Late for techno class

So today on Outreach, I had a pretty rowdy bunch of students. I also had a student try to argue with me for about five minutes about how he read a book and it said the Powhatan Indians killed other Powhatans to eat for food and I was wrong when I said the Powhatan were predominantly peaceful. According to him, the most important animal to the Eastern Woodland Indians was the human. Due to our large size and little hair, it was better to make clothing out of human skin than deer skin because it would have required less work for the women...where do they get this stuff from??? I wrote my thesis on Pre-Columbian decapitation and I am pretty sure Powhatan cannibalism would have come up in something that I read. After I made it back to the hotel, I did some research about Powhatan cannibalism and most sites just referred to the Jamestown starving time incident and other cultures sacrificing individuals. I am pretty sure this is how this particular student envisons life in a Powhatan village...

Anyhow, on to the assignment for week 5.
The concept behind Delicious.com is great, but it is not for me. I rarely bookmark anything, and when I do I usually forget about my bookmarks. I possibly would have used the site for wedding planning though since I did bookmark a kazillion pages and tried to organize them into folders. Tagging would have been good for that since a photo with pink flowers could have gone into the color scheme folder, the centerpiece folder, the possible flowers to use folder, the different type of vases to use for flowers folder, etc. I have no need though to access my bookmarks from another computer though.

I thought that Technorati.com was going to be playing some old-school Detroit techno music when I went to the site. I doubt that I will use this site, it was fun to browse though, I did enjoy looking through the photo section, but I do not see myself using it on a regular basis. Again, this site is a neat idea.

Fun week

After talking for almost six hours straight, this weeks exercise has been a nice way to unwind after a crazy outreach day. Since I have a nasty cold and I am in a hotel again for the night, I checked out all the sites. My favorite was The Generator Blog, that could provide hours of senseless entertainment. My mother will randomly send me photos she creates on PiZap and Photo Notes, which were both mentioned on The Generator Blog site (I love how my mother does this stuff before I do, here is one of her early creations). I also enjoyed looking at the Web 2.0 award winners and was glad to see some winners mentioned that I used (Pandora, Kayak, Etsy where I bought some stuff for my wedding, Zillow).
I do not think that I would ever use Jott.com or rememberthemilk.com. I already have a post-it note widget on my mac at home which is enough for me.

I am out to go find some soup and get more kleenex...

Flip-Man Funk (my old school dj name according to the Generator Blog)

Where has Jennifer been!?!

This is another fun filled week of traveling for me. This week I am at Poplar Tree Elementary in Chantilly on Wednesday, Hybla Valley Elementary in Alexandria on Thursday, Beechtree Elementary in Falls Church on Friday, Ashburn Library on Saturday, then I leave northern Virginia and head down to Sweet Briar to do a program on Monday. This group of schools has most of my favorite schools that I visit because the teachers and the students really appreciate the programs. I think this is the end of my programs for November and I cannot wait to get back to Richmond. It took me an hour and a half to go 8 miles this afternoon. I don't have any crazy comment stories from children this week...yet. I did have a student tell me that I am prettier than their teacher though. 4 more days until I am back in town!

Flickr at VAM

Just saw that there will be a session about Flickr as part of the Technology Tutorials at the 2009 VAM conference this year...pretty cool.

GPS

GPS has been a wonderful tool to have while traveling on Outreach. I love having GPS, it makes life on the road so much easier, but GPS, really, what were you thinking when I was driving back to Richmond from Lynchburg and you told me to get off of the main highway and go down a 2 lane road and then to turn down a no lane road that eventually turned into a gravel road? What were you thinking when you told me to drive through the Appomatox Buckingham State Forest instead of staying on the main road? Did you malfunction or did you just think it was funny?

RSS Feeds

On to week 3...RSS Feeds. I chose to use Google Reader because it would be one less password/site for me to remember and since RSS feeds are all about condensing, it made sense to me to condense as much as possible into google. Google Reader made subscribing to feeds super easy. I subscribed to VHS23 things, Washington Post Style, Washington Post Education, Washington Post Book World, and BBC News. Topix and Syndic8 were easy to use, but I liked Google Reader better since I didn't have to visit a new website and it was easier for me to use.
On to week 4!

Flickr, part 2

I checked out the flickr pages made by the Library of Congress and the Library of Virginia. I really enjoyed looking at some of the old Richmond photos that the Library of Virginia had on flickr. I liked flickr pickr color and I enjoyed the link at the bottom of that page to stick figures in peril. Spell with flickr was neat and I liked Ski Bonk on the programmable web.

It seems like it could be a lot of work to put VHS images on flickr for the general public, and then what would we want to put on flickr. Maybe a photo album for myspace/facebook/special events/staff directory?

Where in Virginia is Jennifer this week?!?

So, this is actually the first time I have had a moment to catch up with 23 things since week 2...and I didn't even really finish week 2 yet. The reason why I have time to catch up is because I sitting in a hotel in Lynchburg. Outreach has finally picked up now that it is mid-November. This is my first true "away from Richmond" week. This week I am in Culpeper, Lynchburg, and Gloucester.

I left Richmond Tuesday night and drove to Fredericksburg for the night because it was the closest hotel to Culpeper that had vacancy and/or did not have the word Super in the name. I stayed up way too late working on the Stafford magazine and fighting with the heating controls in the hotel room. It has been a long and tiring day. I woke up around 6:15, snoozed until 6:25, got ready and checked out of the hotel by 7:15 so I could drive 50 minutes to Culpeper and start my programs at 8:15. I did four "Pocahontas and the Powhatan Indian" programs today with second graders at A.G. Richardson Elementary School. Cute school, smart kids. All of the kids knew that the Powhatan did not hunt buffalo, which is something that Geoff and I are constantly struggling with in classes (we once did a program together and a student tried to tell us that the Powhatan would drive buffalo off of cliffs). The students have a Powhatan test on Thursday and I think they will ace all the questions. I did four programs back to back until 12:30, loaded up the wagon, checked out of the school, and was on the road by 1:15. Due to havey rain in some areas and traffic, I did not make it to Lynchburg until just before 4:30...then I ate lunch. The drive from Culpeper to Lynchburg was really pretty, most of the trees are still that bright golden color that really pops against the sky. And now it is just me...and the computer...and designing the Stafford magazine...and catching up on 23 things.

On Thursday I am working at Sheffield Elementary in Lynchburg. I will be doing 3 African American programs with 5th grade students. On Friday, I am at Bethel Elementary in Gloucester, 3 Powhatan programs with 2nd graders.