CyberCamp 08

I learned how make a presentation on google docs and put it in the blog, imbed a video on the blog, create shelfari bookshelf, add photos and an avatar.  Here it is.

Long way to go but I guess I passed.

This has been a great class.  Looked forward to coming every morning which says alot for all of us teachers finishing up a busy year. Has been great meeting all of you.  Looking forward to staying connected.

Is your principal not excited about your latest cyber project?  Well, give yourself some privacy with this knitted cyber hood.  No one will bother you (including students) when you are ensconced in this extravaganza.

One of my favorite quotes about reading:  “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Mark Twain.  Go to the Mark Twain site if you want to read more.

The last day of camp is so hard, isn’t it?  Saying goodbye to fellow campers, packing up our mementos; the lanyards, the rock sculptures, the badges.  Then the inevitable bus that takes you back to the real world.

So what does the real world hold for us?  It is hard and scary and inevitable, change is going to knock us around a bit.  There is no cruising time through our lives.  But maybe as campers we go back to the real world better equipped to brave the rough seas?  Maybe we have earned more than badges, maybe we have earned a better sense of how our teaching grows and sails on stormy seas.  Best of luck fellow campers!

And just in case I got too deep and blah for you… go to this site for some cyber fun… Jerry wanted me to post it…. total time waster.

Well, here we are the last day of CyberCamp.  What do we have to show for it. 

I would say that more than anything else my mind, which was fairly open to begin with, has been pried
open.  With the loads of stuff that has been packed into the last two weeks I feel like it will be a while
before I really have it all meshed together in a tight format.

I look forward to the help that other CyberCampers will provide over the next few months as my project comes together.

Thanks to everyone.

Jerry

What a bittersweet day! I am very excited that I will be able to hang with my kids now, but I am very sad that I will not be seeing each of you every day. I have been challenged these last two weeks and it has been so much fun. I have loved each and every moment – even the frustrating ones.

I look forward to seeing everyone’s projects come to fruition. I hope you don’t mind if I borrow bits and pieces from each of you to bring to my students. Part of my goal as a computer lab teacher in the elementary is to teach my students the basics so you can do the advanced.

Please feel free to email me (or I will be watching the blog if it is going to stay active). I look forward to working with all of you in the future.

Early on in CyberCamp, I pledged that I was investigating the idea of connective writing as my project for CyberCamp, as I was hoping to use this experience to think about what a course on conenctiving writing would look like.

But I’ve pretty much spent my time at CyberCamp on, well, CyberCamp, instead of connective writing.  And I almost feel badly about that, as if I failed somehow.  Except that I’m thinking that maybe I didn’t.  Aren’t the two ideas/projects related?  Hasn’t CyberCamp, in lots of ways, been about connections and writing and networking with a goal of creating opportunity for serendipity?

As I continue to work on connective writing – because I will build this course, dangnabbit – I’m thinking about what additional lessons and activities and learnings that we’ve done here that are essential for others, too.

Sometimes when you are in the middle of things you don’t realize what’s happening.   Thinking back to yesterday’s discussion with the AUTHORS of our text it suddenly occured to me how TOTALLY COOL the experience was.  I know that Sue has hung out with authors all the time but for me it was an unusual event.  It was made even more powerful by the ongoing chat with who knows who, and the ability to carry on a dialoge.   All this while both us and the authors were in places of comfort and ease (and it was free).  Technology rules. Thanks to Bud and Jerry for setting all this up.  

If you wanted to return to yesterday’s conversation with Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss, or you missed it the first time around, I’m pleased to report that the recording of the session is now available.  I want to again thank Suzie and Jane for their time, thoughtfulness and investment in our learning, as well as their excellent book, a resource that I suspect will become dogearred and sticky-note strewn as I return to it again and again.  Also, one more thank you to Steve Hargadon and Classroom 2.0 for the use of their Elluminate classroom, which did exactly what we needed when we needed it to.

How fortunate we are to have colleagues like these.

I just want to say that the last two weeks with you all has been a great experience that I will not soon forget. Becki and I are flying up north to a family emergency in about two hours, we are taking the red eye. When you approach our age this is expected..you never get use to it, but it happens. I am looking forward to carrying on a dialog  with each and everyone of you during this upcoming school year and beyond.. I was supposed to bring morning snacks, going to have ask for a rain check.

Bud, another commendable job directing and establishing such a great learning environment.. I will complete my proposal and will send my presentation as soon as possible. I do not know when I will return, but I should suspect it will be awhile, but not long enough to miss meeting with the author. Bud, maybe if you have time you would give the group a snapshot of what my project entails.

Jerry, thanks for all that you did keeping the mood light and us on target. I will be looking forward to having you visit the classroom, but of course you and Bud do not need an invitation, just dorp in.

Again, it has been a pleasure ..God Bless