What To Do When You’re Sick…

Well we are hitting our stride with our Professionalism course! We are working through Unit Two this week and we were able to review the Portfolio assignment last week. I am hoping that you are all excited about your Portfolios! And as always, please call or email me if you’re not sure about any parts of the assignment.

I’ve been struggling against quite the cold the last few days. I even had to cancel our Wednesday Evening class (much to my disappointment). I am thinking I am turning a corner and on the mend soon. We have been loving the fruit in our house and Zoey and I are eating Blueberries by the cup full and eating Oranges and Kiwis as snacks. All these added vitamins will certainly start helping us feel better in the Duiker house.

Mmmm Blueberries!

So I am hoping that you will have an eInstructor who is healthy and ready to go through all the material with out having to stop and sneeze every few minutes! I’m looking forward to seeing you all this week and hearing what you have to say about Unit Two!

Stay warm and keep healthy!

Anyone Ready for Summer??

My father in law said it right, “I don’t understand why people seem so surprised by the snow? It’s winter!”. We had a bit of a blizzard here in Lethbridge, and the worst part of blizzards or any weather here is the WIND! I do love it here, it’s my home now, but man that wind gets down to the bones and make me so cold! Oh well, it’s winter and I’m sure once the heat returns I’ll be upset about being too warm!

 

This week in class we are going to jump into our course material and discuss the idea of Foundations. We will talk about why the early experiences and education is so important and how it influences the rest of a child’s life. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say!

Also, I have posted the assignments for the course and we will be reviewing them in class. I’m hoping you will all be excited about the assignments. It’s always fun to be creative!

Finally I like to share a Weekly Website in class and this weeks website is from Crayola. I LOVE colouring and drawing especially with children. So I was thrilled when I found this resource for educators with free curriculum’s and activities to download. Hopefully you enjoy!

http://www.crayola.com/educators/index.cfm?n_id=5

Have a great week and stay warm!

A New Year, A New Course, An Old Teacher

Hello all!

Welcome back! I hope you had a wonderful holiday. I think for the first time in years we were able to have a holiday that didn’t feel like it was over too fast! My husband and I thought about it and we realized that it has been a few years since we have had time off at the same time where we didn’t have to travel anywhere or have an big projects. It was certainly a blessing!

This Christmas was big for our family as it was our daughters first Christmas! She is the first grandchild on both sides so needless to say she was very spoiled. She now has a lot of toys to keep her busy. The biggest surprise over the Christmas holiday was she started crawling! Everywhere! In a matter of days we went from a child who could scoot around a little to, “Honey we need to put up the baby gate and move the dog’s food dishes!”. I  have been working with children for many many years but it never ceases to surprise me how quickly things change with little ones.

Smiling for the camera!

I am looking forward to my new course with you all! I think there are a lot of new faces to me and I look forward to getting to know you all better over the next few weeks and months. I will update this blog weekly to keep in touch and share with you the new things that are happening, so keep checking back!

Early Childhood Foundations is our new course and it will hopefully, allow for a lot of discussion. I look forward to the opportunity to take the information we will go through and see what it means to us, and how it relates to current issues.

Have a wonderful week!

Anyone Excited About February Break??

Well I have been absent from my blogging duties! And for that I am very sorry.

Work has obviously been keeping me good and busy. I am excited to see how everyone is doing in your respective courses. The transition to Desire2Learn was fairly seamless and we are very proud of how everyone did with that. It certainly could be easy to get frustrated and feel like giving up, but everyone has been working hard and asking for help when you need it!

Things in our household have been fairly busy as well. We have spent the last two weeks finishing up our nursery. It took a lot more time than we thought it would but we are really happy with how it turned out! Those that know me at all know that I love literature and am a big advocate for children reading. So clearly I am a fan of Dr. Seuss and his legacy of literature. When we were trying to think of a theme for our nursery Dr. Seuss kept popping up. So it was finally settled and we prepared to create out Seuss Nursery!

Hope you all have an amazing week and have a chance to enjoy your week off! I know I will

A Tragedy in Haiti

On January 12th the small impoverished country of Haiti suffered a massive earthquake. Yesterday, against my better judgment I found myself watching the news coverage while working on curriculum. The images and stories are horrific and impacting. However, at the end of the day, something struck me that was surprising. While this tragedy is occurring, I am seeing something happen that I have not seen on the same scale in many many years. People around the world are coming together and helping one another. People across the globe are unwilling to be unaffected and do nothing for the people of this country. Now I am not saying that everyone is jumping on planes to help rebuild, not everyone is pledging a million dollars, but people are doing the small things they can even if that ‘small’ thing is sending up a prayer for those affected.

A person can’t forget about  need in our own life, our own communities, and our own countries. But I do believe that humanity shows its best and sometimes worst colors in the face of tragedies like this one.  As students and Instructors for the Early Learning and Child Care programs I know that the needs of children and people are very important to us. Why else would we care to wipe runny noses and run ourselves ragged chasing a roomful of children everyday? We do it because what happens to them matters to us, we do it because we see that this is the next generation and we can impact what happens to them. We do it because we love them, and I am honored to be a part of this profession and group.

So take some time today and count the blessing, no matter how small, in your life. As well, take heart in the outpouring of love and support that we can take comfort in knowing it exists in this Topsy Turvy world.

God Bless

A Brand New Year

Back at it!

Lots going on as we start the new year and the new courses! We have a new Learning Management System called Desire2Learn or D2L for short. This first week the eInstructors are taking sometime to get everyone comfortable with the basics before we jump into the course material fully. I want to encourage everyone that we will get through the change together We just ask for patience and that when you have trouble you ask for help from ourselves or our wonderful Tech Support staff. This week some members of Tech Support have graciously offered to stay later so that they can be of help to you. I do strongly recommend that you check out D2L and make sure you can log in BEFORE it’s time to log in for your regular class. This way if there are issues, they can be dealt with before you need to be in class.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas Holiday and New Year’s! We really enjoyed the time to just relax and hang out. We spent some time with family playing games, eating too much, and watching Christmas movies. We had plans to get the nursery set up but the furthest we got with that  was emptying out the room that used to be my office.

For those that did not know yet, I am 30 weeks pregnant and heading on Mat Leave in two months. This means that I the lucky students of the Early Learning and Child Care programs are going to be instructed by Kasey Fulton and Courtney Nicolson. Until I go on leave I will be working on courses for you and hanging out in your classes, so feel free to contact me if you have questions or concerns.  I will do my best to help out

Looking forward to touching base with all of you and hearing about your Christmas holidays!

All the Best in 2010!

Last Week of Exploring Exceptionalities

Well we made it! We are in the final week of Exploring Exceptionalities!

This week we are writing our Second exam and then you are free for Christmas holidays! We need to make sure that everyone finishes this task this week as marks are due to Credenda by me by the end of this week. Doesn’t leave us a lot of time, but I am confident everyone will be able to get in and get it done!

I am spending most of this week marking Essays and I am impressed with what people have submitted and come up with! I have a number to still complete so I do ask for patient. It was due on Sunday and it’s only Tuesday and each essay takes at least an hour to get through typically. Students that did they assignment in partners with share the same mark, but the student who submitted will be first to see the mark and receive any comments. I ask that partners share this information as it belongs to each of you.

We finally put up our Christmas Tree! It took us a long time, we kept finding other things that pulled our attention and time away. But I love the smell and having it up. It’s the only really Christmasy decoration that we have up. We are still new in this house and we are trying to figure out what to do as far as decoration. It takes us some time as neither of us are gifted in this area

We are still swimming in snow here! We finally shoveled some of the snow off the porch so Zeppelin can play out there. The only problem for him is he can only be out there for a few minutes as his little paws get too cold and he rolls over on his bum and holds all his frosty feet up.  Makes walks a little tricky, but that’s okay it’s cold for me too

Rolling around in the snow

Too cold on the paws!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! Enjoy the time off and stay safe and warm with loved ones!

A Winter Wonderland!

This weekend we had quite the winter storm! It got very cold suddenly on Friday and started to snow and it continued all weekend! It was intense. Lethbridge is known for having wind, all the time, and very very strong wind. So the snow combined with this wind created massive snow drifts that made it impossible to leave the house until Sunday afternoon. It was a nice relaxing weekend, it was our welcome to Winter weekend. We managed to get out of the house Sunday afternoon after some serious shoveling and with the help of a wonderful indivdual would brought his tractor to help plow some of the streets in our neighbourhood! Thank heavens for friendly people! Honestly, I think one of the best time to find out what your neighbours are like is how everyone rallys around during a Snow Storm. I am happy to say we are blessed with wonderful and friend people around us. Well when we got out of the house we picked up some necessities and of course the Christmas Tree! There are few things that smell as good as a Christmas Tree. It’s bare right now, but we are planning on decorating after class tonight. My sister in law is staying with us for the week so she has kindly volunteered to help out. She has a better eye for decorating than either Henry or myself, so we are excited to have her help!

I looked at the calendar today and was in shock! We are on our last week of material (Unit 7) and next week is your Exam Two! And then, you are free to enjoy your Christmas Holidays with no assignments, Exams, or dreaded Application Question! I know it’s not all that bad, but hey I’ve told you all before, I was a student once too and I know the feeling that comes with Christmas Holidays. It’s bliss!

So we just need to stay focused a little longer, get through a short Outcome this week, and finish our Research Assignments, Write your Exam and you’re done!

To get you all excited for the Holiday season here is a preview from one of my all time favorite Christmas Classics, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Using the Support that is Available

The past week I’ve been having a number of Technical issues with our internet. I know that as students of an online school, you can likely relate to the frustration that comes when something isn’t working. I have to tell you that few things get under my skin the way my computer can when it won’t work for me. I’m usually a pretty relaxed person, but I feel annoyed, frustrated, and irritated.

For a week my connection refused to work and connect for me. I tried everything I could but it refused to work. When what I tried was unsuccessful I tried something that I want to encourage you all to try when you run into trouble. I called for Tech Support. I called my internet providers Technical Support line and they were able to help me out. I had to call Five times over the course of the week, but they were able to help in some way every time. This morning I called the last time and we went through a number of tests and we were able to finally fix the problem.

As Credenda students you have the same options that  I did in my situation. When you run into problems with your connecting to Angel or Elluminate or even some issues with your computer we have an amazing staff that is set up to help you with any issues that get in the way of your experience with us. Like me, it may take a couple tries to fully resolve an issue and it may be frustrating. But just as when we work with children we need to excercise patience. It’s not always easy with these kinds of issues but it is so very important to always have patience.

If you are ever in need of our Tech Support you can contact them via phone at (306) 764 – 2847 or Toll Free 1 866 910 2847. As well we have a wonderful website for students specifically with information regarding Technical issues that we sometimes run across. It can be accessed through the Credenda Homepage under HELP! or you can go here http://credenda-helpdesk.wikispaces.com/

Rider Pride!

Back to the Grey Cup! Very excited! As an original Saskatchewan girl in Alberta, I’m definitely a fan. Henry wasn’t as enthusiastic but he prefers the Riders over the Calgary Stampeders that is for sure. He is actually an Edmonton Eskimos fan. Sad really.

At the Stamps Rider game

Everyone knows that I am a bigger fan of NHL in comparison to CFL, but I am a committed Rider fan. Just over a year ago we were able to go to Rider vs Stamps game in Calgary. It was a good time, we had a group of friends go up together. It was nice outside and the game was good. However, those bench seats are horrible to sit on! and after the game was over, a large group of overly enthusiastic and drunk fans started to get rowdy. We decided it was time to leave when two groups of people started throwing cans at each other. We were leaving the stadium when two guys got into a huge fight. It became a complete mess, the two guys who were central to the fight were pretty messed up. To the point when I tried to see over people to figure out what was going on, Henry grab me to stop me from seeing everything and started to move me towards the entrance. I guess it was really bad, he just said, “Don’t turn around”. Pretty intense. Kind of a damper on an otherwise good day!

My Toe Injury from the Game

Anyways, the point being, I love my sports and I love my teams, but nothing is worth getting that emotionally involved.

Beautiful Day for a Game

What is worth your time, is getting prepared for your Exam this week and making sure you are working on your assignments! (Nice segway) Like we talked about last week, giving yourself some time before the due dates are very valuable. And this comes from a chronic procrastinator. I spent most of my student career leaving things until the last-minute and staying up till 5 am finishing essays and studying. Finally in my final years of my degree I realized it was too exhausting functioning like that. I started doing assignments and exam prep in stages. I realized my problem was feeling overwhelmed by the entire project when really all I needed to do was look at how much time I had to complete something and break it down into smaller ‘bite sized’ pieces. Suddenly, I was getting to bed at a decent hour, I felt better rested in the mornings and things were not so overwhelming.

If someone had told me this when I was still in school, before I decided to do it for myself, I would have said, “I work better under pressure.” or “I just don’t work like that.” I was a little stubborn in that regard. I figured I’m a procrastinator and that’s not going to change. So what I am saying is you will have to make this choice for yourself. Decide how you want to spend your time while completing this educational journey, and know that I am here to help you along the way.