Spring Break... comes to an end

So today marks the end of spring break.  Unlike many, I did not have the opportunity to travel to remote destinations to taste the culture of previously unexplored locales.  But alas the Philadelphia are offers several great locations to unwind.

Longwood Gardens, Bell Tower

We had the opportunity to visit Longwood Gardens, the DuPont estate where the DuPont fortunes were able to experiment with thousands of horticultural specimens.  I love this place since I truly have a black thumb, I can enjoy the beauty without worrying about killing it!

Tulip Display (or tinsy part of it)
The reason we went - to "Tiptoe through the Tulips"

Longwood Gardens, Italian Water Garden

I have always wanted a water feature in my yard, but this might be a little "over the top"



So no Spring Break would be complete without a visit to the beach - since we are not near the Florida beaches, Ocean City was our beach of choice.

Love the beaches before the crowds!

So now it is back to work... finish up the semester, learning how to make effective, productive websites.  I am looking forward to this as I want to find a way to sell the quilts I make in my spare time. 

 Oh, did I forget to mention I made a quilt this week with some of the scrap fabric in my sewing room.  It's available if you are interested!

ThingLink.com - a Web 2.0 tool for education & fun

This photo has links imbedded through the site ThingLink.com. Check out the site as it seems to have some applications that could be great in education. I just was playing to see what I could do with little direction!

Frustration ... Creativity

IMAGINE: How Creativity Works from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

So after class this evening, it was commented that I would probably have my traditional
"meltdown" of frustration beginning next Monday.  Well, I found this animation that explains
how creativity truly does need to have "frustration" to happen.  If we buy into that philosophy,
I should be considered quite Creative!  Now if I could just get creative and figure out how
to add the RSS feed to my GoogleSite!

Great class ending at Cooper's Place - Thank you for hosting Scott.
To all that carried in the awesome food, it was delicious!  Love the Southern Cohort!

Who wants to be "Normal" anyway?

This was a busy week, but the Personal Learning Theory paper is submitted.  My portfolio site is on its way.  I am not sure if I like it yet, but Google Sites certainly allows for editing and changing.

The biggest event this week was taking the Southern Regional FCCLA to New Jersey State Leadership Conference in Cherry Hill.  We spent two full days competing and learning.  When not competing our students enjoyed a variety of leadership and career oriented workshops - all with the theme "Raising the Bar".

 

I am extremely poud of our team.  All earned medals, 1 - Bronze, 3- Silver, 4 - Gold.  Two of our Gold place medalists placed first in the state;  Dana Warren earned a scholarship and a chance to compete at FCCLA National Leadership Conference in Orlando this summer.  Her entrepreneurship project "Coffee House" was the state winner.  One of the other highlights of the two day event was the fashion show of all the fashion related creations.  Awesome work by students from all over the state as thousands of scholarship dollars were awarded.

 

Great speakers were highlighted during each of the meetings, but one really struck a chord with me.

Mr. Kent Julian spoke on "not settling for normal", since normal means being stuck in a career that you don't like, not making real goals and getting there, being stuck in debt, etc.  He urged the students "Be better than Normal".  He highlighted the speech with a mathematical equation:

 

Normal

E=O

Successful

E + R = O

So all you math wizards - do you know the missing value if E=Event and O = Outcome ?