A very different Christmas...
I had been thinking about blogging, and then I told myself I was too busy. Now, I just finished reading Splindarella's blog, and remembered how much I actually enjoy doing this... so I'm back.
Fist of all, I hope anyone reading this had a happy whatever it is you celebrate. Regardless of your religious affiliation (or lack thereof) I wish you a safe and happy end of the year. May 2006 bring you good health, good things and peace.
This was the first Christmas I spent far from my parents. D and I had always said that once we got married we'd start alternating Christmas with our families. Since I just came back from a wonderful holiday with my family (we spent a week in Costa Rica in November), and I just started a new job (and therefore have zero vacation), we spent it with his family. Let me think of how to say (or write) this nicely... they are different, very different!
At home (my home), Christmas is a big event. First of all, we celebrate Christmas Eve, it normally kicks off with Mass, and then we have a big dinner and presents and stuff. We all dress up, and stay up chatting about whatever until the wee hours of the morning. We open a couple of bottles of wine, have a bottle of bubbly, and just relax and enjoy each others' company. Mom has been preparing stuff for a couple of days, and on Christmas Eve we just put the final touches on whatever we're going to eat that day (it's pretty much always the same food, a mixture of typical Mexican dishes... but that's not the point of this blog).
This year, Christmas Eve came and went without fanfarre... I took D. to church (old habits die hard - or never die), we went to a bar (a bar!!!) and met up with some friends, and then went to sleep.
Christmas Day we met with his family for breakfast. After breakfast we loitered around for a while and then opened presents. Then we all did our own thing (!!!), D. played a video game (oh boy! my grandmother would have killed - yes, killed him), his sister-in-law did laundry (on Christmas Day???) and his Dad put in a movie. Yup, that was the centre of our get-together, the TV... After a while his Mom went over to start preparing dinner, and after dinner we met up with some friends at a movie theatre.
Trust me, I'm not criticizing, I'm just flabbergasted by the abismal differences between traditions and what one family does and the way another spends their holiday. Will I ever adjust to his way of celebrating? I doubt it, let's keep in mind I've been spending Christmas my way for the past umptisquat years, at this rate, it will take umptisquat years to 'de-condition' my behaviour.
namaste,
Oh man! I did it again!
One more deadline that I seem to have missed - can I blame it on the fact that I just started a new job and I'm having a hard time adjusting??
I think this is the last blog posting that will have some impact on my grade ~ I am expected to reflect on the use of blogs and how they impact online education... mmmm thinking, thinking, thinking.
I have mixed feelings about this whole blogging thing - on the one hand, it's nice to just start typing everything that I start thinking (or not), as I said in my blog description - it's turning into the place where I deposit all the things that I don't know what to say (or don't want to say).
I wish I had these great lofty thoughts, or thoughts based on all the things I learn or research ~ as all of you know, this is not normally the content of my blog, it has more to do with the things I see, the yoga classes I go to or my everyday life.
Do I think blogs have a place in the online education community? Yes, I do I think they can play a very valuable role in the establishment of online communities of practice. I also think they can allow shy students to flourish, students to tap into the collective knowledge through the use of RSS feeds etc.
Will I keep this? Probably not. But i had a great time during these last couple of weeks.
Namaste,
ap
aaaargh!
That, my dear friends, is the sound of utter frustration.
Before leaving the country (I was gone for a week) I thought I had left all of my ducks lined up. Apparently I didn't. I seem to have forgotten an assignment.
Back home we had a saying that stated that it was never too late when happiness showed up at your door - I'm hoping the same (or at least a derivative thereof) holds true for this class.
As part of this ongoing attempt to become more knowledgeable (one I'm not so sure of, but that's a whole other post), I had to do an assignment and comment on somebody else's post. I was expected to show some thought and reflection.
Here we go...
It's no secret that one of the people I look up to in this class is Linda. It amazes me that she's so fluent when it comes to speaking about education and the real life applications within a classroom (if this is going to ruffle feathers - rest assured, there is something I admire in all of you). Therefore, I have a tendency to follow her blogging posts. Sometimes I have something to say, other times I just go .... huh... and continue on in my daily life.
She recently posted something that fits the bill for this blogging thingeemajig I'm supposed to do. The central idea (or at least what I considered the central idea) had to do with the degree of personal investment students put into their class. She blogged about the time her remedial English class had to do their journaling and how some students did and others failed to do so.
The statement that struck me was "
I think that's my biggest challenge as a course designer: how can I get my students invested -- in the class, in the module, in the assignment? " (by now you're bound to be curious, if you want to read the entire blog entry, please click
here) .
I wish my crystal ball would give us an answer, I too struggle with a similar question. With so many things vying for attention, how do you get the student to become engaged? I think I know what the theoretical answer should be - I am just not sure I know how to apply it yet. Should this worry me? Is this something I should know by now?
That's where I think my biggest struggles are - I know what to do in a F2F environment - but how would I deal with someone like me in an online environment? I find myself feeling like sometimes I just put a check in the box (as Linda had mentioned: 1 assignment down, three to go), other times the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat makes online sessions hard. If I can't stay engaged all the time... how can I keep my students engaged?
