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100 Day Project – Finished

January 29th, 2012 · 100 Days Project, Musings, My Goals, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project — Finished

Well, I do have to admit defeat – at least in terms of being able to blog for 100 days in a row.  I made it to 66 days spread over about 90 days (including weekends).  I learned a lot.  I learned I do have something to write about – even if other folks aren’t convinced they want to read it.  I learned that I like to write – given the time to do the thinking about what I want to write about.  I learned that although I wish I weren’t; I’ve been too trained in the last 15 years to be an academic writer, and so it’s very hard to write something once and publish it without further work and reflection upon the product.  I learned that it’s hard to write without an audience.  I learned what I already knew already that I’m pretty tenacious; the difference being that as I age I know when to give up!   It was fun.  I intend to go back over my entries, pick up some of the threads and create some more viable products than a paragraph here and there.  And, so actually I wasn’t defeated — I correct myself — I chose to stop something that was no longer interesting and not finish just for the sake of finishing.  For me – that’s big!

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100 Day Project – Day 66 – Echo Smartpen

November 30th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Musings, Teaching & Learning, Work

1-Subject Notebook 1 p. 1

100 Day Project – Day 66 – 8:52 p.m.

If anyone cares to try to open this document and figure out if it works; you’re welcome to it!  I have an Echo Smartpen as part of a grant at my community college.  With just a half-hour under my belt, I can think of a lot of possible ways to use it in the classroom.  Except I’m really old-fashioned in that I really dislike – I might use the word hate – that today’s technology comes with th idea that you’ll just mess around with it, go for YouTube videos, and hunt and peck forever until you’ve got it down.  I can do all of those things and I’m not shy about just pushing buttons and stuff to figure it out, BUT, I love a good instruction book.  Why on earth should I have to figure out how to figure it out when a few pages would show me how?  Have we taken the concept of constructing your own knowledge just a wee bit far?   That’s what I’m thinking about today!

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100 Day Project – Day 65 – Persistance

November 28th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Musings, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 65 – 8:44 a.m.

Well, I must admit life has been very full — usually is – and I’m considering not continuing this Project — could I call it the 65 day project?  I’ve skipped quite a few days; and see by my trusty old paper calendar that I should be on day 84 today – and here I am at Day 65.  What to do?  Quit or persist?

I’ll give it some thought today: like life, we don’t always have a choice whether to quit.  We must persist in some fashion, perhaps in a different way than we thought, but persist we must.  Since I doubt many people are even paying attention to this project, and it’s been for myself, I need to decide whether to go on in some way, or quit.  I”ll think about it for the day.  The Day 65 versus Day 84 is a bit symbolic of my life.  I’m a middle of the boat kind of person.  I learned it very young.  It was important not to be noticed as a child, and it was a really good idea to try to anchor the part of the boat that was rocking.  So I stayed unnoticed in the middle of that boat.  As an adult, I’ve certainly ventured out, even rocked the boat, but I do end up back there in the middle.  What this creates is a life of getting things done – many of those things good things – but getting them done in a plodding kind of way, and getting them done in a way unnoticed by others.    So, today,  I’m thinking about persistence.

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100 Day Project – Day 64 – passion

November 23rd, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project – Day 64 – 9:56 a.m.

 

Develop a passion for learning.

If you do, you will never cease to grow.

Anthony J. D’Angelo,
The College Blue Book

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100 Day Project – Day 63 – Deep

November 22nd, 2011 · 100 Days Project, College students, Musings, Teaching & Learning, Work

I was told today by a student, with others agreeing, that I was a very deep person.

Last class meeting, the students participated in a Literacy Month event at our college.  The local Head Start bused 30 preschool children to our college’s library where we had the joy of reading one-on-one with the children, joining them in snack, and sending them home with a book to call their own.

Today the class was talking about the joy we all had, and how several of the other adults involved in the organizing and in the area commented on how “well behaved” and “cute” the children were.  It provided us with great conversation about what were these adults, and other adults in our culture, thinking about how children behaved and just what was cute anyways.  I challenged students to consider exactly what cute meant to them, and was it okay to continually use that word to label children’s beings and behaviors.  Great discussion.  In the midst of  it, a student said that I needed to give them a little lee way as I was a very deep person.  So today I’m thinking about what that might mean.

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