I will try ...

New Years resolutions are not my thing. I am not opposed to changing or improving oneself. I think though that I am not really committed to sticking with anything for much longer than a few months at best. This year is no different. In the spirit however of trying something new...

Some of my friends in cyberspace have participated this past year in a project in which they upload a photo a day to a blog or some other online space. I am going to give it a try. I am an artistic kind of gal and I do enjoy taking pictures so I am hoping to share a little bit of my world. I will also continue blogging about the every day in the elementary education world regarding technology integration as I see it.

We will see how I do. Encouragement, positive feedback or shame and guilt is probably necessary for me to continue this. It sounds kind of shallow and immature of me but I can imagine that after a month or two it becomes harder to make the time to actually do it.

To all of you out there making resolutions to improve your lives in some way, I wish you success. I know you can do it!! By writing this blog post I have put it out there for others to see what I am going to try and do. I don't like to disappoint myself.

Good health, happiness and continued success in your endeavors to all of you in 2010. May it be a year of fulfilled dreams and challenges overcome by hard work and cooperation.

Time out vs. Balance

Pleased or not, technology and the frustrations and joys that it brings is here to stay. You can escape it if you would like by choice and there is a small but growing movement of people that are deciding to turn off the computer, cell phone, television and anything else electronic in their lives. This is their choice and I can respect that but I happen to believe that hiding your head in the sand and choosing to live in a different world is a choice I would not make for me, my family or my students. I think that like most anything in our lives too much of something is a bad thing. It is a fine line and a difficult balance to have the myriads of technologies in our lives today. The technology of smartphones, gps, computers or the applications that are part of these electronics is amazing! This amazement turns into a problem when someone becomes paralyzed when the technology is not working or when an individual does not know how to do whatever the application does manually. Technology entertains and assists us with communication and learning. In my humble opinion, this is how it should be.
In this new year of 2010 I am going to remember that my life with technology is great! I am going to balance it with riding my bike, going on walks, reading real paper books and hugging on my real dog. I do this while keeping up with technology in education with my professional learning network (an intelligent community of online people dedicated to sharing with others).
Good luck to you in your quest to balance your life. It is a challenge but one in which I hope that you will be successful with.