Good Morning,

This the first day of my real summer. My summer school class is over. I taught beading, the girls did beautiful work, some is posted in my wiki.
Also, I have finally recieved my book and am starting to read and catch up with the threads and some of the "stuff" is making a lot more sense since I have read the book.
In a couple of wweks we are hosting a party for my husband's graduation from WCTC. We have never been ones for worrying about what our house and property look like, in other words a mess-so we have some major cleaning to do here.
I have committed myself to at least two hours a day on the computer, just to catch up and start forward thinking.
What a beautiful day.

Today I was setting up my RSS. I had a little problem getting it to confirm that I exist, but once I had that I was good to go. I put in a few links that I had found. I still haven't found what I am looking for in terms of a library type blog, but will keep looking. Then I checked a few interest areas and ended up with some blogs on investing. I have wanted to understand more about investing, so now I can have many places to look about investing on my RSS. Which I will have to hold off on until I finish this class. I am a very linear thinker, so this class has been, so far, very hard for me. I can not jump from place to place, and stay focused on the task. I was reading someplace that because our synapses are formed early in life, we older persons have a hard time adjusting to the "new" way of thinking. We can get it, it just takes longer and goes on a different path in our brain. Anyone find a cool site about librarians? I can see where this feed will be very useful. I am already thinking about post class use for a RSS in my personal life. As for school, well that will be in my paper!

I just received my book so am trying to catch up on the homework, and had posted some replies to threads.

Teaching with Technology

Finally I found a site that looks useful to all of us.
100+ Resources for Teaching Without Textbooks
http://www.teachingtips.com/blog/

This afternoon I was trying to find some blogs that interst me in terms of library information, but I must be searching wrong, because I wasn't very successful. Then I went looking for list servs for librarians and there is a nice website listing some of the most popular listservs

http://www.rpls.ws/Links/listserv.htm

Back to looking for blogs

Recipe up but not running

This afternoon our study group had a very productive meeting. Having two English majors in my group really puts the screws on me as I spell atrociously (had to use spell check on that one).
Anyway, I posted my recipe in Recipe wiki, but I could not get it formatted correctly. In the process I had to type it in three times. The last time I typed it in Word first and copy and pasted. Wasn't smart enough to do that after the first false start!
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Creamy_Peanut_Butter_Pie

Wikipedia lowering test scores?

Found an article about test scores and Scotland, and how they are blaming the overuse of Wikipedia.

http://news.scotsman.com/education/Falling-exam--passes-blamed.4209408.jp

In someone's blog they invited us to share our favorite poem. I ran aross the is one when I did my clinical in 7/8 Language Arts. The students had to do a poetry book and includes a variety of types of poems. This one just spoke to me:

Langston Hughes' Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor
--Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

This (see light bulb above my head) would be a great way to bring a wiki or blog or web page into the L.A. classroom, have the students do this on the computer, with links to poetry pages,etc. I haven't thought how this all would work, but at least my mind is slowly starting to think in a new direction!

Another beautiful morning

Good Morning,

Entertainment weekly's new issue has a rating of the "classics" of the last twenty five years. Pulp Fiction is ranked number one. I am a big movie watcher, but some genres are completely off my radar screen, such as fantasy and horror flicks. Anyway, what are your thoughts?

Good Morning,

What a string of beautiful days.

This morning I went looking for sites that might be useful for asepecical ed. classroom teacher. I found one that might be of interest. Which I will incorporate in my wiki, but the best site I found was super factory. http://www.superfactory.com/content/tours.htm tours of factories , which I love to watch, like on Mr. Rogers. The best though is a tour by Red Green to a duct tape factory!

Now I am heapping out to the beautiful outdoors. See ya.

The garage is an on going saga. Yesterday we had a carpenter look at the building, basically he wanted us to do much more than we wanted to do and many more dollars, of course. So, my husband and I thought about it over night and we aren't going the cheap route, but we aren't going the expensive route either. The carpenter ask us how long we want it to last and I said it was our son's problem not ours, because we won't be using it for many more years. We figure that in all reality if someone wants a really nice garage, they will add it on to the house, which can easily be done, but we don't have the money for that.

In a couple of weeks we were going to have a neighborhood party for my husband's graduation from WCTC, just as we were about to hand out invites our new neighbors with a new house stopped in and handed out invites to their neighborhood party, ON THE SAME DAY AS OURS. So, for a neighborhood that has a party about once every five years, we are going to have two on the same day, actually we are moving ours to a later date, so the neighborhood can party all summer as there is another one in the end of Aug.

Anyone out there a big summerfest fan? What do you think of it now that you are a little bit more mature. Honestly, I have that small town mentality that I am not quite sure of the big town safety. Would like to go hear Rush, though.

Good Morning,

This summer, as last summer, I am teaching a beading class (making jewelry with beads) for students in 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Like any classroom there is a variety of skill levels. But on the whole the girls make beautiful projects. They put together the most unusual colors and get wonderful results. On the home front my husband and I are doing a roofing project, on Tuesday night after I talked to Louie we ripped all the shingles off, it was a good release of tension, as it is obvious that I am not understanding this stuff. The garage was built by my husband father and grandfather, they even cut the wood to build it. We are going to put a whole new front on it too, so we can actually put vehicles inside.

My husband Gary and I have farmed on the beautiful Horicon Marsh for 30 years. We were dairy farmers, but 2 years ago got rid of the cows and now crop 320 acres. We grow hay, corn, soybeans, and wheat. The crop prices are very high this year, as you can tell by food prices. But don't blame that all on the farmers as there is about 10 cents worth of wheat in Wheaties. What I am saying is, is that the shipping and processing is what mostly is driving up prices.

This past year teaching HS CD was challenging, to say the least. I am not trained in special ed and there was no written curriculum. The classroom functioned on about a 3rd or fourth grade level. I have great appreciation for the people that teach special ed. There are a lot of jobs out there for special ed. waiting to be filled, because it is a burn out type of job.

Up and running

Thanks to Louie I am up and running-stumbling actually-into this course. The class I was going to take was canceled and the school did not tell me. So Louie was nice enogh to let me into this class and just spent 2 hours working with me to try to catch me up to you guys. This class may be a challenge to my non technical brain, but Louie sounds like he has infinite patience, which I will need.