Once upon a time, in a far off world ...

Once upon a time, in a far off world I took a trip to the moon with my family.  Once we got the kids strapped into their rocket seats (very difficult for the baby to have to sit backwards for this journey), we started the engine and blasted off through the atmosphere!  It was wonderful to say goodbye to Earth-away from the everyday stresses of trying to figure out what is for dinner, how to keep the older kid from hugging and smothering (in a loving way) the younger kid, and keeping the house clean and clutter free (not an achievable job).  But when we got to the moon it was a bit boring-bleak, no PVR (therefore no Survivor!), and not a lot to eat-although the baby eats anything organic (and inorganic, including shoes).  So after a few days, we strapped the kids back in their rocket seats and returned back to reality.  And it was Good!

Facebook has its perks!

I've been on Facebook for about 3 years-since our first son was born and we started to share some photo's with our "friends' that lived farther away. I've moved to being more of a "lurker", I think they are called, those who snoop at other peoples pages and don't actually add anything to their own or comment on others. One reason for this is because I noticed that I was privy to what everyone else was doing and saying and posting-something that I like to view myself, but I don't really want others to be watching me in the same way-sounds odd doesn't it! Maybe some people don't know how to use their privacy settings, but I've been able to get into other peoples photos even if I'm not allowed to look at their profiles or view any of their information. Sometimes, you can get to a page by going through someone else's page-very creepy, and I don't really want someone to do that to me!

Social networks for education? I've seen some kids start up facebook pages for their courses-although this tends to turn into a complaints area instead of anything very productive-if they really have a homework question all they need to do is use their cell phone, right? Haven't actually seen a good application for them.

The concerns of course are privacy-or lack of it in some of these spaces-as a teacher it gets difficult to separate work from our real lives! As much as some of these sites boast about their privacy, I don't know if I'll ever really be able to trust them, I still think writing your deepest thoughts in a journal and hiding it under the mattress is a safer idea!

I'll continue to snoop on others using Facebook-some of my "friends" I haven't seen since Grade one, and wouldn't really call them "friends"-not even back then, maybe they should be called "acquaintances" instead of friends-although having 83 "friend" makes me feel pretty important!

I don't even want to think about my kids having a facebook page or twittering-maybe by the time they get old enough to play on the computer these social networking places will be obsolete and they will actually be talking face-to-face with their friends again! If only!

PB works for me!

Okay, so I'm sitting here eating some "Smoken' Stampee Fume" chips, yes they are a bit "warm" but with a tall glass of water, they are tasty. I think I'll bring a bag or two to the picnic, along with the strawberries and chocolate dip too!
The PB Works experience has been fun, I've been playing along with it for a few weeks now and am finding it a lot of fun, although if anyone can tell me how to properly use the "folder" option, please let me know! I will definitely continue to use this application-or maybe one of the similar programs that were mentioned on the excursion 7 page. Since I already use the class portal with all my courses, I am a firm believer in the positive communication link that it provides between school and home. My school parents love the site, and the students use it daily, however I feel the Board Class Portal program a bit limiting and slow to upload and use, so I've been looking for a friendlier program for awhile!
Wiki Away!

Always Something to Learn from YouTube!

The Tooth Fairy Came

My youtube experience isn't lengthy, but I've been here before-even shown a few in class to look cool and hip and to speed up some processes like thigmotropism and phototropism-much more interesting at that speed! So the site is neat (and like most of the stuff on the internet-it sucks you in and you are lost inside your computer for hours). Why is this streaming thing so popular? Convenience? Cheap? Easy (if your connection can handle it)? I like it because some scientific concepts are expensive to conduct, take too long to conduct, fail easily, are too dangerous, or occur during a time in a semester where I'm too busy to think about finding the equipment located throughout the department. I use youtube on my class portal as well-and I'm trying to decide if this is "legal"??? Or am I heading to internet jail-I'm sure I'll see some other fellow travellers there too. I guess I need to search for that "PPR" next time-great, more time wasting adventures!

So here is the video I've found for your enjoyment. The tooth fairy made her first visit at our home yesterday, at 8 months of age this is a free visit of course and this video is something that I'm sure will be played out in our home soon too. It's cute, it's a bit painful, and it's reality, Enjoy!

Picasa-Picasso it's all the same to me...

Okay it's a neat site (Picasa), and the tag thing is neat too. I was able to send a picture that had no tags-not sure if that means it was recently posted or it was such a boring picture of an orchid float at the Blomencorso parade that no one even cared about it. A bit sad if the latter is true. Picasa itself is neat, but again you start searching and one thing leads to another and time flies by! I've used this site in the past. At Christmas I was making a calendar for my parents of a collage of photos of their grandkids for each month of the new year and required my brother to send me more photos of his kids. It was easy to pull off his photos and then put them in the calendar I was making. However the fact that the pictures are not really secured and anyone can look at them is a bit creepy-you never know!
I may use it again, however many pictures are copyrighted so I'll probably just use it for interests sake!

Alright-are those hyperlinks annoying or what? I can't focus-(we've seen this in an earlier post), and I can't stay on focus on these blog postings. I feel like I'm in one of those "choose-your-own-adventure" novels that I used to enjoy reading in grade five. I keep clicking on the hyperlinks, read a bit, and click on another link, and keep moving further and further into the great wide web. A crazy, usually waste of time, clicking adventure-at the end time has moved on, but my listed of things to accomplish today hasn't decreased at all! Hypertext for the students is probably as distracting for them as that annoying kid tapping their pencil on the desk during a lesson is for me! But maybe this multitasking generation can handle it-I can't, and I am woman enough to admit it! I can see how the hyperlinks can enhance the teaching experience as well as the learning experience by having everything in a seemingly compact area-making it look like there isn't much to learn-tricking students is fun! But again-distraction, distraction, distraction is all I can say for myself!!! I find typing these blogs takes long enough, searching for an appropriate hyperlink too is time consuming and then dealing with losing my wireless internet connection every few minutes is getting more frustrating by the minute!!!! It's friday night, one kid has a cold, the other is teething (I hope), both are cranky and thankfully in bed, which is where I'm off too-once the internet connection works and I can post this blog!!!

Science Geeks are our Friends

Alright, so I'm trying to add...is it called a "hyperlink", I am so out of the loop-but I guess that's the purpose of this journey. Us science geeks like to explore other "cool" science sites, and now that this blogging thing is looking promising I might as well "link" to other places I'm exploring-for future referencing! So here is a cool one using brainteasers. This post is taking me a while to write since I keep going to the neat site and exploring it! I don't know if this blogging thing will be useful in the classroom because I think if the kids are like me, they will very quickly forget what they are supposed to be doing! Here is another good site, I've used the ideas from here for my essential courses: experiment of the week.
....okay, it's been another 20 minutes of being off in left field-what am I doing, focus on what you really needed to do tonight Isaaleroo! .... another 15 minutes wasted-focus, focus---another cool site for 4U bio teachers-oh wait it's some other teachers blog-can I send my students there? Or is that not really allowed? It would be so much easier though-I'll have to think about the ethical issues surrounding that idea.
I'm off to do some school work that I'll hopefully one day get paid for!

My favourite trip

Just got back three days ago from a great trip to Disney, had a great time with the kids. Lots of sun and a lack of people at the parks made the trip that much more fun. Next time though I'd like to do my dream vacation of a backpacking hike on a deserted island somewhere in the tropics-without the kids of course!
Travels in E-ducation-this is an opportunity for me to do something constructive during my maternity leave-it beats changing diapers, mopping up spit and playing cars on a floor mat! This is MY time to "chat" with adults!!!! Thanks for the opportunity!