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The End of an Era

Jeudi, 23 Mai 2013 04:11

Disclaimer: if you're looking for a post on how to brilliantly incorporate technology into your classroom, you're not going to find that here today. If, however, you woke up this morning and thought, "I'd love to read a post written by a grown women that has been reduced to a googly-eyed 13 year old with a crush" well then today's your lucky day.

If you've been a loyal follower of my blog over the past 3 years you may have learned a few things about me: I was raised a Saskatchewanian so I'm prone to using terms like "bunny hug" and "vico", I pretend to be cool but really I'm a political and history geek, I love all sorts of sports and have moved around the country a bit since high school but you'll never see me give up my love for the Roughriders, I have a great husband and an almost-2 year old son (with a baby girl on the way!)...

...and I have a not so secret obsession with the country group Emerson Drive.

It's true - I fell in love with their music over 10 years ago, and then became a stalkergroupie perfectly normal fan of theirs over the past decade. I've been to countless concerts (well into double digits), joined their fan club like an 8 year old girl obsessed with NKOTB in the 80s, attended countless meet and greets, they follow me on Twitter, had my picture taken with the group a dozen times, own a variety of autographed paraphenalia, have slept in my car to be at one concert, have actually made FRIENDS with other regulars as we started recognizing one another at concerts, have driven by and taken a picture of the road the band is named after in Northern Alberta, know fun facts like which members' family members have been featured in what videos and have become sort of friends with their merchandise guy.

Whew! That felt great to get off my chest.

I've roped many friends into being my ally and coming to their concerts, since my husband has tolerated my obsession from the very beginning but won't feed my addiction promote it by coming with me, haha.

If you've been privvy to witness this little schoolgirl insanity first hand, you'll also be aware that front row, stage right is where I plan on being for every show, mostly so I can have a good view of the most handsome member of this band -- their fiddle player David Pichette. [on the off chance that someone from @EmersonDrive actually took my suggestion and headed over here, my apologies if I've offended you for giving David the #1 slot]

Ladies, if you've stuck with this ridiculous post long enough to make it this far down the page, I've embedded the following video so you can get a glimpse of what I'm talking about (although his smile is waaay better in person). Guys - I'd be surprised if any male readers actually made it to this sentence, but if you have, your reward is also the following video which has a beautiful lady as one of the characters. You're welcome.

So why is my post titled "end of an era"? It was announced 2 weeks ago that my favourite drool-worthy member is leaving the band. Apparently, David ('cuz we're on a first name basis like that) has decided that with his wife expecting their 3rd child this summer it's too much to be away on the road for weeks and months at a time. Haven't these people ever heard of a nanny? Just kidding...sort of...

What makes this devastating news even more tragic for me is that I actually CHOSE to not attend their most recent cross-Canada tour since I was still battling good ol' first trimester sickness and figured they'd be hitting up some of the summer festivals (Calgary Stampede anyone?). Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sigh. While the mature, logical side of me wishes David all the best (he'll still be affiliated with the band as a director/creative guy for their music videos), the petulant teenager in me is stomping her feet and getting ready for a YouTube marathon of EDrive videos.

Maybe when I emerge I'll be able to get something technology related for you all to read later this week. Wish me luck.

Here are a couple videos I'll be playing on repeat and teaching my son the lyrics to today. (again, kidding...sort of...)

Vanessa

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IFTTT

Jeudi, 16 Mai 2013 09:00

Call it an early Fresh Look Fridays post, call it a self admission that perhaps I don't know everything cool that's on the Internet, or just simply call it an invitation to waste 20 minutes exploring a new site. Whatever you want to call this next little blog post, I know that you will come away with some extremely useful information if you've ever wanted to create automated actions for a blog, twitter account, Facebook page, etc., etc.

IFTTT is basically a website devoted to creating cause and effect actions on the interwebs. So if action A takes place, then you can request that action B follows suit. For example, if you're like me and would like to not always have to remember to manually send a tweet each time a new blog post is published, then IFTTT has a recipe just for that. Want to have an email notification sent to you every time your favourite Facebook page is updated? IFTTT can do that too.

Confused yet? Don't worry - they've done a great job explaining everything here.

And can I just say, that I'm loving their sense of humour in their url? I literally was thinking "wtf is this?" the first time I happened upon this website...glad to see they could tie that in with their "about" page.

As per usual, this gem of a website came to my attention from a wonderful tweep. Thanks to @stevewclark for the tip!

Vanessa

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Mother's Day Funnies

Lundi, 13 Mai 2013 10:00

So the 2013 edition of Mother's Day has come and gone, but it wouldn't be properly celebrated on the interwebs these days without a little someecard humour.

And so, ladies and gentlement, I bring to you my own personal round-up of the best ecards for Mother's Day. If you get started now, you've got 364 days to prepare your own humourous addition for the 2014 crop.

Oh, how true it is:

someecards.com - I hope your Mother's Day is more pleasant than labor was.

It wouldn't be a technology blog without some reference to keeping up with technology, now would it?

Not feeling the beckoning of chubby cheeks and drooly lips?

And my personal favourite:

someecards.com - For enduring the bloodcurdling torture of my adolescent years I promise to always keep your electronics functional

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day weekend, and a special shout out and Happy Birthday to my own Mom! Vanessa

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Fresh Look Fridays - Just a Cute Site

Vendredi, 26 Avril 2013 06:00

Admittedly, this is nothing too mind blowing for this week's Fresh Look Fridays post. I usually go for something cool and interactive; bonus points if it's designed for use with a small group of students at your SMART Board.

Not going to lie - this website is neither, but it did catch my attention. Spring is in the air (well, at least in some parts of the country), and with that comes Spring Fever. Are your kids getting a little restless in class? Finding it harder to get them to settle down? Check out the website Bouncy Balls.

Basically, it's an incentive to get the class to be quiet. If you have an external microphone, lots of noise in the classroom will cause the balls on the screen to bounce sporadically:

Once the noise level is under control, the balls become still:

balls still

Cute, simple and effective, especially with the wee ones.

Vanessa

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Fresh Look Fridays - Canadian Parliament

Vendredi, 12 Avril 2013 07:00

Today is a historic day. Rather than reviewing a website or app that already exists for today's Fresh Look Fridays post, I'm putting on my psychic glasses and peering into the future to share with you something that is not quite ready to use today.

The cameras for Google Street View took over parliament hill this week, and will soon complete their task of documenting the historic buildings. What this means for you, my fellow Social Studies passionites, is that you'll soon be able to take your class on a virtual field trip of our federal government on your SMART Board without having to get all those pesky persmission forms signed.

Awesome.

Since I can't embed the video showing some of the areas they are working on, take a look over this CTV news article to watch a short video explaining the whole procedure.

For those of you whom just cannot wait for it to be released, check out the Google Street View of the White House for another Social Studies-linked virtual tour.

Happy Friday.

Vanessa

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Fresh Look Fridays - A Recap

Vendredi, 05 Avril 2013 09:15

I noticed I've picked up a number of new blog and Twitter followers over the past 6 months or so, so I thought that I'd take a quick moment today to draw your attention to one of the more regular features on this blog -- Fresh Look Fridays.

Admittedly, it's been a few months since a FLF post has been written so I thought why not take a natural pause here and walk you through a trip down memory lane (or a new lane for those that may be seeing this for the first time)? Essentially, FLF was created as a way to share some of my favourite interactive websites. I did a lot of workshops with teachers and many of those workshops centered around ways to get creative using your SMART Board without having to make something from scratch for each and every class. One such way to combat the time crunch is to find resources online that suit your needs. These interactive websites often work best as either an introduction to a new topic or a review of some key concepts, and I often recommend that they be used on your SMART Board by a small group of students working through learning stations.

The Fresh Look Fridays feature will be resuming on a semi-regular basis, but for today I thought I'd list a few of my favourites from the past. Here goes...

1. Human Body Interactive

The title speaks for itself. Work through the challenge of properly identifying and placing organs along with parts of the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems. See the original blog post here.

2. Mister Teacher

Check out the amazing selection of mini movies designed specifically to be downloaded and embedded into your SMART Notebook files. Find lots of resources for elementary Science, Math and Social Studies. Read more details about Mister Teacher on my original FLF post here.

3. VRView

One for the art crowd, this website is basically a virtual art gallery with panoramic scroll features. I outlined a few ideas on how to incorporate this into your classroom in the original post way back in May of 2010 (have I really been doing this blog for that long?!?).