Wow, was it a busy week! I may have bitten off more than I can chew this Summer but I’m trying hard to stay on top of everything. In addition to ds106, I am also taking a course at Germanna Community College to fill in some outstanding general elective requirements. That course is fairly easy for me and not too time consuming…at least not yet. I intended to take a third online course this summer as well, but I am seriously rethinking that idea! As desperately as I want to finish my coursework and graduate next May from UMW, I don’t want to set myself up to fail or lower my GPA. Yeah, I know I am hard on myself about my academics, but it’s too important to me not to be. Anything worth doing is worth doing right!

And when it rains it pours! Work has been a little hectic as I am now the only Proposal Manager still standing in our organization. One quit and walked out, the other just went out on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. I am frantically trying to carry my workload and get up to speed and assume their former projects as well. I hope my upper management hires the replacement as soon as possible—I’m not sure how long I can keep all the balls in the air without dropping something.

The good news is that as busy and work-intensive as I am finding ds106 to be, I am thoroughly enjoying it! It is providing me the opportunity (ok, really the requirement) to be creative and contemplate things around me differently. I am still a little behind the curve, I think, due to my learning curve on some of the technologies and tools involved here, but I am having a blast learning this way.

So what have I accomplished this week, you ask? Well, here’s a rundown:

• I managed the complete 5 of the 7 Daily Creates (tdc). My original goal was to complete them all but I intentional skipped the sound recording one, and the other, I just didn’t get to on Sunday. If my schedule ever opens up and I get a grip on this camp, I might go back and do some of the ones I missed. I especially enjoy the photography challenges. The photography tips tricks and hints were very helpful in getting better photo compilations. If you haven’t been following along daily, you can see a review of my tdc submissions from Week 3 in my last post: A Daily Dose of Creative Photography
• For Visual Assignments, the requirement was do complete and blog 10 “stars” worth of project (or I like to think of them as challenges) from the ds106 Assignment Repository. Again, I wanted to do more, but time is my biggest hurdle these days. And since I haven’t done a lot of photo editing before, learning the ins and outs of some of the programs has been challenging and time consuming. I think my favorite to do was If you’ve got them… followed by Seasonally Friendly?. The Average of Lily and The First to Admit It (Checking Out) were fun and fairly easy to do, but it didn’t include any “original” work on my part…just following instruction and seeing want happens! I’ve had a little blogging trouble that apparently left Art that Pops sitting in a draft vortex way too long, but I realized it was missing and was able to publish it this morning.
• I got Google Reader up and running and subscribed to all the ds106 blogs, but I am ashamed to admit I have not been as active commenting on my bunkmates’ and fellow campers’ blogs and assignments as I should be and/or WANT to be. I need to step it up a notch there!
• I have also spent a significant amount of time this week investigating many photo editing tools, including web-based tools (Fotoflexer, Pixlr), free download software (Picasa, GIMP), and iPhone/iPad apps (Snapseed, Photoshop Express). It’s been a lot of fun playing with them. My strategy is to write a tutorial or two, showcasing a tool that hasn’t already been described in past tutorials. Especially for those of us who can’t afford to invest in PhotoShop or want to have a mobile option through apps.

I’m proud of this week’s accomplishments, but I’ve run into trouble along the way and getting lost in the forest once or twice. I will give Jim Groom props for twittering me a few links to help me with my blogging issues on Saturday. I’ve been having some issues with sizing photos in my posts. I *think* I may have figured it out, but we’ll see…

I usually avoid any and all virtual worlds, simply because my real world keeps me busy enough that I don’t have time to run a fake one! I briefly dabbled in Farmville, but gave it up when I couldn’t keep up and my crops kept withering! So Minecraft is foreign territory to me!!! I got it installed, but I am completely lost at how to move around, do anything, or find anything, or anybody for that matter. I need to do some further research on how to work that world! Maybe I can get in there with someone else, who knows what they’re doing, to help me figure out the basics. Since our next Campfire is being held in there…and finally at a time I can join…I guess I better get it figured out fast!

That’s all for now…marching forward with week 4….