Week 4 Jan 27 - Feb 2

           Last Friday I celebrated my son, Darren’s 11^th birthday with him.  We had a great date!  Started off going to Fun Time Pottery, which was a total blast!  He didn’t think that he would like to go and paint… turns out he did!  I am sure we will be going there again sometime in the near future.  Then we headed to the movie theater to see “A Dog’s Purpose” that he had been talking about for the two weeks prior.  I thought it was a good movie, he totally loved it!  After the movie, we decided that we should get something to eat, so we went to Montana’s for wings, his favourite!  We then finished off his makeshift birthday party (or more like mommy and me date) by going for a half hour skate at the skating oval! By this time it was 10:30 at night and we still had to drive home!  He was tired the next day but it was totally worth it. I know that soon he will not want to have anything to do with me as he on the brink of puberty and I need to cherish every moment I have with him… so I am!

As for hockey last weekend Trevor played Friday in Portage and they won the game in an overtime shoot out – not to sad I missed that game as shoot outs suck!  Saturday he played in Rivers, or was supposed to play!  After warm up the Zamboni came out to clean the ice and ended up breaking down and melting a hole in the ice!  After an hour of trying to fix it with all the best intentions and effort, game got cancelled.  He now has a week of rest which usually means that he gets restless and drives me mad in the meantime!  Darren played in Deloraine on Sunday and they won!  Another successful weekend for the Hunt brothers.

Tech talk

            ePortfolio… ya… never thought about that or also didn’t really know what one was either!  So this week, I have spent, well, quite a few hours trying to figure out how to create a web based portfolio for my future employers – or future potential employers I mean!  Surprisingly, I can see the great benefit for creating an ePortfolio!  Carting along a giant binder to an interview that no one will most likely look at, or for that matter care about, having a portfolio at everyone’s fingertips is definitely a more promising option, especially in today’s tech world.  I chose to use Wix for the simple fact that I can password protect my information.  To me this is important as I feel protective of my resume in the same fashion – I do not want just anybody looking at it – not sure why!  I guess I prefer to be more on the private side that way!  I am actually enjoying the challenge of putting things where I want them to go and discovering how to actually get things working.  Last night I figured out how to add a button!  So exciting!

            Leaving a positive digital footprint is something else that we have been discussing this week and I am considering making an about.me page for that reason.  I am still not 100% positive, but I am thinking about it.  Perhaps once I get my ePortfolio finished…

           

            Our speaker this week was John Evans showing us the brilliance of Maple.  I am very glad that he was able to show us how Maple works as it is a very good learning tool for teachers and I am positive that I will be looking at it more in depth in the future.

            During our book club this week, I came to a realization that the younger students in my class are almost more scared about today’s technology than I am!  I really don’t understand that as they have had more access and exposure to technology than I did when I was their age.  I think that they must not be getting taught to the same degree as I was many, many moons ago.  I don’t remember much about my high school computer class, but I do remember the green screen and the 1’s and 0’s that we entered to make something happen.  I imagine that is called “coding” in today’s language… so why is it that keyboard use and other technology is not taught in schools these days?  Maybe through this education quest, I will be able to answer that question.

In a conversation with my friend “V” the other night, we decided that today’s youth (and I include my own) do not have the patience or attention span to sit and figure out technology when it poses a problem – they all want the quick fix.  Double tap to like, scroll with one finger, and a simple click to make everything work...if life was only so easy.

P.S. Happy Birthday today to Susie Groundhog!!  Happy 26th my Fairy Goddaughter!!