Author Archives: witchyrichy

This time of year, if it isn’t raining, we are either gardening or spending time at our property in Charles City County, Virginia. (Note: Their website is down until June 6.) It is just beautiful out there, and we love to garden, kayak, or just sit and watch. However, today it is raining so we are inside playing on our computers!

I downloaded three new themes for this blog: dark maple, coffee cup, and borderlinechaos. I found all of them in Alex King’s theme browser. They were entries in his theme contest. Now I want to design my own, but I’m trying not to yield to temptation.

Just finished Jasper Fforde‘s The Well of Lost Plots. I always feel like I need to reread the books he mentions after I have finished one of his just to confirm what the correct ending is. And there are a few I’ve never read like Brideshead Revisited, which was nominated for best opening paragraph in WOLP. I have the next Jasper Fforde waiting for me on my desk–Something Rotten–loaned to me by my fellow bibliophile, Sue G. Something Rotten includes Hamlet as a character, and with the afternoon of Memorial Day stretching ahead of me, I am tempted to dive in!

Just got back from my annual pilgrimage to St. Clare Walker Middle School, where I taught for nine years, from 1992 to 2001. I go back to help my good friend, the media specialist, with the Accelerated Reader assembly. I run the Jeopardy game that we created about seven years ago. Actually, this was the last year since she’s retiring and I couldn’t help feel a little sad as I clicked the link to the last question, Characters for $1. (Middle schoolers always go for the big bucks first so unlike real Jeopardy where they generallly work down the category, we always work up.) Continue reading →

I took my final in Research Design this morning and my first year as a doctoral student is over! What?! How did that happen?? Intense, thoughtful work with some excellent professors who treated me like the professional I am. While I do feel a little old sometimes, I am by no means the oldest person in the program, and it occured to me this afternoon that I am glad I waited to do this. I bring a different, more mature perspective to the process that really informs my understanding of teaching and learning. I wouldn’t have appreciated or been ready to do this when I was 30. I needed the wisdom of years to first help me find my passion and then move me in the right direction at the right time. Continue reading →

I have spent the afternoon learning to use my Dazzle, a handy dandy little device from Pinnacle Systems that makes it easy to digital vhs tapes. Actually, learning to use the Dazzle part was easy: install the software, find the right cords, and press play. And, learning to use the software that came with it–Studio Quickstart–was also easy. I liked the simple-to-use crop feature and quickly created several movies. Which I saved as AVI. Which do not play on my Macintosh. (Did I mention I created the clips on an Acer TravelMate which does not have a DVD burner in it.) Did a little searching for codecs but am now back into the Studio software trying out the mpeg option. My husband has access to a DVD burner so if I can get it to his computer, I might be able to try burning a DVD.

So, I am doing all this to prepare for a workshop on Monday. What is the lesson? Using technology to support instruction isn’t always easy! If a teacher is going to create digital video, it has to be quick and dirty, and in my mind that means using a Macintosh. But, I don’t have what I need here at home to do that. I would have been done a long time ago because I just would have saved as Quicktime to start with! At least, I have a huge hard drive that is making file transfer much easier!

I am happy to report that I successfully upgraded WordPress from 1.2 to 1.5 and it seems to be working! I’m going to use the template for awhile; right now, I want to concentrate on publishing. I’m also not going to install my blogroll right away but include a link to it instead. For now, I’m going to add a few links at a time to the sidebar. Main Page ?Ǭ´ WordPress Codex

I haven’t read a book in a day in a long time. But it was rainy, I had finished enough school work to feel satisfied, and I just needed to esacpe for awhile. So I picked up Ben Sherwood‘s book The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. I just bought this book at the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond. And this was the perfect book for such an escape…not to mention the fact that three of my favorite writers–Sue Monk Kidd, Adriana Trigiani, and Joanne Harris–are all mentioned on the front covers. So I lost myself in the lives of these ordinary people in Marblehead, Massachusetts, to whom extraordinary things happen. And felt better!

Just finished Inamorata by Joseph Gangemi. For a few hours, I was transported back to Philadelphia in the 1920s, into the world of parlor seances. The description was particularly vivid and I was sorry to come to the end. My thanks to the owner of the Fountain Bookstore, who recommended it. She’s right…the paperback cover doesn’t do it justice.

I am talking to a group of media specialists in Roanoke under the direction of Jane James.

I am at the SITE conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and not feeling so nervous anymore about my presentation. No hard core data, just people like me talking about what they’ve done, including a guy who basically reported on his blog lesson plan! So, I need to start doing some writing! I am going to the session on being a reviewer but can’t get to the writing session as I will be presenting. And, there’s a late call for Ed Media presentations: I’m tempted to put in something about Noter. It would force me to work on it some more. I have seen a few people I know but don’t have a dinner date for tonight. I may go to the reception just for some food but then I should head back to the room to do some work for Roanoke and my paper.