Auntie Em, there's no place like home!

So two weekends ago I went back to visit my parents in Michigan.  This was the first time I've been back there in 3 years!  They come to visit me here and we travel to Arizona once a year to visit them in their snowbird home.

But going back to Michigan was awesome.  My parents are getting ready to sell their house and downsize since they are retiring.  The last time they moved was 15 years ago when I was a senior in high school.  The task for the weekend was to go through dozens of boxes that we packed up 15 years ago and moved into the basement in their current home.  Most of these have not been opened since then!

My brother (Brian), who lives in Oregon also made the trip.  We all had a blast going through all the memories, and then throwing most of it away.  I used my iPod to take tons of photos of things I want to remember, but don't need cluttering up my (or my parents') house.

The weekend was especially awesome because Brian and I had a lot of time to hang out without kids and spouses.  We are very close friends and it has been a while since we've had time like that together.

I also went to see my mom teach!  She is a law professor in her last term of teaching before retirement.  Between her years as a high school English teacher and later a law professor, she has been teaching for nearly 45 years.  I have never sat in on a class with her before, and it was awesome to see her in that role.  She is such a natural and engaging instructor.  In many ways, I can see where I get my style, even though I've never actually watched her before.  I was mostly struck by the way she engaged students in a rich Socratic dialogue about some seemingly mundane material (wills and estate law).  The students were talkative, reflective, and making connections.  I attribute a lot of this to the way my mom framed the experience.

Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, we went to Angie's parents' house (my in-laws).  LOTS of turkey, warm beverages, and mindless television.  Oh yeah, and other people to watch our kids!  I had planned to blog over the weekend and get caught up with some coursework, but the in-laws' internet was out, so I took an extended forced vacation from the tech world.  Although I did play quite a bit of Angry Birds Rio.

Well, that's all for now.  Looking forward to seeing our cohort family next week!

Head Above Water

I am struggling a bit to stay on top of work, school, family, life, etc.  There are lots of awesome and amazing opportunities and responsibilities at play, but only so many hours in a week.  So, amidst this I'm trying to keep a rhythm with my tech posts, and it is coming a bit more naturally, but I still need to remind myself.  I am really looking forward to some face to face time with y'all this weekend!

Breakthrough!

So I had a great breakthrough with Moodle this week. I spent about 12 hours playing around with it during the past 4 days. I crossed that threshold from feeling like I'm searching every time I want to do something, to really understanding the basic functions and how/where/when/why to use them.

On top of this, I created a Moodle site for my UMD Seminar section. Prior to that, we were using the generic student resources site created for all sections, but that was cumbersome and confusing for students to navigate. They were excited about our class site and are now much more enthusiastic about using it.

Triumph of technology as totally useful tools!

Winter is in the air....

So it has reached that time of year again, when each morning I awake and start a fire in the wood stove. We only burn for the morning, then let the coals die down as the sun hits the south-facing windows, say 10:30 or so.

The cold weather makes it slightly more enticing to sit inside and fiddle with my computer, although I'd pretty much always rather be outdoors. But as the sun and the new moon are setting almost simultaneously and my kids are in bed, I thought I'd write a bit.....

My tech journey has been pretty uneventful. I installed the new Mac OS X, the Lion (Rawr!). It has some cool new features I am just learning how to use. Mostly, I like the faster everything. Downloading, web surfing, file saving, etc. are so much quicker! And the iCloud is cool. I'm still not sure how it all works, but somehow everything syncs when I am not looking. It's like Star Trek but without the goofy outfits.

So take care out there in techie land and enjoy the waning autumn. I look forward to seeing y'all in a couple of weeks!

Good Times at the Grand Casino

So Thursday was fulfilling. Got to ride down to Hinckley with some great colleagues (including our cohort's very own Muskadee!). Inspiring conversations, good coffee and donuts and some laughs.

Martin Brokenleg's talk was engaging and informative. Also very affirming that a good portion of what I think about multiculturalism in the classroom is on par with the research and his philosophies. In fact, I have used the Circle of Courage for years in a variety of settings as the foundation for curricula in outdoor and residential settings. Most recently, I have adapted it to use in trainings with student leaders in my current position. I had the opportunity to ask his opinion on the appropriateness of my adaptation and he said he supports how I am using the model. Very affirming!

I'm having fun with my website and continuing to work on Moodle stuff as a UMD Seminar instructor.

On a personal note, my son Lev turned 2 on Friday! Above is a photo I took with my iPod of his cupcake train. We had a fun party with some other families on Saturday. We all sang Happy Birthday while he hid under the table.

Video du Jour....

Check out my new website for a collection of YouTube gems.  I will post a new video every morning and then archive them on the site.  Please note the category tabs on the left-hand side of the page.  Enjoy!

http://dfrank.weebly.com/

Multi-tasking?

I'm sitting here in class blogging while we are talking. I'm really testing whether or not I can pay attention to what people are saying while I'm typing about something else...................Nope, don't think so!