The Facts of Life during Hurricane Season and CRAAP detection.

The last few weeks have been determined by the weather, and more specifically by close-by hurricanes. This week, our community has been subjected again to heavy rains and major flooding. Weather systems have been creating almost micro-climate cells.... you could literally drive 10 minutes and be out of the heavy rain area, and then around the turn, you would be facing flooded roads... Electrical outages, internet connectivity issues...and all the other "good stuff" that goes with these weather troubles.

And then...as if the weather didn't give our community enough issues. As instructed, i checked out my email, my spam and trash folders....I have been getting emails from people and companies I haven't even heard of before....went ahead and blocked them....I am not sure if this is because of Google or Bing searches, or by visiting dubious websites.... AARGH! As a teacher, I have been worried about what my students access online as research materials, helping them distinguish credible online sources, what to look for, and what not to do to find resources. But it looks like I, myself, need to be a lot more aware of what I do online, what site links I click on, and what I leave behind when I do visit websites...
I also need to go through my spam and regular email folders, and start "unsubscribing" from all these list I signed up for without even realizing.
Sad to find out that even the online world has become so untrustworthy. What ever happened to just seeing the good things?

Fourth week in.....

So after our Monday night synchronous class, I had some thoughts about my digital footprint. While we all are aware of what we leave behind in our "real world" as evidence of our actions, there is just as much evidence that is left behind in the digital realm....online, the Matrix, or what ever you want to call it. As I use GAFE in my classroom, and my students use their school Google accounts to create work evidence, many do not log out of their accounts when they put the computers or tablets back. This leads to frustration of the next student who uses this device as they now need to log out the previous user, and log in to their own accounts. But it also leave room for students to mess with their peers' work. 

I keep reminding my students about their online activities, and their account settings, etc.... Because if I can see it on various Social Media tools, and I'm not "friends" with them, that means that their account is completely public....NOT a good idea! Especially for 8th graders!

Our online class meetings are always interesting....besides being informed on what is up next, we also have small-group break-out sessions....what is interesting to me, is that- no matter which group I am in, or what class I am taking- there are always people in the break-out session who are completely silent....be it tech problems, or just opting to not participate...that to me is a little frustrating... I understand that sometimes online classes run into tech problems: mic not working, slow connection, getting kicked off...most of the time I experienced that people who do have tech issues will go out of their way to contact the Prof or one of their peers, informing them that they are having tech issues, and need help to get back online....that is NOT irritating, just a little inconvenient. The quiet ones....

I've also been playing with the idea of using 2.0 web tools for my students to create and submit evidence...not sure which ones I'll line up to choose from, but I would like to see less "Paper Evidence" on my desk....and make the process of submitting work a little more bullet proof!

Now off to week 5, and training on my new interactive science curriculum tomorrow!

Mixed Feelings.... slightly irritated....

So we were introduced to this new App called Line.... basically an IM app, with stickers, emoticons and other gadgets....I think it is really cool...But.....it is also slightly irritating as some of our cohort have been using it as a social media/texting app. I feel like I HAVE to respond to all of these messages- although I know I don't really have to. Anyway...way more pressure than regular texts....making me anxious and irritated.

The other aspects of my LTEC classes are good, and are do-able to keep up. 

But our community has lost two wonderful ladies: Pearl, owner of Pearl's Garden- my go-to spot for all my farm supplies and animal feed; Debbie, a wonderful volunteer for our AdvoCats feral cat care organization. Al of the sudden you have to stop and realize how fragile life is, and how you sometimes just have to drop everything, stop working and just enjoy the day.... I hope these ladies will be watching over me!

This coming week I will be receiving training on our new e-Text book from Pearson for my science classes, have to administer a test on my Geologic Time unit, and come up with a performance assessment for this unit....and then after the Fall Break: round 1 of the HSA Science test....

Multi-tasking

As I find myself in the second half of the 1st Quarter of this school year, grading my students' work, getting ready for the second progress reports to go out, I have also adopted a new grading policy. I will no longer fail students who do submit their work, although it is not really the kind of work I was looking for. This is as a result of several articles we have been reading in our science department. We have adopted a policy of assigning a "50%-minimum" if students submit a sub-par work. Only missing work will be getting the dreaded "zero". We'll see if this works or not. 
I have also been thinking on how or teaming and middle school philosophy has been attempted to be killed by our admin....very frustrating. Hard to find ways to help your admin understand the importance and value of teaming and middle school philosophy.

On the flip side, I also have found myself working late at night, for my own classes. This is something I usually never do... by 9 PM I was in bed....now it's close to 11 PM, and then I find myself awake at 2 AM...mind going 100 MPH.... Not a good thing when you have to get up at 5 AM. 

But....classes are going good, I am not intimidated by the tasks at hand...I just need to stop procrastinating, and need to learn how to pace myself and actually stick to that schedule I made...

If Mother Nature now could also find a way to pace all that rain that has been falling out of the Sky....and a way to turn the heaters down.... Global warming....no longer a myth folks!   

Really Strange Week...

So, as we are in Hurricane season, most of us are somewhat aware of the steps we need to take to be prepare for bad weather...but my life was put on hold for a few hours, when a tiny little stream named Ki'ilae, started flowing again after a few days of heavy rain in South Kona. Afterwards, I found out that my situation wasn't as bad, as many parts of Kailua-Kona experienced heavy flooding.

I left the school I teach at a little after 3 PM. And it had been raining for a few hours, with some lightning and thunder. I stopped at the feed store to get feed for my farm animals, and the owner warned me that "it didn't look good" at my side of the island- I'm only about 25 minutes outside Captain Cook center.

I was going to stop at the little grocery store on the way home, quickly feed all the critters, and start grading my students' Scientific Method test and lab, and then finish working on my LTEC 642 Case Study proposal. 
By the time I reached Honaunau, traffic came to a stop. Ki'ilae started flowing again due to the heavy rains up-slope the west side of Mauna Loa, had become large enough to go over the tiny bridge, and was strong enough to send  a large amount of debris towards the south end, covering HWY 11.... But! Country & State Workers were prepared and had heavy equipment ready to clear the road, and by 4:30 PM, one lane was open and traffic slowly started moving again....except our schoolbusses. For some reason, they decided that they could wait any more and took our students back to school....Very disturbing! I called our principal, he was aware, and the students would probably go to the Cafeteria until parents can pick them up.....but parents were probably stuck in Town (Kailua-Kona) as the flooding there was even worse...

So, when I finally got home, I did my farm chores, started dinner, and just never did any school work...hence, it's Sunday evening, and I'm doing 4 things at a time to get "all my own school stuff" done.....Good thing tomorrow is Labor Day...hope it rains....so I don't have to do farm chores and grade my students' work...

Ah, the joys of multi-tasking.....

Ok, For Real This Time!

So, for my summer session at UH, I created my blog, and published my first blog. 

But I dropped the ball.
I was going to share my experiences with my two summer classes LTEC 642 and LTEC 612, but the two classes in the short 6 weeks of intense work, kept me from attempting to keep my intentions of reporting out.

Now the Fall Semester has started, and my two classes seem to be at a less stressed pace -so far-, I hope to be a little better at keeping up with my intent to blog.
This semester I am taking LTEC 642: Facilitating E-Learning Communities and LTEC 673: Planning for Technology & Resources. 
Yesterday, I also received an email from 'Imiloa Astronomy Center at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, that I was accepted in the new teacher program: MANU 'Imiloa: Kōlea.
My Fall Break will be spend in Hilo for training. But I am really excited about this, because it fits in my curriculum, teaching constellations and navigation, except I won't be using Little Dipper, Big Dipper, Orion, Scorpio, etc -or at least not all of them with these names. Now I will learn the way Ancient Hawaiian Navigators used the 4 Star Lines, Hokupa'a, the wind directions and houses.

I hope that with the classes I am taking this Semester, I can learn how to create online resources for my students to access the Ancient Navigation knowledge, and make it meaningful, yet accessible for them. Not just the celestial navigation unit, but all of my Earth & Space Science resources.

A Hui Hou......See you later!