The festive time is upon us. This light show from Saks in New York should start to put you in the holiday mood. A good Christmas light show is a winner for me. It makes me smile and reminds me of the joy that comes from shared experiences. Let’s face it, this is something you want to share with others. Well, I do anyway.
School finishes for me this coming Tuesday. It’s been a big year, and I’m ready for a well earned break. I’m looking forward to lazy days spent lolling in the sun, with no school lunches to make and no set routine dictating the course of my day. Apologies to State School teachers in Victoria who are working right up until the 23rd I think. That’s a pretty raw deal this year.
Enjoy the weekend ahead. Make the most of good weather, friends, family, and excellent wine. That’s an order!
@timbuckteeth Many schools will be re-inventing education via a one to one pencil program. #pencilchat
I thought I’d help it along with the above video, a scene from a movie that I don’t think has made it into production.
I’m hoping for a relaxing weekend after last weekend that saw me consumed by slide preparation for the presentation I delivered Monday. A bit of R & R will do me the world of good!
I hope you get some of the same this weekend. Enjoy whatever comes your way. : )
He’s a clever man, that Rives. I love how he makes poetry cool. Next year, I’m teaching Year 10 English, and I’ll be trying very hard to find a way to weave some of Rive’s work into our course. This year, we had a slam poetry event during Book Week, and I was blown away by some of the poetry created by individuals and groups of students. I strongly believe that poetry surrounds us every day, in the lyrics of songs, in the word pictures we paint every day in conversation. It’s about active listening and appreciation of the beauty in our everyday lives.
Seek some beauty in your everyday life this weekend. When you find it, savour it. If you can, spread it around. I saw something beautiful tonight. My god-daughter’s dance concert, made all the more special by the presence of the lone little boy dancing his heart out. Even though at one stage he was wearing a puffy shirt reminiscent of that Seinfeld episode, he rose above it and exuded sheer beauty as he gave it his all. I clapped with extra enthusiasm at the end of each performance; I was applauding his bravery, his willingness to embrace what he loves doing, even if he is the solitary male in a troupe of female dancers. He was poetry in motion.
Enjoy your weekend everyone. I hope it’s filled with moments to savour. : )
Now this made me smile. Charlie Todd, who heads up Improveverywhere, was married recently. In true Improveverywhere form, his wedding ceremony became part of his ‘we cause scenes’ movement. His bride was in on the act, being an improveverywhere member too. What a lovely way to make your wedding just that bit more memorable!
I’ve travelled a bit in the last few years, and have never really felt the effects of jetlag. Most of the time I’ve been able to correct my sleep patterns within a couple of days and get back on track. Not this week. After returning home from Italy early last Saturday morning (hence the no School’s out Friday last week – first time ever!), I’ve been struggling to get back to feeling like a normal person. It’s been compounded by a head cold I picked up while in Assisi, and a bit of a trying time on the work front. Hopefully I can get myself back into the swing of things this weekend. I’m supposed to submit slides for a conference I’m presenting at the week after next, so things better improve otherwise those conference organisers are going to be a tad unhappy with me!
I hope your weekend sees you relaxing and making the most of time spent with family and friends. I best head to bed to attempt to get myself back to the time zone I live in!
You really just have to take the time to watch this video in its entirety. This kayaker has an amazing encounter with a Blue Whale, and his decision to peer under the water to capture images of this mammoth creature lunge feeding is bravery beyond my capability. My heart was pounding just watching this footage, heaven only knows what levels of adrenalin must have been charging through this guy’s body. That’s the intimidating thing about the ocean as far as I’m concerned. All looks well on the surface, but you have no idea what is happening beneath you. For some, that kind of risk is exciting, for others, it’s a little beyond comprehension.
I like thinking about the complexities of the human condition, and how experiences pose different sorts of challenges based on the kind of person you are. I like how being a teacher gives you an opportunity to help students understand their capabilities, and I love it when I see inspiring teachers take students in directions they may have never contemplated for themselves. I’ve just returned from our school’s Speech Night celebrations, and I saw students who would never normally be involved, performing a percussion based routine that was a real highlight of the evening. The man who teaches them is brimming with enthusiasm for what he does, and you can see how it has rubbed off on these kids. It was a joyful moment, exactly the kind of thing you see happening in schools all the time when students are exposed to passionate people. Our Head Girl spoke of teachers with passion for what they do when she addressed the audience. It reminded me that we must never lose sight of the need to foster our love of what we do and share it with the young people we teach. It can make all the difference.
Hopefully, some hard work this weekend will make a difference to our home renovations that seem to have a life of their own. The washing machine packed it in last weekend, and the purchase of a front loader has seen 30 yr old shelves torn out and the need for a new storage system and a coat of paint. That, combined with the the ongoing back room plastering and paint job, means we’ll be busy, that’s for sure!
I hope your weekend sounds a little more exciting that the one heading my way. Make the most of it.
Do you know where good ideas come from? Well, according to Steven Johnson, the author of ‘Where good ideas come from‘, chance favours the connected mind. This RSA animation does a stellar job of visualising his ideas, and I liked how he identified the need for people to come together in spaces dedicated to conversation and the opportunity to discuss and dissect ideas. Sounds like the function of a library today to me. If we design libraries with this kind of thinking in mind, then we provide opportunities for connected minds to meet face to face.
I came across the following video from Derek Sivers this week, and it seems to me we could be using this as a prompt for some vigorous class discussion with our students. All too often I think we dismiss our ideas as trivial, unimportant, not worthy of sharing. But who knows the impact your tiny idea might have on someone else who has never considered it? Sharing has become such an important part of my life; for me it seems natural now to push my thinking out there. Sometimes I hesitate, but more often than not I just push that send or publish button and put it out there. Watch it and see if you can find a way to use it in a classroom.
Renovations will occupy most of my weekend I’m figuring. We’ve been working on our back room, and I’ll probably be making the cups of tea, providing the food, hauling some plaster board or wielding a paintbrush. Gee, I wish it was more fun that it sounds, but someone’s gotta do it. I should take a look at that linen closet too, because I managed to avoid cleaning it out last weekend!
We’ve experienced some stunning spring weather today in Melbourne – I’m just hoping it lasts through the weekend. Find some sunshine and soak in it if you can.
Remember Meatloaf? The singer, not the oven baked variety. When I heard he was the pre-match entertainment for the AFL Grand Final, I was looking forward to what I thought would be a pretty specky performance. Now I’m certainly no great shakes as a singer by any stretch, but after watching this, I’m pretty sure you’ll come to the conclusion that maybe he has been oven baked. The true magic happens between minutes 6 and 7, so do tune in until then. I’ve enjoyed watching the body language of the guy playing the keyboard – make sure you pay attention. According to a YouTube comment, he redeemed himself at his October 6th concert in Brisbane. I hope so- he was certainly an entertainer of some merit in his time. *unfortunately, this review from the Sydney Morning Herald tells another story. : (
School’s still out here until next Monday, and already I can feel the weight of it resting on my shoulders. Holidays are funny things; you feel so light and untethered in the first week, then the slow creep of the next term starts to wind itself into your subconscious, and the leash of expectation begins to pull harder on you. This weekend will see me trying to clean out the linen cupboard, and attend to any other unfinished tasks I promised myself I would do. Let’s see how far I get!
Enjoy whatever comes your way this weekend. Hope it’s a good one. : )
This is the second time I’ve posted a Halloween video from Matthew Weathers, a Maths Lecturer at Biola University in California. As one of the comments on YouTube says about him, “You are seriously the coolest teacher in the planet.” Halloween’s approaching pretty fast; Matthew better start planning if he’s going to come up with something to rival this!
It’s school holidays here in Victoria, and I’ve had a bit of a lazy week. Not that I’m complaining. Lazy beats frantically busy right now! One thing I have been able to do is to keep up with my Twitter and Google+ stream, and there have been some interesting announcements over the past week. Things are firing up in the Tablet market with the release of the Kindle Fire. It’s a Kindle for movies, music, apps, games, reading & more. The price point, US $199, might just make it a serious contender up against the iPad 2.
It’s powered by a Cloud Accelerated browser they are calling Amazon Silk. What they are doing is utilising the Amazon cloud to provide a faster user experience and to enable streaming for your content. Rather than me try to explain what that means, take a look at the experts from Amazon explaining it below.
It’s release date in the US is November the 15th, and as yet, there seems to be no information about when we might be able to obtain it here in Australia. If they’re smart, they’ll make sure it’s available prior to Christmas. I could see quite a few Yuletide stockings being filled with one of these.
Enjoy the weekend. AFL Grand Final day here in Melbourne tomorrow. I’m gunning for Geelong – go Cats!
My husband sent this to me this week, and I think my reaction was just as extreme as the guy’s girlfriend! He’s lucky she didn’t keel over from a heart attack!
And because it’s the end of term here in Victoria, here’s another to warm the cockles of your heart and send you off to the holiday break with a smile on your face (if you’re a teacher here in Victoria at least!)
I found this on a Tumblr blog called Dancing Dads, and I think I’m going to have to visit there whenever I’m needing a good laugh. A good laugh is medicine for the soul, and it comes in high doses at this site!
Yes, it’s our spring holiday break here in Victoria, and from my perspective, it couldn’t come soon enough. These last two weeks have been huge for me at work. I’m exhausted and in need of sleep. I’m looking forward to no routine, no school lunches to make, and no alarm waking me at 6.30am. I’m also looking forward to trying to pen a few words here as I feel I’ve seriously neglected this blog of late. Seth Godin wrote a post tonight entitled ‘Talker’s block‘ and it really sounded like me. I have very few problems talking to people about the work I’m doing, but it seems arduous to write it down. I’ve had a blog post simmering for well over two months about the work I’ve been involved with all year, but every time I try to get it finished, something stops me. I need to stop thinking and just write it. When I think about when I started this blog and how I committed to writing nearly every day for 6 months, I really wonder how on earth I managed to do it. So, to get me moving again, I’m going to commit to write at least six posts over the next two weeks. Watch this space!
Have a great weekend. Find some sunshine and warm your bones. : )
Surely it’s still Friday somewhere in the world. I hope so, anyway, because my eyes could not stay open last night. It’s that time of the year here; we’re nearing the end of term, planning budgets for 2012, and Speech Night preparations are well underway. This is a lethal cocktail that results in overload and lack of sleep. Worse still, there’s no cure. The work just has to be done.
I struggled a bit to find a vid for this this week, but this enthusiastic Maths teacher warms my heart. If Flo-Rider can help kids learn processes, then more power to teachers like this in my opinion.
It’s Saturday morning, the sun is shining, and it’s supposed to be 26 degrees here today. It doesn’t get better than that!
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 