Meg’s Weblog

At the end of the year we have to do a final project that can showcase some of the things that we have learned about throughout the semester.  Being that I had a really negative attitude about technology and some of its uses prior to this Education computers class, I want to display the positive knowledge that I have acquired while also explaining some of the scepticism’s that I still have about new technologies.  To do this I want to read Neil Postman’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to technology, and pull quotes and ideas from it to defend the negative grip that technology has on people.  To counterbalance this I will research some more of the positive sides of technology and then as an in class presentation I will rein-act a debate between the two sides of technology and open the class up to a discussion towards the end.

Dean wants me to explore making a video instead of preforming it in front of the class, which is fine.  Naturally he is encouraging all of us to use the aid of technology to pull together our final projects.  If anyone has any ideas or questions about this I encourage you to ask away

This is a picture of me and Millie having an afternoon nap.  She is without a doubt one of the cutest puppies that I have ever met, but boy is she ever exhausting.  She is like a baby, and she really does not like to be left alone.  She follows me everywhere I go and just stands by my feet looking sad   I think that she is a little bit home sick, she misses her brothers and sisters and her mom and dad.  She is amazing to cuddle with though, she keeps me nice and warm.  When she runs she trips on her ears and when she drinks half of them dip into her water dish.  Apparently they bread Bassett hounds that way because they are tracking dogs, and when their ears are that long they sweep up the scent on the ground and help them to smell.

Hey everyone this is the link to my mastercard priceless video-

<object width=”425″ height=”350″> <param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TxUY39F-Mnc“> </param> <embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TxUY39F-Mnc” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”350″> </embed> </object>

I seem to be having some trouble uploading my video.  When I do it confirms after several minutes that it has been uploaded, but then when I try to view it it tells me that the video is not yet processed.  This is very frustrating.  If any one can give me a tip please do

 Hope you like monkeys and videos :0  Enjoy !!

I am soooo excited to announce that the classes that I will be mentoring will be Anne Davis’ grade five students in Georgia and Maria Knee’s kinderkid’s from Newhampshire.  I have checked out both blogs and I am very excited to connect with these bright young students.  These are links to both of the classes blog’s.  Anne Davis’ “reflective Voices” blog – http://itc.blogs.com/rv/ and her classroom teachers blog “Fifth Grade Reflections” – http://jhh.blogs.com/reflection/ , and Maria Knee’s blog – http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=51141.

This is my video that I made on my voice thread account.  I made it by myself instead of in a group, but my fiance helped me with the voice overs to help make the story more believable.  Check it out – I hope you like it.  http://voicethread.com/share/213953/

While reading through some new blog’s that I have re added to my google reader account (because it decided to disappear on me one evening :s) I stumbled across Victoria A Davis’  blog at http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/.  I read a lot of things that this “cool cat” bloger was writing about but one particular post caught my eye and it has taken my mind to a very enlightened and positive place. 

Victoria posts about the dead sea and uses it as a brilliant metaphor.  “ The Dead Sea takes in water but there is no outlet to the sea.  Thus, it is salty, bitter, and generally just… dead.

People who are a dead sea are always taking, using up things and become bitter.

Dead Sea people never give anything to another person and never share.

 I have a chalkboard (I know they are a thing of the past ) in my kitchen, and I write a new quote every day up on the board, and I wrote this up there immediately after I read that.  I couldn’t help it.  Victoria is a very open minded and well spoken individual who has some very positiveattitudes about technology.  Victoria sais “don’t be a dead sea”, and instead allow your learning to be transparent and help each other to share knowledge.  Because knowledge belongs to nobody in particular.  It belongs to everyone.

This is my new dog Millie Beans.  She is a Basset Hound.  My Fiance and I get to pick her up on October 16th – Only 12 more sleeps !!!

When I lived at home last year my dad used to sneak into my room in the middle of the night and steal my laptop computer to use while I was catching some zzz.  He thought that he was being soooo stealthy.  He works at CP Rail and so that is why it would sometimes be in the dead of night.  This got to be pretty ridiculous because he thought that he was being so quiet and he was well – quite the opposite.  I thought that it was cute that he was becoming so addicted to this new technology because he has been wearing the same Levi jeans for the past 30 years and just last year he had his first bagel.  The man is afraid of change.

It was his birthday just a few weeks ago and we decided to get him a laptop for himself.  I thought that he would have a lot of questions that evening but nothing.  He said that he had everything all figured out.  Tonight he popped by me and my fiance’s house to say hi and we spent over an hour setting up an email account for him and then explaining it to him.  This just reminded me that I may have a lot to learn, but things could always be worse

I feel absolutely exhausted right now but also like venting so I must vent.  Normally I would write on paper but this is a great excuse to blog.  It is Monday again and it feels like last Monday was only a couple of days ago.  My weeks seem to be passing by like hours and I am sick of it.  I feel like for every day I need a week with nothing to do in order to even think about getting all of my homework finished – and that is just my life in school. 

I am taking antibiotics right now and naturally they are making me feel even more sick than I felt before.       A W E S O M E !!  Its great really – oh yea I love being sick as a dog on a Monday while it rains and exhausted from the one class that I had today.  I had one class and I feel like I need a nap.  Of course I do drive in every day from Moose Jaw to get to school but what has happened to me ??  Did I secretly age about 40 years while I was sleeping last night ?  To be honest nothing would suprise me at this point. 

Ahhh well I do feel a bit better.  If anyone reading this has also had a case of the “Monday’s” or Tuesday’s or whatever day it might be please send a vent my way.  Because I am here to listen and it would make me feek better about my Monday.  Just kidding.

Happy reading and happy Monday – I’m off to have a nap