Blooming Flowers

Hello my friends! I know many of you are or have been teachers. I have not, but I am really excited to start this preschool program with my 3 year old! It's an at home program that was made my one of my favorite IG accounts, @busytoddler . She is awesome and definitely part of my broader baby/kid PLN. Those of you that have kids, are they in/did they do preschool? 

 YALL. This article just blew my mind.  This semester has been a little bit rough in terms of getting everything done that I've wanted to and feeling like I have time for my kids and husband. I've been incredibly distracted and began to think that maybe I was just bad at managing my time. I want to start fresh and really build my schedule to feel confident that I have made time for everything that is important to me! This is something that my husband and I have talked about a million times, and he's a little bit better at naturally setting up his life to plan for the things he really wants to focus on. I've always had a more laissez faire attitude about things just happening if they need to happen. No surprise here - things do not just "get done" without proper planning and I'm tired of running around trying to make it all happen just because it's on my to-do list! Now is the time to make a change.  Since we are moving into our new house in about a we

We officially closed on our house about a week and a half ago and I've been living down in Galveston at my parent's beach house since then! It would be an awesome vacation, except it's just me, the kids, and our animals most of the time. So while I've tried to make it fun for the kiddos, I'm also just exhausted from solo parenting + school work during the week while my husband is working his new job in our new city! (Kudos to all of you single moms out there!!!)  I am really grateful to be finishing up the semester this week though so next week can be a relaxing and fun beach week! :) I'm sure everyone is ready for a little break. Anyone else have plans for their break between semesters? What classes are y'all planning to take in the fall semester? I am signed up for EME 5608 (Trends and Issues in Instructional Design) and EME 6357 (Evaluation of Training in HPT). It would be lovely to see some familiar names on the discussion boards! 

 Anyone else super excited to use your produsage assignment in real life?! I had SUCH a hard time deciding what I wanted to do for this assignment, but when I finally decided what I wanted to do, it felt like the perfect thing! It is a padlet for aerial teachers to interact with current students where they can share videos, comments, questions, and safety tips with one another. You can check it out here!

Anyone out there watching the Olympics right now?! I haven't had a chance to turn it on yet, but it is interesting that it coincides with our international studies of social media use. I wonder how much the Olympics play a part in social media use while they are going on? So far on social media I have seen a rise in memes and a significant number of articles on the ridiculous rules and regulations on what women are allowed to wear while competing, the blind and deaf woman not being able to have a helper with her in Tokyo because of Covid restrictions (even though it seems like there are other actually unnecessary people that are allowed to be there), and so many more things that feel crazier than usual this year! Maybe we're all just more connected though.. What do you think?

After reading through Digital citizenship education handbook: Being online, well-being online, and rights online,  and considering my own experiences, education, recent current events, and recent conversations, I am left wondering where the US is on addressing digital citizenship. Here are the things floating around in my head this evening... I know that there was recently a Supreme Court case passed about free speech about a cheerleader that used some very explicit language on her Snapchat in regards to her school and cheerleading coach after not making the varsity team and was then suspended and kicked off the JV squad. SCOTUS passed in favor of her ability to speak freely on a social media platform about the school without ramifications.  In a Zoom call earlier today for EME5601, we were talking about whether or not kids had classes in school that were related to privacy and internet safety. Right now the consensus seems to be that there are special assemblies or lectures on this t