Vacation

Hi everyone,
I just thought that since I started a blog I might as well use in addition to the required blogs that I did about my experience using technology. As I mentioned before the internet is very slow here! I spend a lot of time waiting for things to load before I can actually complete the assignments.

But I wanted to let everyone know that I've having a fantastic time here in Ireland! We got here last Monday and it was the first day of Puck Fair. It is one of Ireland's oldest festivals that still happens every year. It is always August 10th, 11th, and 12th no matter what days they fall on. It is basically an excuse to drink during the day, all day, all night, buy stupid things you don't need, and eat a lot of food! They catch a wild goat and they put it high up on this stand for the 3 days and there is a parade and all...It's a great time! The whole town shuts down for the 3 days and the only places that are open are the pubs! There are a couple shops open early during the day but they close at around 3 in the afternoon! I was definitely hurting every morning!

We also celebrated my mother-in-laws 60th b-day yesterday. All her sisters, brothers, and their children have come over from London and me and Alan over from Boston. We went out to dinner last night, about 30 of us, and then went downstairs to the pub and had drinks and danced, and as they say here "had a sing-song." The pub normally closes at 12:30 however, we were allowed after-hours and stayed until about 2. We had a great time!

Today is what they call Super Sunday. Again, just another excuse to start drinking early and stay out late! There are soccer games or as they say "football." We are watching the first game here at my brother-in-laws house. It's Manchester United vs Birmingham. Man U is winning 1-0 at the moment. The second game starts at 3:30 and we will be out at the pub for this game and then drinking all night...good thing I have all my work done! (I hope I didn't miss anything!)

I hope tomorrow will be a quiet day as I'm sure I won't be feeling my best :) Thanks for reading!

Kristin

What will I use in the future?

So far there have been things that I've both liked and disliked about researching the technology tools. Some I will use personally and others I will use in my career as a teacher. I will continue to use social networking in my personal life using things like facebook. I'm not too sure if I will continue to blog, but I have found it very interesting in terms of this course. I will definitely use researching databases in my career as a teacher. Now that I know what I am doing I will be able to access so much more information. I will definitely not be using blogs in the classroom with my students. I think that it will be too difficult for them and has the potential to cause too many problems. I may also use wiki's in the classroom but I think that I need to spend a little more time using them myself before I introduce it to my students. However, wiki's may also prove to be a little too difficult for my students. We will see!

Kristin

What I don't like

What I haven't liked about my experience with technology research is that I am finding out that I don't know as much as I thought about computers! I have not yet been able to look into RSS feeders because my internet time here in Ireland is either very slow sometimes or very short sometimes, oh how I miss home internet! I also have not liked when I was having a little difficulty with using MS word to make the brochure, flyer, and newsletter. I thought that I would have been much better at what I was doing and instead it took me forever.

I also did not like when we were doing searches last week how many different hits you can get when searching for your subjects. I found it almost frustrating to know that I could go to so many different sites and search so many different ways and yet sometimes you still could not narrow down your search to a reasonable number of results.

Also, with this blog I don't like the fact that I am using a computer that has no personal information on it at the moment because I'm in Ireland and everything personal is on my desktop at home. I can manage to do the assignments for the most part but I cannot add pictures that actually represent me and who I am.

Thanks for reading!
Kristin

What I like so far

So far in this technology I have liked a few things. I like the fact that the new tools we are being introduced are easy to use and understand. I like that I am becoming more comfortable going outside of the sites that I normally use to search for information. I also really liked that I learned how to successfully search databases. I had tried to use them in the past and I never really knew how to do so and now that I can I feel that I will be able to use this to help me in teaching career.

I also have somewhat enjoyed learning about blogs. I don't think that I normally would have ever thought about blogging for any reason. I like the fact that I am learning new things and I am expanding my horizons when it comes to the technology world.