The 20th

Spent a lot of time the last two days working out the details for my TIE presentation. I am now putting it down for a few days and not thinking about it. I will be tweaking for the next week before the day anyhow.
Went to a birthday party last night for a friend's 50th. The kids were at home so I just hung out and enjoyed. I knew practically nobody so I just enjoyed the beautiful evening, cool enough as the sun went down that I needed to stand by the fires they had burning.

Tonight I was back at my brother-in-law's house for cheap beer, elk steaks, potatoes and corn. The perfect summer meal, another ideal weather day! My daughter didn't care that the coloring book was Christmas themed.

June 18th

June 17th

Today my wife went back to Denver to return to work. I am staying here in Gunnison with the kids. Cathy had a headlight out in the car so I went to change it and found 5 more lights out in her car. Her Volvo has 12 lights in the back alone! Got it all fixed and she hit the road. I hung out with the kids all afternoon as they went back and forth to the neighbor's zip line. Rounded out the day with leftovers and watching my 3 year old and her grandmother dancing to waltzes on the vintage Motorola Stereophonic record player.

No Brain, No Headache

Missed a couple of days, so here are two more pictures:

I pulled into town and unloaded the car. I slammed my trunk, forgetting that my trunk bike rack was on it, and it clocked me in the head. I literally saw stars. The reaction from most is, initial sympathy, followed by ridicule.






These two hoods showed up for the barbecue tonight.

My kid's a better photographer than I am

I even took a class once.

June 12

I'm a man with a plan... my plan kind of stinks right now, but its a plan.

Today did an "egg challenge" with my egg allergic daughter. She failed - lots of hives after less than a teaspoon of eggs. We will try again in another year. She is one of the rare ones who is allergic to both milk and eggs at the age of 6. Most grow out of it by now. She was very brave to eat a food that she knew would most likely make her sick.

Worked on TIE plan and cooked dinner for brother in law who is recouping from eye surgery.

My Productive Day

With summer here, I am finally able to relax a little and reflect on last year. More importantly, I am able to recharge and plan for next year. I spent much of this last year integrating technology into my classroom and it has been transformational. At the beginning of the summer, I spent 3 days exchanging ideas with our new batch of Global Learners and then another 2 doing technology PD . I am thankful for the opportunity to be on the "other side" and training. I think that the experience of teaching others about blogs, wikis, Smartboards, has clarified the purpose of these tools in the first place. I am presenting at TIE in Copper Mountain on the 27th on blogs and wikis in the elementary classroom. Aside from that, I am looking forward to NOT thinking so literally about these tools for a while and letting things settle.

How do I check out for a while without going completely off the grid? I stumbled upon a great project that was happening on Flickr that I am going to do my own version of. 366 photos asked participants to take a picture a day for a year (leap year) and publish it to the Flickr group. I am way behind the curve on this one, but was interested in the idea. Hanging out with my kids in the backyard today, I thought that I would do my own version on this blog to keep this thing alive over the summer by taking a picture a day. Why does this belong on my "world learners" blog? What if students did a picture every day of the school year? What if room24 did a picture a day for a year? What would it reveal about our journey? What would it reveal about what is important to kids? What picture would they choose to represent their day?

Today, I had a very productive day. I took my kids to art camp, brought them home and took a nap with my 6 year old on the couch, pushed the swing a few hundred times, went to the library (twice) and had dinner out with the family... perfect.

Reflection on Blogs in Education

Today is June 10th and we discussed blogging this morning. Look and listen to the VoiceThread by Darren Kuropatwa. Read question#5 about the potential benefits of blogging. Which potential benefit do you see having the biggest impact in your classroom? Which has the smallest impact? Are there other benefits that we should consider?

Link to VoiceThread website