Rolling Along

well, the fun continues! My daughter has finally learned to ride her 2 wheel bike and there is no stopping her now. She has a new found freedom in riding her bike, wind blowing through her hair (well, as much as can get through the helmet).

It certainly brought back memories of learning to ride a bike myself. What a difference 30 odd years makes! When I learned it was out of the back parking lot of the apartment and after some scrapes and bruises I was off. Once I learned to ride, I was out there with my friends riding here, there and everywhere. There certainly wasn't the big safety issue of today- helmet? not a chance (I still don't have one!!); my parents said bye at the door and went back inside to do the housework or whatever as I took off for the afternoon.

Do we have this today- no way! Has the media and society made us as parents overly cautious? Am I too overprotective of my children? I am very aware of this and try to give them as much freedom as I think is good, but I certainly do keep an eye on what is going on around and about. I take my kids over to the park and sit on a park bench as they run around, ride their bikes, play with friends. They are going further afield with their play and I'm okay with that. As I sit on the bench, I'm constantly watching the coming and going of people just to be aware of the surroundings. Is this overprotective?

I don't think my daughter feels overprotected as she rides around on her own. She can ride the paths at the park alone and has fun doing so. She doesn't appear to be held back in any way and the smile on her face as she pedals along is something to see! The joys and innocence of childhood. I hope it lasts a good long time yet!!

Doing something for the community

Saturday, our karate school did a wonderful thing. We held a kickathon to raise money for the community playground. The playground as it is right now, is a very old, rusty, dangerous piece of equipment. My son has fallen on it numerous times and scraped himself up quite badly. The new structure will be up to modern standards and best of all, safe!

The karate students all raised money and on Saturday every person threw 5000 kicks!! The kickers ranged from kids aged 4 up to the adults. There were approx. 80 participants and what a great feeling at the end of it all to know that we had accomplished this feat! The legs were tired, the butts were sore, sweat was rolling, but we all felt great!! What a wonderful feeling to know that you've participated in such a challenge and that the end result will be well worth the effort!

This was a full day event. We had a BBQ, a clown came to entertain the kids, the Reptile Guy was there with his Anaconda and there were raffles. Every bit of money taken in was put into the envelope for the playground. It looks as though our Sensei (who organized the whole thing) reached his desired goal of raising $10,000!!!!!

It is definitely a good feeling to give back. I wish more people would experience this feeling by giving of themselves to help out their community. This world would definitely be a better place!

Something to Ponder

Well now that Learning 2.0 is over, this blog will get back to the musings and thoughts of life. What makes life the adventure that it is?

I was reminded of a very interesting thing while taking my brown belt test on the weekend. In karate there is a student creed that all students (no matter the age) must memorize and be able to recite when asked. The words in the creed are simple but when one thinks about the meaning behind them, it makes one wonder if this should be a creed for every single person.

The Student Creed-

I will keep my thoughts positive, because my thoughts become my words;
I will keep my words positive, because my words become my actions;
I will keep my actions positive, because my actions become my values;
I will keep my values positive, because my values become my destiny.

Stop and think of the meaning behind these words. Would this not do society good if every person could follow this? Learn these words and try to use them in your every day life.

Wrap up on Learning 2.0

Learning 2.0 at McMaster has been a great experience. The ETG committee did a fabulous job in putting together the information, explaining it all, and most important being there to fire questions at.

I have loved these past few months. I enjoy learning new things and (more than that) I love to play!! Some of the things in Learning 2.0 were familiar to me and therefore it was fun to explore those areas a bit further. Some things were new (like wikis, social bookmarking, and some online applications and tools) and it was wonderful to try out these new things. I've learned many new things and have passed on information to my hubby to try. I will definitely continue exploring other neat 2.0 features.

I look forward to using my MP3 player and I'm REALLY hoping to win that laptop to have my own computer (and not have to share with my family!!!)

Thanks to Jeff, the ETG committee and my group leader for all the support and encouragement in this venture. What's next??? I can't wait!

Browser Tools

I'm always amazed at how many cool things there are out there. I've used Firefox as a browser interchangeably with IE. I went into the add ons and discovered a whole world of things available. I must admit, I only downloaded two for the sake of time, but will definitely find time to browse and see what else is available. I added the weather, which is a nice handy tool. It is nice in that it resides on the status bar out of the way. I also added the Dilbert button which when clicked will give the daily Dilbert strip. Always good to have some comedic relief in the day.
The MORRIS bookmarklets are quite a neat tool. I added the whole lot into my favourites. I tried it out while doing some searching in Amicus for some gov pubs. It worked very nicely, although I'll have to try to set it up so that it doesn't open in the same window (don't know if this can be done, but I'll poke around and see). I like how the small window pops up and you can just copy and paste into it. I can see this being quite useful for cataloguing purposes.

Gaming and Virtual Environments

Well this week was another fun one, as I love to play. My family has accessed online games for a while now. We have played online crosswords, Soduko etc.; the kids play games on treehouse.ca and discoverykids.ca and my husband, being an avid poker player, has played online poker. His comment about the online poker is that it certainly doesn't take the place of the real thing (don't get the same interaction with the players) it is great for testing and improving your skills.

I tried various of the free online arcade style games (I love frogger- does that show my age?? lol). I attended the gaming session that Kelly gave, which was great! Seeing WoW in action showed me that I could really get into playing the game (I used to play dungeons and dragons in University) just to find the time... Being such a wall flower (yeah right) I was the first one to jump up and have a go on DDR. I had danced on the mat at a party in the past and found it quite hilarious and lots of fun!!

I am a part of Second Life as one of the participants in the virtual reference pilot over the summer. I am really enjoying SL and having fun exploring all the different aspects of the world. The kids are always asking me to go onto Second Life and play. They of course find it amusing when my avatar crashes from flying or bumps into walls (but I'm getting better). My avatar is Isobella Sands. If you are in world, look for me, we can do coffee!

I believe that gaming and virtual worlds have a part in learning and the library. Looking at Second Life, obviously the library is there for virtual reference. There are possibly some other benefits as well that can be explored- meetings, library sessions in world, classes, etc. We just have to open our minds and explore all possibilities. Some games require a lot of strategy in order to play the game, not unlike the strategy needed for research and study. Could these skills be improved by playing games? Something to ponder!

Online Social Networks

Well this was an easy week for me! I'm a Facebook veteran (so to speak) at this point. I've been on Facebook for quite a well now. I love it!! I've hooked up with some great friends (old and new), my cousins are on, and I've invited some karate friends to join. I've joined a variety of different groups and I've created a group of my own for my karate club. I'm hooked on it and find that I'm on there quite a lot just to see what's happening. Uploading pictures is an easy process and it's fun to share some photos with friends. I like that you can set your privacy to whatever you want so that not everyone can view your info.

I had explored myspace in the past but didn't really like it so much. I find Facebook much more user friendly and easy to navigate through. LinkedIn looks interesting and I may explore it in the future, but right now I'm quite happy in Facebook.