The dog days of Tennessee

This is a picture of my husband and our 3 dogs. The lap dog is our miniature dachshund Lilly, the dog on the left is our pound puppy rescue dog Skippy, and the golden retiever's name is Shelby. Shelby is a K-9 drug dog. She is kenneled outside in a big enclosed area. She's like a bull in a china shop, so indoors was not an option with her. The other two are more mellow and reside inside with us.

I took Skippy to the training course at Petsmart when he was less than a year old. He does wonderfully with loose leash walking and I am working on no-leash walks as well. Shelby has been trained differently since she is a drug dog. She is a very freindly and playful dog but she is hyper and tends to hog the outdoor toys when all 3 are out. She weighs 80 lbs while Skippy is only forty lbs. So as you can imagine he gives her a wide berth.

Lilly at 10 lbs runs for cover when Shelby comes her way. Lilly is not afraid of Shelby, she will bark "the beast" down off the deck if she wants to. It's just that when Shelby comes running, she doesn't usually put on the brakes in time to stop without running over whatever she may be running toward.

Enjoy your fall day!

SkyBlueSue

Birds of a feather

On the way home from church, Sunday morning I spied a blue jay flying into the tree line along the road which I was traveling.
I don't see these birds very often in my yard. Here they tend to stay in the more wooded areas. I might get them to come to a bird feeder, but at this point in my life I don't have the consistency to maintain a feeder.

This guy is called a piliated woodpecker. I saw one of these in flight in a heavilly 

tree lined street just outside a neighborhood. Flying in the same direction I was driving, it flew down over the hood of my car,  and kept flying out in front, down the street. It is one of my more awesome bird memories. I had never seen a piliated woodpecker before and the view from below was magnificant. As you can see from the picture below, their underside is black and white and the particular bird I saw had a wonderful black and white pattern on his underbelly as well. I knew it was a woodpecker of some sort so I came home and looked it up in my bird book and learned it was the piliated! I dated the sighting in my book as my mama says my Grandma Rose taught her to do!

TTFN - SkyBlueSue

(These pictures are from  www.flickr.com which is a website where people share their photos.)

Volunteers

Portulaca

My daddy , who passed away in 2003, used to call non-perenial plants that came up on their own "volunteers." Well this year in my garden, I had an annual from last year show up half way through the summer - portulaca (some call them moss roses). In Tennessee, supposedly they don't survive the winters here to reproduce in the spring, so this year I have classified them as a volunteer.

I also had a yellow daisy show up; the main plant had died 2 years ago. My mama says that when a garden gets planted each spring, things get moved around and show up in other places. This would explain the "ta-da" of the yellow daisy suddenly the last week of August. Of course, now that I look at it closely, a week after it's debue, it is possible that instead of being the yellow daisy that died 2 years ago, it could be a hybrid of the galardia that grows near by, since it does have faint darkness in the petals. What do you think?


Yellow Daisy

  Galardia

The last flower for today is a rose. It is call "climbing Joseph's coat." I assume that the name is taken from the bible story of Joseph and his coat of many colors (Genesis 37:3) because the color of this flower is vibrant. The bud looks red orange, but when it opens it looks like a gorgeous sunset. It has not climbed much this year, but this is the first year, so we will see what happens next year.

Climbing Joseph's Coat

Well I will sign off for today. I hope these pictures and bring you some joy!

SkyBlueSue!

Hear the lively sound!!!

When I was a girl scout, growing up in Illinois, I spent a couple of weeks in the summers at Camp Tapawingo. One of the songs that we learned was "Hear the lively sound of the frogs in yonder pond: crick, crick, crickety crick, burrrrrrrrum!" (I taught preschool for a couple of years and the kids love to sing the song.)

Well, presently behind my home in the meadow here in Tennessee, there is a pond; at least it is there when there is enough rain to accummulate. Early in the spring, at night fall until late into the night, you can hear the frogs chripping. Often when I come home at night from class I announce as I enter the house "I can hear the lively song of the frogs in yonder pond!" It gets sort of old for my family - but it brings me joy to say it. It is sort of like having a moment of memory back to my days at camp.

Sometimes we have tiny little frogs come up on our windows when it is dark outside and the kitchen lights are on. You can watch them catch the bugs that are attracked to the light. Later in the summer we can often see tree frogs around the house. The little guy in the picture was on the side of the house right off the deck so I could get a really good look at him. It was so cool to look at his feet and see the little suction pads that held him to the house. Amazing!

My mama and step-daddy are farmers in Illinois. Besides growing crops, they have a garden where they grow vegetables and my mama grows flowers. My mama and I often discuss bird and flower issues of interest. She made a comment one day that stuck with me. It is a joy to live close to the land. That's where I am in my life. I take comfort from co-habitating with God's awesome creation and I am greatful for the freedom that I have to live close to the land.
Later friends! SkyBlueSue

Good Morning Glory!!!

At this point in the summer the only plants that continue to flourish are the morning glories. The picture is of the variety called "heavenly blue." Many farmers consider these a weed, as in the wild they grow and choke out other plants. In a domestic garden, they can be a thing of beauty. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this plant, they can be easily grown by buying a package of seed in the spring and planting them near something that they can climb. When the first vines begin to appear, you simply guide them to what ever you want them to climb and they literally "take off."

If you leave them to their selves for too long they will choke out whatever they can wrap themselves around. When they get overly leafy and I have seen no blooms yet, I start snapping off the wandering shoots of vines. I think this causes less plant energy to go to producing leaves and vines and results in flowers blooming. Each morning glory blossom lasts one morning. They are out when the sun rises and they fade and close when the heat of the day hits them.There are different colors, but my favorite is the big heavenly blue.

On a different issue, I have a question for you. In the night sky now there is a bright star that shines "next to" the moon. My daughter and I were speculating if it was Venus or Mars. Does any one know?
More later - SkyBlueSue :-)

The sky at night

Did anyone look at the sky last night over north central Tennessee?
The sun set like a huge red-orange ball on the horizon. It was a marvelous view as it slowly sank on the horizon and became larger and larger as it went down in the west. A couple of hours later, the moon was up in the east.It looked like a large search light shining down on everything below.

My daughter and I went out about 10 PM for a walk with one of our dogs. A walk before bed helps us unwind our brains and reconnect as a family after we both have had busy days. She is in her first week at college so her mind is racing on multiple levels.

The clouds were covering the moon as we began our walk, but the reflective light still illuminated our way as we walked around the streets of our neighborhood in the meadow. Our neighborhood used to be a farmer's field years ago. It is surrounded by trees as farmers fields usually are. I refer to it as the meadow or my home in the meadow because it is a word picture the ministers peace to me soul.

I have choosen a hecktic lifestyle as many of you probably have. I have found that when I take the time to use descriptive words for natural things it allows my mind to take a mini-vacation from the pace of my day. That's why I am blogging about nature. It is my creative outlet for ministering to my own mind.
more later - SkyBlueSue

Nature lover (rookie level)

Well this blog started out as a requirement for a technology class so it has been dormant since last spring. I decided that I needed some outlet for my love of nature so I decided to start bloggin again for that reason.
I live in north central Tennesse and of late the weather has been awsome. The past several days have been cool and a wonderful change of pace from the hot and humid summer that had previous hung over the land. With the windows open and the AC off it has been a joy. I am a fulltime graduate student taking night classes this semester, so I am at home during the day for now. I am working toward teaching grades 7-12 mathematics and will soon start 30 hours of classroom observations during the school day.

On to the joy of nature that I experienced yesterday. After several days of possible rain, as the sunset, a slow drizzle began to fall and continued for hours. I slept with the windows open so that I could listen to the soothing sound of the rain drops hitting the leaves on the bush outside my window. It is like music to my soul. It is comforting to me to listen and enjoy the "music" that God has created for those who will listen. At 4:30 AM the pace changed. Lightening struck with a loud wakeup call and the heavens unleashed the reservoir over the meadow in which I live.
I got up to close the other windows in the house. Since it was not blowing into my window, I left mine open so that I could enjoy the intense symphony of sound. It was glorious, the cracking of the thunder, the accompanying light show, the steady beat of the drops coming down. This went on until sunrise and now we are back to the calm coolness of the end of summer days.

Now as I write, I listen to the locus chirp and the occassional bird sing. This is the first day in a while that there hasn't been the sound of a neighbor mowing their lawn - that's a treat. The rain will have nurished my flower garden which was in sad need of water. Because I am mentally busy with school work, at this point in the gardening year, my flowers have to take whatever comes from the sky.

Well I need to get to doing some work. So I will close for now!
SkyBlue Sue

Posts later than this date are for personal edification, SEE ABOVE!!!

Posts before this date are for a class. SEE Below.
Thing 4 revisited; AKA thing 25:

Just when I thought I was done with the THINGS, I remembered I forgot my 2 outside blogs.
So here they are; 2 blogs that keep me updated on a mission team that we sponsor through our church. They are a young family with a toddler and recently born twins living in a flat in NYC.
A challenging life style for sure.
SBS

Thing 24

Animoto was my favorite activity in the 23 Things assignment. The entire journey has been a real eye opener. It has given me many tools to utilize in the classroom and on a personal basis.
I was disappointed to realize that after I completed the 23rd thing that there was actually a thing 24 - truth in advertising issues here. I would recommend eliminating Thing 16 which seemed to have repetative portions of an earlier exercise. Then re-number and have the 23rd thing be this thing.
That way when you reach the 23rd thing completion - you are DONE!
I feel that the most significant contirbution to my teaching has been in realizing the amount of on-line resoures that are available. In particular, I feel that the Blog and Podcast scenarios could be an asset to help students who miss class or need extra help. It gives me a way to reach students outside of class and also gives there parents access as well.
It has been a long journey down the path of the 24 Things. Now that this part of my journey is over, I begin the journey of continuing to make my blog and other resources relevant to my continuing journey in being a lifelong learner.

Thing 23 Thing 23 Thing 23

The credit at the bottom of our 23rd thing gives credit:
Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for the Mesquite Independent School District. That program was based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.
The main page for 23 Things credits: *Note: This project is loosely based upon the website 43Things (which allows you to set and track personal goals) and the Stephen Abram article titled 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006).

I do have ideas of my own that I will consider copywriting someday at Creative Commons when I am a sane person :-) Sidenote on the Not-Disney video: It was a great idea and I love the animation of "the company," but man it was hard to follow the cohesive intent of the instruction.
SBS

Thing 22

Aesop's Fables was the podcast that I chose from Learn out Loud.
Honestly, while I had heard of Aesop's Fables, I am not sure that I ever actually heard Aesop's Fables. It was quite educational for me. Alot of these online tools would have application for students who miss school. I could make a podcast of the daily lessons if a student were out for some length of time. That way they could get connected to what went on in class while they were away. The possibilities are endless. The only constraint is time!!!
SBS

Life goes on... Thing 21

This activity was the bomb!

Thing 20

Do you have a flag?
(Warning: one explicitive!)
I find this site as a great escape for a good laugh. Laughter is good after a long day on the computer or in the books. I sit way too much, but this is a good change of pace!
My oldest daughter showed me this particular video a couple of years ago. Because I am a history buff, the comedy of how ridiculous the colonizing times were amuses me because we had such absurd attitudes. There is always something to laugh about on YouTube!

Thing 19

I hope that joining TeacherPop will be a beneficial experience for me. I feel I will be able to benefit from reading what other educators have to say and perhaps gets some questions answered when they may arise. I think that originating such a site was a wonderful counter to the balance to the other social networks that may not enhance a person's reputation.
SBS

Thing 18

I enjoyed learning about MySpace and Facebook. I do feel it is important for teachers and parents to be familiar with these social networks in particular since they are so popular with our students. I know that for students grades 6-12, the drama of such networking is what keeps them so occupied with the internet. I feel that with the knowledge of these sites, teachers may be able to understand more of how the students interact with each other outside of class. I am not sure if a classroom application would work well with these particular sites. There seems to be too much other information available with so many students having their own accounts. I think setting up a "ning" of your own makes more sense.
SBS

Thing 17

I think this tool would make organizing a class using the internet much easier and more organized. If I as a teacher take the time before class to bookmark the sites where I want my students to go, that would save time. It is all about maximizing the instruction time and I feel this tool would be a great asset. I like the simiplity of the bookmarking process. Keeping it simple is important to me. I was able to access the Furl tutorial, however the actual links to Furl and Ma.gnolia seemed to be under administration changes.
SRS

Thing 16

I chose iGoogle, as my start page. It had a cool back ground - I am all about bright colors. I set up my interests as weather, CNN, The Tennessean, Utube and more. The Goggle brand of items comes highly recommended by tech wizardess, Dr. Wall. :-) I used a Goggle calendar that conveniently notifies me when my entry is coming up. At this point in my life, an online "to do" list does not fit my needs. I think the most pratical for me of all these tools is the calendar, which sort of seconds as my to do list. I check my email each day, so when my calendar accesses my email - it is sort of keeping track of me. I like that! There are tons of applications for using these tools in my life as a teacher. I look forward to continuing their use.SRS

Thing wiki (15)

Well I went to the "sandbox" and played for awhile. I went to the photos and images page and saw all the comments. But what the heck, the wiki experience is collaborative input so I edited. Having never done that before, I left my initials. Then when I saved I saw it labeled me as last editor. So I've had my first true wiki online experience. My heart is beating a little faster.

I think setting up a wiki would be a good classroom project. In math, the students could contribute their thoughts on vocab or input different problems that the teacher might put out as a challenge. There are alot of possibilites.
SBS

Thing 14

Here is my Gliffy chart. (LEFT) I decided to make a symmetry challenge for middle school math students. "Find how many lines of symmetry each object has. One is demonstrated by the black line." I realize this is not probably the traditional use of a flow chart, but it worked for me.

I also had a fun time creating a word chart (TOP RIGHT) with math definitions at bubble.us! This would be a good way to train math students to create their own vocabulary tools.
SBS

Thing 13

Well I decided to share my grocery shopping list. I hear some of you giggling or wondering why in the world she has done this. I have found, since I only do two major shopping trips each month, that it helps if I have a list template. This way I have everything that I usually buy and either check that I need it or leave it blank if I don't. It keeps me sane and might help some others as well. Of course you can adapt it to your own purchase list. My original had columns, but I couldn't find that option in ZOHO. If you know where the column option is, let me know and I will change the format.

Happy shopping - SKYBLUESUE

Learning new things

I was trying to figure out a way to get my PowerPoint presentation on the web. So with "a little help from my friends" I figured it out. Click on the links and find out how I did it.
Power Point1
PowerPoint2

Thing 4, shut the door! (sounds like an old nursery rythme)

Commenting is important to the blogging community because that's the whole purpose - SHARING!
I particularly found the Ten Commandments of Blog Commenting interesting and informative.
I had never heard the term "Never Flame" before.

Dudley Griffen, Jeannie Bowman, Becky Brockman, Lesley Spicer, Corrie Heisey were the classmate blogs I chose. Dudley I know from a previous class and I liked his picture puzzle. Then I made one of my own. Jeannie is my neighbor and we talk on the phone to encourage one another through this marathon of a course. Becky and I became acquianted through this class and chat at the gym occassionally. Lesley and Corrie had info. on their sites that I could use.
The Cool Cat Teacher blog is a great blog of teachers as you have recommended.
‘absolutely intercultural!’ is another site I enjoy. I am not sure how I stumbled across this one but I love it. It is outside of my Clarksville world. The first article I read was about the Gaelic language and how it is dying out. I enjoy reading about international culture.
Well I am closing the door on the first half of my 23 things.
Signing off for now SKYBLUESUE

Thing 12

I set up a iGoogle page and enjoyed setting my theme on color scheme back ground - I love bright colors. I also set up a Google calendar. It will be neat to be able to use that instead of a planner that I am forever misplacing. I will be able to use this in many ways when teaching to keep track of my school life and my home life. In the past I have gotten myself in trouble keeping 2 or more calendars. With this tool I can keep one from any location since it is on the web! Hurray!!!

Thing 11

The google blog search was easiest to use.
The feedster link did not work for some reason.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is one of the sites I chose.
This gives updates that are important to my cognate area of Math.
The most practical site I found was based on Exemplary Resources for Middle School Math and Science called Expert Voices. This will be a useful site.
MyYahoo has an easy way to add feeds just by clicking on the main tab and plugging in the RSS feed URL. Simple and fast!

Thing 10

This is a wonderfully convenient tool. The "RSS in Plain English" video was great.
Since I already have a yahoo account, I chose to set up my RSS feed to that site. It's sort of an all in one package. Yahoo even displays my avatar in thumbnail form, so I'm all set.

I think the advantage to using this tool in school is that it is a time saver and eliminates risky websites if students were searching the web. By using this tool the teacher knows what is going to show up.

To use this is the classroom all you would have to do is set up the RSS feed ahead of time and only allow access to the reader so that the students only view what you want them to. It is convenient for a teacher as a one stop site to check on updates from the school system or educational sites such as Cool Cat Teacher.

I've opted not to do the "Public Page" exercise. As I stated in a previous blog, we are a police family and I don't like to give information that can put us in jepordy. You can Google my family on line, but I like to keep our where abouts and personal stats a mystery. The mysterious life (or not) of SKYBLUESUE humor me here please :-)
Signing off for now SKYBLUESUE

Thing 9

I think by the time I am a second year teacher I might be able to catch my breath and us all this cool stuff we are learning. But this sign stuff may be simple enough to have the kids do as extra credit; although I do worry about some of the possible advertisements.

SKYBLUESUE counting down to # 10.

Thing 8

These are my

four daughters. I have two brown eyed girls and two blue eyed girls. Since my husband has brown eyes and I have blue eyes, it seems like an even split! The two in the top photo are my blue eyed girls; in the bottom photo are my brown eyed girls. It is pretty rare to have my girls together because they live all over the place. So I had fun with this project using my own photos. Personally I do enjoy puzzles, and may place an order to purchase someday. I honestly am not sure how to use this in my class room as of yet.

As far as photo sharing on line, I do so on a cautious basis. We are a police family, and I am very careful about sharing names, addresses, locations, etc.

Signing out for now SKYBLUESUE

Award list - and the winner is...

I chose Monster.com for thing 6, which I actually did after thing 7 (because when I clicked on the Awards link, I actually got some page to order trophies and ribbons - go figure).
I know Monster is not new to the world, however in this economy it is a very useful tool. I checked out teaching jobs in Hawaii - my dream scenario. I had heard that Schools there are really struggling. I could actually use this site in a high school math class in which I would have students search for availability of their chosen career field and statistically show which jobs are more readily available than others. An exercise like this could be done by state or region to give a better statistical breakdown.

Right now my job is full-time student.
So TTFN - skybluesue

Thing DIng

Well there I was ready for bed, trying to get comfortable and then my mind began to wander.
I tried to clear my brain and sort through some topics as I began to drift off into LaLa Land.
I started thinking about Dr. Walls instructions to "link" the photo in the last "thing" assignment that I had completed. It occurred to me that I had made some assumptions that were perhaps not correct. So here it is midnight and I have made those corrections and have learned a valuable lesson as well. Sometimes when I am doing online work for classes I "skim" the directions - I guess that comes from the speed reading habit that my daddy tried to get me to embrace as a teenager. Well I "skimmed" past the details on creating a link and did the link incorrectly. So now I am wiser and more tired, but one step closer to getting through the 23 things!!!

"Sleeping" off for now - skybluesue;-)

Thing 7

Photo credit : Andre Boffin

Well I am not sure I can put into words what a treat this adventure has been for me. One of my favorite things is a waterfall. My formative adult years were spent in Europe as a young 2 LT in the US Army. One of my favorite vacations was camping in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland, where the waterfalls are abundant.

So I looked up waterfalls - over 1,000,000 results. Then I refined my search to Lauterbrunnen and much to my delight there were over 800 results, in the very valley where I honeymooned. SWEET!!!

So now for the guided to tour: the photo is of the wildflowers that grow profusely in the spring with - TA DA - a waterfall in the background. If I close my eyes I can hear the cows with their big brass bells in the field next to the winding road that leads to the village. If I listen closely I can hear the water as it shoots down off the mountain side to the valley below. What a heavenly sound.

skybluesue "sighing" off for now! :-)

Thing 5

What does "School 2.0" mean to you?
What does it mean for schools of the future?

It seems to me that we are in the formative phases of Web 2.0/ School 2.0.
The descriptions I have read emphasize "for the 21st century."
Since we are in the first decade of the 21st century, I am sure my grandkids will get a kick out of hearing me, 30 years from now, explain how I used a computer, the internet, and so on.
I will probably tell them how teachers had to figure out ways to integrate the internet with the classroom lessons. They will probably be amazed that their parents had to haul books back and forth from school; a convention that I feel will go by the wayside as School 2.0 progresses.

But for now, I feel that the greatest challenge we have as teachers is to get over the perceived pressure of standards and figure out a way to teach and learn using all the resources we have at our disposal. If we can train this generation of students to THINK, I feel we will see test scores rise.
This is a technology generation, we need to get out of the book and stimulate their minds. Lofty words, I know.

For middle school level, when we are able to have computers, hardwired in all classrooms - that is when School 2.0 will be utilized to it's fullest. For now, it's great to have laptops on mobile carts for student use, but the time contraints of set up, etc. use up too much time when there is so little time to utilize. We may have to drag some in the school district into the technology age, but I know that is where the future of education is going. Operational technology, in my mind, will be realized when students use technology on an hourly basis at school and other learning environments.

arrival of the avatar (completed thing 3)

Well, I'm not sure why, but I decided to visit my avatar one time before shutting down. I clicked on the image and it gave me the option to save it to my computer. After doing that, I loaded it into the blog gadget feature without using the URL. Miracles never cease!!!
good night - skyblue sue

Thing 2

Well I had a lot of fun constructing my avatar. I spent too much time going through each outfit and accessory, but I wanted it to look just right - HA!

I ran into problems exporting my avatar to my blog and have spent nearly an hour trying to do so.
I will try at school as I am not sure what my problem is exactly. I copied and followed all the instructions, but each time got the response of "invalid URL."

The name I chose is the whimsical ME. I love the out of doors and nothing makes me happier than a nice sunny day with a blue sky. I get cranky when I can't get out or when it is too gray or cold for too long. I am a seasonal affective disorder person - lack of sunshine takes it's toll on me - really!!!

So does my avatar look like me??? - well let's say it resembles me! When spring get's here, I may have to adjust my avatar's attire to the hawaiian dress and beach background. Oh would I love to be there now!!! signing off for now - skybluesue

In the beginning...

Well it is pretty exciting for me to have created a blog of my own.
Getting down to the initial purpose of this blog - an education requirement,
I shall address the assignment first.

Thing 1
The lifelong learner tutorial was very interesting.
The habit that is easiest for me was having confidence in myself and my abilities - habit #4.
The hardest habit for me is #1: begin with the end in mind. Sometimes I have a hard time "landing." By that I mean, it is sometimes hard for me to stay focused on an end goal because I get distracted easily and go off on tangential adventures. A learning contract is a new idea to me and will help pin me down to a plan. Flexibility is always an option but sticking with a plan is a discipline from which I can benefit.

more later - skybluesue signing out!