Week 6 Blog

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I just finished watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture for perhaps the fifteenth time in my life. Wow! What an amazing man! And what a positive, uplifting message! One of my favorite quotes by Randy is: "We can't change the cards we're dealt, but the way we play the hand." I'm reminded of that almost daily. The fact that my son, Jonah, has Autism sucks. It sucks big time! But I can't change that. What I can change is how I play the cards that life has dealt me. I can choose to wallow in sorrow or to rejoice in Jonah's triumphs. I choose the latter.

Randy was an inspiration to his family and to millions around the globe. He has left a legacy of hope and joy behind him. He could've lived the remainder of his life as an 'Eeyore' and no one would've blamed him. But instead, he chose to live his life as a 'Tigger', boucing his way out of it with a smile... and no regrets.

Week 5 blog

International blogs

The first blog I've listed is Nelson Central's Room 9 class blog. Nelson Central is in New Zealand. There are twenty-three students in the class, ages six and seven. The teacher's name is Rachel Boyd. This class's blog has video and pictures of of the students participating in activities and projects throughout the year, from January to November of 2007. You can check out this blog at: http://room9nelsoncentral.blogspot.com.

The second blog I'm listing is Mrs. McNamara's class blog from Australia. Mrs. McNamara teachers year 5. She has twenty seven students in her class. This blog includes the class's goals for the year, video and pictures from activities and projects, as well as other information. You can check out her class's blog at: http://mrsmcsclass.blogspot.com.

Week 4 blog

Mrs. Lori Elliot of Nixa, Missouri has a blog for her fourth grade class. She has a well of information available in her class's blog. She includes information for parents, pictures of class outings, pictures of the students participating in class projects and the students' comments about their experiences. You can visit her class's blog at: http://teachers.emints.org/F406/elliott/.

Mr. C of Noel Elementary has a blog for his class. He has video of his students' involvement in class experiments and their reactions. One of their experiments was making boats out of both Ivory soap and aluminum foil. They added marbles/pellets to see how many the boats could hold before they capsized. The winner, I imagine, was the one whose boat held the most marbles/pellets. You can visit his class's blog at: http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/.

Week 3 blog

ACCESS stands for Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide. It is a program by the Alabama Department of Education. ACCESS gives students opportunity to take advantage of courses, electives and acitivities that may not be offered at their school. The vision of ACCESS's vision statement is "The State of Alabama will provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievment through distance learning opportunities." Courses are made available to students by the internet and through videoconferencing.

I'm looking forward to visiting one of the ACCESS sites. I wish this had been available when I was in school. The high school that I attended did not offer very many advanced courses. I'm glad that students have these technologies and services available to them today.