My beloved dog Sasha just passed over the Rainbow Bridge   (a loving thought to help with grieving).    I fell in love with Sasha in August 2011.  I had gone to the shelter looking for a small dog.  There were none available and the shelter folks recommended I look at Sasha.  But she had vanished in the […]

After struggling with weight issues for most of my life, I finally made the decision on 16 Sep 2012, that it was time to go on a journey to health rather than just lose weight. That year had been the lowest in my life –filled with deep stress over my job and corresponding bad choices […]

I’m creating a new  category called Health Journey where I hope to share some of the struggles and lessons learned from a lifetime of trying to fit in with society’s ideas of beauty.    Just recently, I’ve come to realize that my focus needs to be on the journey to getting  healthy and then maintaining […]

The past two weeks I started three classes (I am probably certifiably crazy) while experiencing vertigo attacks and working full time. The classes included two MOOCs from Coursera: Intro to Computational Arts (SUNY) and Creativity, Innovation, and Change (CIC) (Penn State) along with Digital Storytelling (DS106) headless version started at Univ of Mary Washington and […]

So here it is at the end of the first week when I intended to “kick ds106 butt” and I find myself thinking about 21st century elegance. I think the concept of elegance has changed somewhat from the 1800s. Instead of being tied so much to people and their dress & mannerisms, I find elegance […]

A comment on my earlier blog today from Alan Levine inspired me to do this drawing. In part it’s also a response to Jim Groome’s tweet. I may be slow to get going but I plan to kick butt for #ds106. However, animated gifs will have to wait for another day. So what are my […]

Despite 2013 being an apocalyptic year for health issues (glaucoma, vertigo, car accident) for me, I’m learning how to enjoy classes with subpar health. And I’m grateful for the truly creative and fun people that I’m meeting along the way. I may be in overkill but this week I sort of started ( still have […]

For the Intro to Art class #artmooc, we had to do a personal collections “cabinet of curiosities” or memory box like those created by Joseph Cornell, one of my favorite artists. I’ve written about him in an earlier blog when I submitted a memory box as my photo for another class. The interesting thing about […]

Officially I started Howard Rheingold’s class “Think-Know Tools” by attending the second session of the online forum tonight. I was very excited about this opportunity to learn from the man who wrote “Smart Mobs” in 2002 and continues to be a force in thinking and learning. The small group session tonight was great with about […]

Yesterday I started listening to “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg.  Due to glaucoma,  I now find it easier to listen to audio books than read especially if I have been working on the computer all day.  It takes longer and I have to replay some parts, but I’m enjoying the process. So far I’m only […]

At the end of 2012, there was a call in our community to write about what individuals learned in 2012 and share it using the hashtag #learn2012. I started thinking about that a lot and put together a draft which I’m just now publishing. I’m not sure the answers are yet clear but here’s my […]

Last week I was in a F2F class thinking about asymmetric warfare and looking to the past for lessons that could be used to explain the conflicts of today. This clashed with the #edcmooc class requirement to look to the future to understand how utopian/dystopian stories shaped our understanding of technology and education. So this […]

Several years ago I took an art course in creating memory boxes in the Joseph Cornell style. I was lucky to be able to attend a Cornell exhibit in Washington DC around the same time. His work in using found objects to create vibrant memories and metaphors still intrigues me today. Check out this unique […]

I’m beginning to find little value in Facebook, Google+,  Twitter or Coursera  forums in helping organize knowledge and share meaningful conversations relating to #edcmooc.   Not surprisingly it’s exactly the same problem that we have in my workplace.    Prior to Jan 22, conversations were easy to handle and information generally easy to find.   But with the […]

Yesterday was the height of a utopia followed by trepidation and perhaps a little heartache. The #edcmooc pre-course group had been spending two months connecting, experimenting and learning together. We seemed to be at the height of a utopia after Saturday night’s first Twitter chat #edcmchat where 128 people participated. Wonderful activities followed including new […]

During our first ever #edcmchat (Elearning & Digital Cultures MOOC #edcmooc chat) session on Twitter, Andy Mitchell voiced a concern that I have also had and in fact talked about in a previous blog: “There’s so many webtools available now I struggle to find time .. I often feel I am playing catch up”. Angela […]