud of the fact that I was turning my "problem" into a challenge. I went to my school and worked with my tech guys, who were even more clueless. Finally, in talking with them and showing them what I was trying to accomplish, it happened, I stumbled upon the solution! I was so excited, so proud of myself. Until 29 minutes ago. That's when, while trying to locate something else, I came upon some very clear and concise directions fot putting an avatar exactly where it needed to go.
In the end, I not only learned how to place an avatar in my blog, I also learned, and had to admit, some truths about myself. I create quite a few of my own learning (and life) problems/challenges and this exercise illustrated this very well. I try to do too many things at one time which causes me to stress out and try to do things too quickly or at a high stress level. That's when directions, etc. get overlooked and effective learning is lost. I need to slow down, breathe, and enjoy the learning process and experience. If I can get a handle on that, I would please not only myself but my husband, family, friends, school nurse, woman who gives me massages when I can no longer move my shoulder... As I said, it's a truth I haven't wanted to admit.

Trying again

OK, I'm losing it. I thought I did everything right. I saved, I really did. Then I went off to find my Yahoo! avatar and after a painful conversation with my six-year-old in which she informed me it didn't look like me because it "didn't have a big belly", we found the plus-size avatars and she was appeased. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it to the blog but when I cam back to the page, the first entry wasn't here, I didn't do it right.
I feel like one of my students, which is great because we all need to be in there place from time to time in order to teach effectively. I brought that up in my first post, which is lost forever to wilds of cyberspace.
I'm also going to have to figure out if there's a way to get some spell check going.

First time out

OK, this is really a bit scary. Does this thing have spell check. It's OK, I can do this. I tell my students and kids that all the time. I think we forget how scary learning can be in a public setting. This will not only help me with learning all the cool tech stuff that seems to come naturally to my students, but will put me in their place for a little while.