Web 2.0

This class is coming quickly to an end. I enjoyed getting to know everyone. This class has been challenging at times, at least for me it has been. I did learn a lot about blogs, geotagging, podcasts, and wikis. It has been a great learning experience. I would have to say that I have truly been immersed in technology. I'm not so sure I like being 'immersed' in it, but I did gain knowledge about it by having done so. I can now see how these once foreign concepts can fit into an educational setting. 

Best wishes for a fantastic 2012-2013 school year! I hope everything goes great for everyone! 

It is that time of year again when summer 'ends' at least for the people in education. I am taking on a new role this school term. They have asked me to run one our computer labs. It is bitter sweet. I will hate to leave my small room where I helped those that were struggling. However, this begins a new chapter hopefully full of bigger and better things yet to come. I know that God has a plan. I felt lead to go into the Lesley program since the first time I pulled up the flier on my email sitting inside that little room of mine.
It all started four years ago when I decided two weeks before school started to resign from a full time teaching position that I had for 10 years. Why? I had remarried, relocated, and my children could not play sports where we lived because they went to school in another district. So, I decided to start them in the district where we had moved so they could play the sports and live closer to the school they attended. In making this decision I decided that I would make the move too. I couldn't bare the thought of being so far from them. So, like I said earlier, two weeks before school I resigned without a job insight. Keep in mind, the economy was in shambles and the job market looked bleak. Something kept telling me it was going to be okay, just go. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was out of work for just one day and the principal from the same school my children would attend called me said she heard I was looking for a job. All I can say is 'God is good'! She offered me a part-time position because that was all she had available. I gladly accepted. For the past three years I've done intervention work with 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders who are struggling with reading, social studies, math, and writing. Now it is time for a new chapter....the computer lab.

As I watch my children on their tablets, I worry. As we've gone through all of these classes and talked about how technology is affecting the people who use it, I can see how it is affecting my own children. I don't like how it seems to control them. I've made some changes in our household as far the amount of time spent on any given device. These tablets quickly became the last thing they put down at night and the first thing they picked up in the morning. Not anymore.....this household will NOT be taken over by technology. Call me old fashioned, but I like the good ole days when children knew what it meant to work the land. We have had the kids setting up the round pen for the horses, picking up rocks, and we've thrown in a little fishing and playing horseshoes. I believe taking them away from the technology is the best thing we could do for them. They need to learn what it means to play outside again. I sure do miss the good ole days!

My son's Acer tablet is back with us a week earlier than expected and is working great. Everything is back to normal in the Hendrix household. No, it wasn't that bad with it out of the house. They just had to take turns using Katherine's tablet. Best Buy said they updated the system and fixed the power button. Everything seems to be working great. We had to reload the games back on to the tablet, but that didn't bother my son at all. He was able to search through countless games in the app store. He put some of his old games back on and chose some new ones too. Needless to say, he wasn't heart broken at all. After all this, I would still recommend the Acer tablet. It is a cool little machine!

This is Andrew with his karate teachers.

My children have been taking karate for three years. They started the summer before their third grade year. This year they will be going into the 6th grade. Karate has taught them a lot about self discipline, as well as given them self confidence. I hope they will never have to use what they have learned, but it is there if needed. They have just recently received their Jr. black belt. This is a big accomplishment! My son entered his first competition this past Saturday. He came out with first place in Katas. He placed 2nd place in weapons and 2 Man-Kata. He also placed third in sparing and board breaking. He won a trophy for best overall with his Kata. My daughter decided she didn't want to compete. Which I can understand completely. She was there, though, cheering on her brother! Karate has been great for both of them.

Okay, after going on and on about how wonderful the Acer tablet is, we ended up having to take it back to the store. Before I begin, I do want to say that for the biggest part, it was our fault. In order to access the apps store you must first have a Google account. Well, my 11 year old son created the account, wrote the user name down, but not the password. We didn't think too much about it until he decided six months later to use this to gain access to his tablet. Once he activated this on his Acer and we attempted to access it too many times, well, I guess you probably already know...it labeled it as "too many patterned attempts". We contacted Google trying to see if they would send us the password. Unfortunately, my son couldn't remember where he put his username, so we took a guess and gave Google the wrong information. That did not get us very far at all. We did end up finding his user name, a little too late. The only thing we knew to do was take it back to Best Buy. The gentleman was very nice and helpful. He did discover that the "power" button was not working properly, that is why I said it wasn't entirely our fault. After 30 minutes and several attempts to unlock/reset it, we were told it would have to be sent off for "repair". It should be back in two weeks. Lesson learned: don't let an 11 year old set up any kind of account and expect them to write down or remember their password. We also found out that since a one year manufacture's service plan was purchased with the device, it had to be sent off for repair. However, if the device would have been bought without the extra one year manufacture's service plan, the store would have simply exchanged it for a new one. Hmm?

My children recently received the Acer Iconia Tablet for their birthday. This is the first technological device that has entered our house other than our Dell computer and basic cell phones. So we were very excited to actually hold one of these magnificent icons of technology. We found ourselves starring at it like it was foreign, and in many ways, it was. We looked through the book hoping to magically become totally enlightened about everything thing this device was capable of doing. Unfortunately, we were greatly disappointed. So over the next few days we spent time exploring and researching the tablet online. This is truly a great machine. Our children have had learned so much playing the many games available for the Android based tablet.

              

If you are thinking about getting a tablet and don’t want to sink a whole lot of money into one and want a great product. I suggest the Acer tablet. It is very light weight and smaller than a magazine. It is not as big as an iPad, but some reviews have stated that people that have had both prefer to carry the Acer with them on trips because it isn’t as big and bulky as the iPad. The graphics are amazing. It has rear facing and front facing cameras that take great pictures. It also has a SD card slot to expand its memory. It has 8GB of flash memory and the battery life is pretty good. There are thousands of apps that can be downloaded from the app store. Over all I would say the Acer Iconia Tablet is a great product for the money.