Today our final essay for 2000 was due. I'm really glad that is over. The three books we read for this assignment were by far my favorite. I liked Lawrence Lessig the most. Remix was in my opinion the best of the 11 books we read. Although he takes things a bit to the extreme, I admire his passion for the issue. It also lead to a great conversaion with my son's guitar teacher who is an independent musician. I go back to work on Aug. 19th so I have 2 weeks with no stress to enjoy being with my family and then it is back into the swing of school. Everyone will be out of the house tomorrow, so I'm planning on going up to my classroom to see if any supplies have come in, and start to get things organized. This time next week we will be leaving for vacation. I can hardly wait!

It has been a busy week! This is birthday week in our house with 3 out of the 5 of us celebrating our day. On top of that, we are finishing up 2 swim teams with championships and end of year banquet and our club hosting a meet this week. We've been up at 5am to get to the pool by 6:30 and then back again at 6:00pm for finals. Trying to get laundry done, keep the house picked up, and oh yeah, get the yard back in order. We've had french drains put in during the last 2 weeks and they also regraded both our front yard, back yard, and lower yard. Tons of dirt has been moved this week. What a mess!! Still reading for 2000. Can't wait until that is over! Starting an outine for our html portfolio.

I worked on assignment 8 for several days and still don't think I've got it right. I've started reading for the last essay in 2000. I'll be very happy when that is done. Don't know where to begin on the portfolio project for assignment 9. I'm hoping we get a little more direction on what to include. I'm not sure if I missed the online chat this week. I tried on Sunday night, but there was nothing on Dimdim.

Today was the last day of the on-campus classes. It was really nice to meet everyone. Many interesting people with very different backgrounds. I enjoyed it a lot. Now it's time to get back to work on the 2nd html assignment. I tried to upload our powerpoint, but the site is down. Isn't technology great?!

I've been without the internet for 2 days. With the assignment for 2600 unfinished, I was a bit stressed to say the least. I think I got it done, but I'm not sure that I did it right. Tomorrow begins the on campus visit. It will be nice to put faces to the names I've been reading all these weeks. I'm glad I live close to campus so that I can come home each night. I've left a whole list of jobs for the kids to do while I'm away during the day. They weren't too happy to hear about that!

Like every other assingment, I've read the instructions and have no idea what to do. I'm going to try to get some quiet time tomorrow to sit down and get it started. Next week is the on campus visit. Looks like it should be an interesting week. My group for 2000 has started our presentation.

The books for LIS 2000 are going to be the end of me.....Okay, maybe not the complete end of me, but it's pretty close. It is taking me forever to finish them, and the whole time I'm reading, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to relate them to the topic. Oh well, enough time spent of this. Back to Work!

After tonight's chat session I decided to work on the Koha assignment. Earlier in the day I had watched the demo of it which really helped. It was actually easy to do, but it took a LONG time. Luckily I had 12 books from school that got me started off. Going back and forth from Amazon getting ISBN numbers was so time consuming and my laptop was unusually slow tonight which wasn't helping matters. I figured with the holiday coming up this weekend, I just wanted to be done with it. Now, if I could just read the books and write the essay for my other class, I'd be really happy.

Finally, I completed something ahead of time. Now the tricky part is staying ahead of the game. I completely ignored my family for one night and locked myself in my room. Kids weren't too happy about it, but at least I can enjoy some summer nights with them. Of course they have a swim meet tonight that I'll have to run home from to be back in time for the chat session. This just never seems to end. As soon as one thing is finished, it is off to start the next. Got to go and listen to the mid term review.

I wanted to get going on my eprints assignment today. When I looked at the tutorial it wasn't much help. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. There aren't many explanations and the pictures are so small, I can barely tell what is on the screen. This could be a long week....On a happier note, I finished the Challenge. It took us a little over 6 hours. Lots of sore muscles.

I've been spending all of my free time reading. I went to the Carnegie Library in Oakland to get the Access Principle so I could read while waiting at the orthodontist appts, swim team practice.... Today I'm doing the Rachel Carson Challenge. It is the half challenge which is a 17 mile walk on the trail. With all the rain we've had, I'm sure the trail is muddy. Hopefully the weather will be good today. It should take us about 6 hours to complete and weather.com has cloudy skies until 4:00 and then rain. If we hike a bit faster, we may be able to finish and stay dry.

I think I'm in panic mode. Still haven't finished Glut, (2000) haven't started the others either. I missed last night's chat session because I didn't see the email about the time change. Started looking ahead at the next assignment for this class and feel completely lost. There was only one spot left on the hot topic list for lis 2000 so I had to take it. I hate to complain....but I think that is all I have been doing. It's a good thing I have nice friends and a good husband who puts up with me. Got to go read....

I went into school today for a meeting and decided while I was there I'd print out all of the required readings for week 4 and 5. I have no idea how I'm going to get all of it read. I took Glut to the pool the other day and of course never opened it. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow! I thought once school was out, I'd have more time for this, but it hasn't worked out as well as I had hoped. Life is way too busy!! (which is why I'm doing this at midnight) Big game tomorrow night...must get work done in the morning.

When I first looked at this assignment, I started cursing myself for ever thinking that going back to school at this stage of my life was a good idea. After playing around with it for a while, it actually wasn't bad. I thought for sure I'd need help from my teenage daughter, but I did it all by myself. I guess you really can teach an old dog new tricks! You see the full screen in the preview. When I looked at the published post, you can't see the whole screen. I'm not sure why. I tried to change it, but no luck.

Well, so much for following a schedule. Everytime I try to read that book I fall asleep. So the next time I begin to read, I have to go back and reread. I think I got the point in the first 36 pages. That is about it for tonight. The Penguins are winning, tomorrow is the last day of school, my class awards are printing, and I have to go read!

I'm still working my way through Double Fold. I'm trying to set up a schedule to do a little bit each day so that I don't get behind. I'd like to get it done and start on the review. School is done this week so it is a bit crazy. Luckily grades had to be submitted last Friday so at least that is done. Now all that is left is packing up my room for summer, which is no small task! Should be beautiful tomorrow for Field Day. I was able to join the chat session on dimdim Thursday. That was helpful. My husband told our kids he would take them to watch the Pens game on the outdoor screen at Mellon Arena this Thursday, so I'm not sure I'll make the chat this week.

I was thinking as I was watching the videos for class, about the people who give these presentations. Could you imagine having one of them as part of your family. I mean, what could you possibly talk about at dinner?
I was discussing this class with another teacher at work. Sometimes we get so absorbed with the concepts and children that we're teaching, (not to mention our own children and their lives) that we forget how nice it is to actually learn some adult concepts. As frustrated and as lost that I feel at times, I am enjoying learning new things.

I made my list on WorldCat over the weekend, but can't figure out the RIS. It says export CSV and it did go right into a spreadsheet, but it is not in the right format. Not quite sure where to go from here. I saw on the DB that someone else had a post on this. Hopefully someone will help us out. Pens win!

Well my goal was to complete a one of these before 11:00pm. So far it hasn't work out. I was having too much fun making RSS feeds. I think I got it, but I'm not sure. Today when I was trying to upload my Kuhn book review, the CourseWeb gave me the message that I wasn't enrolled in any classes. I've learned not to panic. So I went out to dinner and came back a few hours later and what do you know, I was back in! Isn't technology great! I'm doing the Rachel Carson trail in a few weeks with some friends. Tomorrow we're meeting at 7am to start "training" so I think I better get some sleep.

Well, the second week is coming to a close and I'm almost done with my assignments. I've read the book and started the essay for my other class. Found the articles on Scopus and Scholar and have them in RefWorks. Now if I could only figure out those feeds! I'm hoping to get this wrapped up tomorrow so I can enjoy my long weekend. No school on Monday! I wonder if kids realize teachers enjoy a day off as much as they do. Only 10 schools days until summer vacation. Then maybe I can get this done before 11:00!

Well, it has been a rough week. On Mother's Day my good friend collapsed at her house and died a few hours later. On the way home from the hospital I told my husband I wasn't going to take these classes. I thought why add this extra stress to my life when it can all be taken away so quickly? I spent the week trying to help her husband and children as they dealt with this terrible tragedy. Needless to say, after taking a few deep breaths and a pep talk from my husband, I knew I couldn't quit. So here I am. I'm going to try not to stress out too much when links are down and I can't figure out assignments, and ask for help when I need it. We'll see how it goes. I did watch the video The Future of the Web. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I was impressed how "Sir Tim" didn't hesitate when asked by someone in the audience about getting web access for the visually disabled (through the web accessibility initiative). It would be interesting to see what came of that.

Working out the kinks

Okay, I think I finally have this going (I hope!).

This is a bit frustrating. I can't see my first post on my blog. This is round 2