4th Grade Construction

Yesterday was my birthday, but it was a good thing I celebrated on Thursday because yesterday really sucked. My father discovered he had blood in his urine the night before and woke up in a puddle the next morning. After all day in the ER he was admitted to the hospital. He has a urinary tract infection and a stone in the tube between his liver and bladder — needless to say he’s in some pain. He might also have kidney stones or pancreaitis. He’s 83 and my mom is 88; he takes of her since she has heart problems and can barely walk around. So now I’m taking care of my mom. I was supposed to be driving to Sedona with my family today, but that ain’t happening. They have gone on without me. Luckily we found someone to take care of my mom and I will try to fly out Sunday mid-morning.

So, Edtec 700 might be taking a little bit of a back seat right now but I will try to keep up with everything. At least I won’t have to worry about finding a connection for tomorrow’s class! I signed up for a meeting time (3:30) and I assume I’ll be able to keep it. My final project….well, I think I want to have a classroom blog/wiki that is geared more towards homework and projects. I borrowed an idea from one of more classmates about using a blog to have as assigned reading and then have them comment on it using the blog. I really like that idea. I also read an email my colleague forwarded to me about using video podcasts to pre-teach lessons (T.V. news story, “New Teaching Strategy”) so that students have a headstart on the next day’s material. I like that idea also.  So I’m thinking about trying to use all the Web 2.0 tools — I’m still working it out in my head. Hopefully Professor Karl will steer me in the right direction!

PS> I was so inspired by those Commoncraft videos that I borrowed their format for a project for my father-in-law (Toilet Seat Alert).