Something Old

The last day of the Blogtember Challenge! We're about to be back to our regularly scheduled programming around here, and I'm OK with that. As per usual, I struggled with committing to a whole month-long deal, but it was good for me, and obviously I HAD to see it through, since I hosted! I had so much fun working through the prompts with many of you this month, and I hope you did too. :) And now, for the last day. Share a photo of something old. Maybe something that has personal history for you, that was passed down to you, and that has special meaning to you. Tell us about it and why it's special.

This was my sweet late grandma's HIGH SCHOOL ring. My mom brought it back after the funeral along with some other keepsakes of my Grandma's, and I claimed this one. I wear it almost every single day, and think of her whenever I put it on. "Peg" is engraved on the inside, which makes it even more special and personal... I feel a little closer to her when I wear it. It gives me courage and peace when I'm feeling anxious about something, and I love to imagine her going about her day some 60 years ago, wearing this ring that I now wear, never imagining how much it would mean to her granddaughter when she was gone. Love you and miss you so much, Grandma. Always.

Amstel Got Muuuuuried!

Good news, friends.  I am officially a married woman!  Aaron and I tied the knot on June 22nd in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.  The whole entire week was just perfect.  Aaron's dad, who also happens to be the pastor at our amazing church, Covenant Church International, performed the ceremony. Having Aaron's dad marry us made the ceremony even more special and meaningful.



Something else really special was the beautiful double rainbow we saw the night before our wedding on the way to the rehearsal dinner. Rainbows have special significance to Aaron's family. When Aaron's dad and mom were dating, they had prayed a lot about whether or not God was calling them to join their lives together.  One day, when they were on their way to the beach, they were talking about what God wanted for their relationship, and they saw a huge, beautiful rainbow and believed it was a sign that God was confirming their relationship.  When Aaron's mom passed away a few years ago, rainbows became especially meaningful.  All three of Aaron's sisters and his dad have spotted rainbows during some big life events, confirming even further that their mom is smiling down on them.  I always had wondered what Aaron's mom would have thought of me and wished that I had been able to meet her.  When we spotted the beautiful, double rainbow the night before our wedding, it confirmed to all of us that God was with us, Aaron's mom was with us, and that she would have approved. :)

Instagram photo compliments of my lovely friend, Melanie!

Aaron's sister, Anne, and his dad, Pastor Jim!

The Facebook one

Day 19 of Blogtember. Can you believe Monday is the last day? But today... An anonymous letter to your Facebook friends. Be as snarky as you'd like. (but don't include people's real names.) 

It turns out that I don't actually have a whole lot of stored up animosity regarding Facebook. I have long since blocked or unfriended all the people that annoy me most, so now Facebook is a mostly peaceful and enjoyable place. 

BUT. Things that will get you blocked or unfriended by me:

- Too many political posts, in either direction. Election time is the absolute worst. It is exactly what is wrong with social media - too many un-censored zealots in dire need of an editor and maybe a Xanex or two. SHUT UP.

- This is too obvious, I know, but people that post way too many photos of their babies/children will also earn themselves a nice swift blocking. We all know your kids are cute and you love them immensely. But we don't need to see 7 terrible cell phone pics of them per day, mmkay?

- Poor grammar. I can't help it. Bad grammar and spelling are the virtual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me. And I can't help but judge you a little.

- Silent stalkers. The people that are always on, a "like" at the ready (IF that), but never have anything to say or share for themselves. I don't really know why this bothers me, but it does. I guess it just seems a little TOO voyeuristic, if you're so keen to peek in on all your friends' lives but never willing to share anything of your own, or even reach out to others with a text, email, or an actual nice comment (which, yes, might take thought).  

- Slutty selfies will also earn you a swift blocking. I have no idea why so many girls feel the need to post constant photos of themselves in bikinis or low cut shirts. It just screams "LOOK AT ME I NEED ATTENTION AND VALIDATION." How about getting attention for doing something good or worthwhile or useful, eh?

- Passive aggression and/or cryptic postings that don't actually say anything but just inject negativity into the universe. BIG pet peeve.

Phew. Felt good to get that off my chest. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say for this one... share your letters in the linkup below! And have a great weekend! :)

The post written in a coffee shop... except not.

So, I DID go to a coffee shop for day 18 of Blogtember. I ordered myself a cinnamon-vanilla latte, and I sat down at a table to enjoy said latte and write my post... and then, and only then, did it occur to me that I completely forgot to bring my laptop. Super bright of me, right? I'm still scratching my head over that one.

Now I feel like a big fat phony, and I can't write a post here at home that was meant to have been written in a coffee shop. It's just not the same. But you should watch this video. It will probably make your day.

CHEATER

Did you know there are only three more days of Blogtember?! So proud of all you who've stuck with me this long! Today's prompt is to write about a time you screwed up - a mistake you made.

Last time I can recall, I was in about 1st grade.

Kidding! But I did majorly screw up and cheat on a spelling test back then. To this day, it's one of my most vivid memories. I guess I wasn't prepared for the test, so I filled out a sheet with all the correctly spelled words, and placed it on the ground beside my chair (I was home-schooled at that point, so I did my work at the kitchen table). I remember my heart pounding in my chest, and feeling so nervous that my mom would catch me. I was probably acting pretty unnatural, and of course also kept sneaking peeks at the paper on the ground during the test.  I totally got caught and spanked, and I felt horrible, HORRIBLE, afterwards.  Like such a disappointment.

I've never liked breaking rules, since then. Of course there was another small bout with cheating in 9th grade geometry class... me and my friends may or may not have written formulas on our thighs and peeked at them during tests (we wore those God-awful plaid private school skirts), HOWEVER, I never got caught for that and geometry is bullshit anyway. Probably the worst subject of all time, and I knew I had no future where the Pythagorean Theorem was concerned. Quite frankly, I don't even feel bad.

But mistakes. I feel like I'm one of those people who really does live their life tiptoeing around them. I try to never make mistakes, though of course sometimes I still do. All I know now is that the mistakes I have made have always, always made me a better person and taught me a valuable lesson. So in that sense,  mistakes aren't so bad sometimes, if you don't abuse your privilege to make them.

Share your links below, if you're participating in Blogtember! :)

Evaluating authentic mobile apps for learning

Back in April 2013 I delivered a workshop at the IATEFL 2013 conference in Liverpool. The topic of the workshop was 'Criteria for Evaluating Web Tools and Apps' and in the workshop I encouraged participants to share and explore their subconscious criteria for deciding which apps and web based tools they used with their students.

I particularly encouraged them to think about 'authentic' apps rather than those made for learning. This is because in many ways I feel that most made for learning apps have made very little pedagogical progress beyond their roots in CALL from the last century.

I also believe that encouraging students to get 'hands on' with authentic apps has a much more important role in helping them to develop digital literacies which they can use outside of the classroom.

As a result of that workshop and the research that developed from it I've now developed this list of criteria for evaluating mobile apps for educational purposes.

Here I've divided the criteria into 4 categories and given some explanation of each. I welcome your comments and feedback as this is still very much a work in progress.

Technical

Accessibility - Will all the students have the necessary equipment to use it? Will it work across all / most mobile platforms and also work within a desktop web browser?

• Unless teachers are working in a teaching environment where a uniform set of physical devices are provided for students, such as a complete set of iPads or Android tablets, then they need to check carefully that all the variety of devices that their students possess are all supported. The safest way to ensure this is to check to see if the app also has a browser based version, so that students without up-to-date mobile devices will still be able to participate.

User friendly - Will students be able to learn how to use it reasonably quickly?

• Apps that are complex and take a long time to master may not be worth the commitment. Teachers need to ensure that they plan how to teach the students how to use the apps in a reasonable amount of time or have a strategy for gradually uncovering more features of an app as they develop more activities with it.

Registration - Do students need to register to use it?

• Getting students and teachers to register and remember passwords can be laborious and time consuming, so apps that don’t require registration and particularly those which run in the browser on mobile or desktop can be very convenient to use. Registration does however offer students more protection and makes any potential misuse or mischief trackable back to its source.

Security - Is the app secure?

• Although it can be difficult and time consuming to check, teachers need to determine that the app is secure and the creators will treat their students data and personal information responsibly and confidentially. If there is any form of social interaction enabled through the app teachers need to check if there is any mechanism or process for blocking and reporting abuse.

Financial

Price - Is it free or affordable?

• One of the great advantages of apps is that many are free, freemium (have both a free and a commercial version) or are quite low cost. Having said that, even if low cost apps are being used it needs to be decided who will pay for them, especially if each student in the class needs one.

Business model - Is there a business model to support the app? Is it clear how it makes money?

• Every app producer needs to make money somehow, so it is important to identify the business model supporting the development of an app. Although teachers and students are keen to use free apps, apps that have no visible business model may be generating money through advertising or by trading data. An app that has no visible means of financial support, may have a very short life span, rapidly become unreliable, and fail to develop and evolve due to lack of funds.

Motivational

Digital literacy - Does learning and using the app help students to develop a useful or transferable digital literacy?

• Just using an app in itself doesn’t necessarily constitute developing a digital literacy. The use of the app must in some way develop a digital skill that can be transferred outside of the learning context and used in some authentic way either in the workplace or as part of the students’ lifestyle.

Authenticity - Does it have an authentic purpose beyond language learning? Is it an app that a native speaker would use for a genuine purpose outside of a classroom?

• Apps that are motivating for native speakers to use for a genuine purpose should also be motivating for language learners for that same purpose, so authentic apps that involve some sort of linguistic input or output are ideally suited to language teaching purposes.

Personalization - Does the app enable user to express some aspect of who they are and what they believe?

• It’s important that language learners have the opportunity to use language creatively to express something of their own personality or identity. Apps which support this kind of creativity can be potentially very useful.

Pedagogical

Learning goal / outcome - Is there a a possible learning outcome that use of the app will lead to?

• Using an app is not in and of itself a learning outcome. Use of the app needs to lead towards some form of learning goal. In some cases it can be easy to see what learning goals can be achieved through using the app, at other times teachers may need to think carefully what learning outcomes can be achieved through building activities which include the use of an app.

Interaction / communication - Does it support interaction and communication between users?

• Apps which are developed around social interaction and communication are much more likely to be able to find a useful place in the language classroom and should be easier to base tasks around as communication naturally fits with the aims of language acquisition.

Prolonged use - Does the app need prolonged use to achieve a satisfactory outcome?

• Many apps are designed around short daily tasks build up over a period of time to achieve an outcome. If teachers choose to use these kinds of apps they need to factor this long term approach into their timetabling.

Assessment - Is the work on the app assessable by the teacher? Does the app support the delivery of teacher response and feedback?

• Students need to know that teachers are evaluating, assessing and responding to their work, so apps which can support this kind of teacher intervention can be potentially very useful.

Collaboration - Does the app support collaboration between users?

• The ability to collaborate on projects or producing some form of tangible outcome is viewed as being a potentially significant digital literacy so apps which foster these kinds of collaborative interactions in a meaningful ways have great potential.

Context - In what context would the app be useful? For whom is the app more useful?

• There are a number of different contexts in which apps can be used. Some may be more appropriate for use at home by the student, or in the class by students, whereas others could be more appropriately used by teachers for their own development or the development of content for students.

Reusable - Does the app have sufficient depth of purpose to support multiple activities and tasks?

• Many apps have great novelty value which can be motivating for students, but novelty can soon wear off, so it is wise to weigh the amount of benefit students gain from novelty apps against their potential for extended use and the amount of time it takes to download install and register them.

Learner autonomy - Can app be used independently outside of the class by the student to support some form of learning?

• Apps that can be used by students working independently may well help to foster a degree of learner autonomy if there is some in built learning outcome.

As I said, this is still a work in progress, and I did struggle with which criteria fell in to which of the categories and with the categories themselves, so all comments are welcome.

I hope you find these criteria helpful in evaluating the apps that you choose for your students.

Related links:

• Making lectures and lessons more interactive with mQlicker
• Creating interactive video on the iPad 
• Tools for learners
• Video communication apps and mobile learning
• Mix Images and Animation on Your Mobile 
• Peer editing in digital and mobile environments 
• Taking notes from the web on the iPad

Best

Nik Peachey

Lick

Day 16 of Blogtember: Review a book, place, or product.

I'm a little ashamed to be just now trying Lick, and it's almost October. I've heard rave reviews of this hopping little ice cream spot, so I've been dying to get the scoop. Pun intended.

Anyway, my mom and I checked it out, and I can honestly say this is the very best ice cream I've ever (eveerrr) had.  Such curious flavors, and every one we tried was so incredibly delicious! My favorite was Lemon Lavender, but Cardamom Pear Cake and Hill Country Honey & Vanilla Bean received very high marks as well. I'll be back to try all the other flavors. All of them. Thanks for being innovative and awesome, Lick! ;)

Life Lately

Day 15 of Blogtember: life lately.

I've sort of written a couple life lately posts in the last week or so... shame on me for not thinking ahead to today's post topic! But life, lately... is good. Really, really good. I am happy. Our house isn't ready yet, or anywhere near ready, but they started bricking the outside last week, and dropped off all the drywall, which was encouraging. Then it failed a few insulation inspections and it rained for like 50035973513 days, so of course more delays, more delays, more delays.

But I have my little family and I have my passion for the work I'm doing right now, and we've been blessed with our first set of incredibly beautiful fall mornings, and that is just a breath of fresh air.   There have been movies and popcorn and cuddling and date nights and coffee in bed each morning and new rules going forward to show love with conduct instead of just words. It's a good plan, and it's been working, and our lives are happier for it.

Hope you have a great Monday!

*Prior Blogtember link-ups are missing at the moment, but should be back online soon!

COMFORT

Today's Blogtember prompt: React to this term: comfort.

Oh, comfort. My life has not been comfortable in some areas lately. I'd rather not go into detail, but trust me on that one. There have been moments where everything comfortable for me has been threatened, has felt destroyed, has been in question. But so far I’ve learned that the times I’ve been most uncomfortable have also been the times I achieved the most growth in my life and in my relationships. Comfort is not something we should seek exclusively. Where is the adventure in that? Where is the becoming-better?  If you find the only decisions you’re ever making are comfortable ones, there may be some reevaluating in order.

It’s interesting that I would pick this particular prompt for this particular day in September, some weeks ago when I made the list. Interesting, indeed.

Comfort is a nice feeling, but you’d never know what it means to lie in a truly soft place unless you’d also experienced the opposite. Be grateful for discomfort in your life, as well as comfort, because they really are two sides of the same coin, you know?

That's about the best I can come up with, for a Friday. :)

Tell us about what comfort means to you in the linkup below today's featured SOML sponsors... :)

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Miss Shanna writes a fabulous blog called Because Shanna Said So, and if you haven't heard of her yet, well... you might want to check and see if you're under a large rock! ;) Shanna is a wife and mama to two beautiful girls, an Austinite, and her blog features stories from her life and lots and lots of fantastic fashion inspiration. First get to know her a little better here, then browse some of her style posts here. You will fall in love with this lovely southern lady, I guarantee it. 

Blog | Facebook | Twitter

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Stunningly pretty Anna writes a blog called Happy Medley, and her story is quite unique. This lovely lady was born and raised in Russia, but her family moved to the states when she was a bit older - with only 8 suitcases to their name! Anna learned English, met a fellow Russian guy and started a family (how cute are they?), and she now writes a life and style blog full of "ideas for a happy and simple life." Drop in and say hello! :)

Blog | Bloglovin

HAPPY FRIDAY!

A little bit of fiction

Blogtember Day 12 - Creative writing day: write a (very short) fictional story that starts with this sentence: "To say I was dreading the dinner party would be the understatement of the century."

It turns out that my story today kind of sucked, but after I'd written a couple paragraphs and realized it sucked, I was already sick of the topic and also by that point in need of some Viagra for writers to help with a little performance anxiety. Also, if you don't like the F word, you probably shouldn't read this. I try to keep that word out of my blog, but hey, it found its way into my short story, oops.

Also, wasn't this fun? It reminded me that I really enjoy writing stories and all the possibilities of it. This is the first fictional thing I've written in a loooong time, and I absolutely want to keep after it and hone that skill, because it definitely needs honing. Can't wait to read everyone else's! And please don't worry about it being perfect. None of us are trying to get this 'ish published, it's just for fun. ;) Happy Thursday...

*couldn't find source, please let me know if you know where this image originated!

To say I was dreading the dinner party would be the understatement of the century. If I wasn’t so damn cheap, I’d just not go, but at $450.00 a ticket, I planned to at least get a meal out of my humiliation, while of course giving all the slap-dick wives something to chit chit about during their next tennis match.  We’ll call that my gift to society. Gossip fodder. Glad I could at least contribute something.

As I dabbed on makeup and stuffed extra padding into my bra, I made a valiant effort not to think about King Henry, as I liked to call him, since didn’t one of the Henrys kill off his wives or something? Fucking Henrys. They’re all the same.  It’s funny, because while I was busy NOT thinking about him, my body was still having a physical reaction to the fact that he would be there tonight. You know, the ol’ pounding heart, cold sweat, and unsteady hand trick. Ridiculous. I have nothing to prove to these people, and as far as Henry goes, I figured it’d be unlikely we even run into each other at all. But if we do, I’d be ready.  If we do, I’d be on his mind all night, I was going to make sure of that.

By 7:55 it was dusky and nearly dark in the house, and as I pushed a sparkly earring into my ear, I peered out the lace curtains of my front window. A shiny black Lexus waited there at the curb outside the townhouse, exactly where and when it should be, and yet somehow its presence seemed to solidify my fate and/or pound the proverbial nail in my coffin. My heart dropped into my stomach with no warning. Why didn’t I just give up my ticket? Why didn’t I just not go? It’s a charity dinner, after all. Charity! I could just write this off as a selfless donation and call it a day. But who are we kidding. These things are never selfless. They’re an excuse to show off how much you’re making and who you’re fucking. Of course, I’d be showing off none of those things, so my presence there would be laughable at best.  But it seemed like defeat, to not go. I’m not sure which would give them more to talk about, being there and looking happy, composed, and amazing, or not being there and letting Henry win.

I pushed open the heavy front door and stepped out into the night.

Only photos (a cop out)

Today's Blogtember prompt is only photos. I realize that this is a complete cop-out, but instead of photos from my own life today, I'm going to post photos I've recently taken for my business, since it's certainly consumed my life and my camera as of late. Hope you enjoy... :)

Moments

Day 11 of Blogtember is simply a memory you'd love to relive.

And you know, I've been thinking hard about this one, and the conclusion I've come to is kind of eye opening. If I could relive a memory, it wouldn't be one of our amazing trips to Hawaii or New York or South America, or the time I lived in Germany as a child, or even a moment on my wedding day or something obvious like that.

No. I would relive a family dinner, sitting opposite my Grandma and listening to her stories. I would relive a long, tight hug, and the way she smelled and how soft her skin was. I would relive the laughter when she scoffed at a photo I took of her, and said she looked "too old" or "too wrinkly." I would relive moments with Edd, the time he told me he always wanted a daughter, the time I almost crushed him with an uncharacteristic-for-our-relationship hug when he came home from the hospital after another surgery, another scare, another close brush with death. I'd relive simple moments with people I love. And it's so eye opening to realize that those are the moments I'd choose, because they happen every day, and we take them for granted. Inspires me to slow down, experience, and enjoy the people in my life and the important things. Because people really are the important things.

Read a little more about Edd here

Read a little more about my Grandma here

What about you? What memory would you relive? (And don't worry, no one will judge you if you chose that trip to Disney or something!) ;)

$50 Hazel & Olive giveaway (+ a Photography Concentrate discout code!)

Howdy folks, and happy Tuesday. Today's giveaway comes courtesy of one of my favorite online shops, Hazel & Olive! I've worn it proudly here and here, if you recall. ;) Today a $50 gift certificate to the store is up for grabs, which will buy you just about anything you'd like. (most items are a steal at under $40!)

Also, the Photography Concentrate tutorial prize pack winner has been chosen and emailed, but the kind couple behind this awesome site is offering up SOML readers an exclusive 30% discount on all tutorials through September 21st (this Saturday!) with the code SOML30, for those of you who may have been sad about not winning. ;)  Just keep in mind that the field to enter the discount code is on the second checkout screen, and if you are paying by Paypal, you will first be transferred there to log in and then transferred back to the PC site where you can enter the discount code. Thanks, Rob & Lauren, for being so generous!

Now enter for your chance to win free loot from Hazel & Olive below, and have a fantastic day. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Love letters to two dear friends

Blogtember topic for the day: Write a public love letter to someone in your life. (It doesn't necessarily need to be romantic.)

Today I found that there are two ladies I really wanted to write to - both are so special to me and have been so impactful in my life. Here are my letters...

Dear Megan,

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEAUTIFUL! You're 27 today, an age I know you've dreaded for some silly reason, but don't worry, I'll be there with you in just a couple more months. I bet it won't be so bad. :)

I wanted to thank you today for 11-ish years of loyal friendship. You and I have known each other through so many clunky and awkward stages of life - the end of high school, all of college, several boyfriends, big life changes like marriage and moving and the death of loved ones and redefining who we are after school and after we both worked at that same little restaurant for weirdly lengthy amounts of our life, and moving into new homes and thinking about babies and planning for the future and worrying about getting older. We had so many Friday nights and Saturday or Sunday mornings together, bitching about nasty customers and loving on old people and rolling in the tips and late nights at Chili's and the movies when we had to be back up in four more hours for the next shift. We've been friends through all of that, though you've always been more constant and reliable than me, which is part of your personality as a Caregiver, I now see. Thank you for being my friend through it all, even when we got on each other's nerves, which is bound to happen over the course of 11 years... ;) One thing is for sure, I never stop loving you, respecting you, and admiring you for your wonderful heart. Cannot wait to see what the future holds for us both. It's always nice to walk through life with a friend, isn't it? Hope today and year 27 are beautiful, just like you. :)

Love, love, love,

Jenni

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Dear Kristin,

I'm not even sure where to start on this letter - it's funny, because we've had our ups and downs in this weird online/offline friendship, but one thing that remains constant is that I always have so much fondness and warmth in my heart for you, and I'm always so thankful you're my friend. You've said before that you feel out of place in this world, like an outsider sometimes, but I disagree, and I think you belong very much and add so much beauty, specifically to anyone who is lucky enough to be close to you. You've inspired me endlessly with the warmth of your beautiful home and spirit, the way you care for people (the way you've cared for me), the care you take for the small details of your world (you know how God-awful I am with small details, so I find this particularly inspiring), and the fresh perspective you always give me and which always surprises me in pleasant and helpful ways. On more than one occasion you've given me advice that was exactly what I needed to hear and saved my life in different ways, and I've appreciated our relationship of accountability, even when it seemed like I didn't. For people like me, accountability can be extremely annoying but nonetheless extremely important. I've loved growing closer to you over the last year in particular, and I hope that only continues. I respect and admire you more than you know, and I'm so proud of all you continue to accomplish. 

Lots and lots of love,
Jenni

A self portrait plus a life update

Eek, happy Friday the 13th! ;) Today's Blogtember topic is simply a self portrait. Here it is, folks! This is the way my face looks most of the time. Half covered by a camera. ;)

I thought I'd also take this opportunity (you know, an easy day in the challenge), to write a little about what's going on in my life at the moment. As many of you know, we are waiting on our house to be built, and in the meantime living with my mom. (read a little more about that here if you haven't already.)

Well, it's been five months since we signed the contract with our builder, and over four months since we've been living with my mom. We were thinking our house would be done by early to mid October, WORST case scenario - but currently the house is only about 40% finished. The build has been going at an absolute snail's pace. To add insult to injury, a house directly across the street from ours, that was started only about a week before ours and ISN'T EVEN SOLD YET, is about 2-3 weeks from being completely finished. The bastards. Yes, we are bitter about it.

We're still making the best of the situation, but it's hard to feel in-limbo for so long. Hard for us, and hard for my mom to have perpetual house-guests, I'm sure. The stress of the whole thing is really starting to take a toll on Matthew and I a bit, and we're ready to have this weird living/waiting situation behind us.  However, at this point I just know the move into the new place is going to be the biggest stress-ball of all, since it will likely be taking place during the absolute busiest time of year for my photography business, not to mention immediately before/during the holidays. Sigh.

But we are blessed, we are blessed, we are blessed. I know it's true, and I really am happy despite our less-than ideal situation. Life just isn't ideal sometimes, now is it?

Other than all that, I am just plugging away at the upkeep of this blog and my business, which I'm so proud to say has really taken off for me lately. I wake up every morning completely EXCITED to jump into my work. It's pretty much the best thing ever!

So those are the two things that have been consuming my life, as of late. The build/wait on our home, and being the best small business owner I can be. Life isn't very exciting right now, but that's OK. There are seasons of life. I think this one we're currently in coincides with the actual season - it's just a long, hot summer. But after summer comes fall, and that's my favorite season of all. :)

Link up your self portraits below today's featured SOML sponsors! Happy Friday...

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First up is something not normally featured here - an e-course! This particular course is led by Melyssa of the Nectar Collective and Erika of Chimerikal, and it's called EVERYDAY HAPPY. These girls summed up the course best here:

"Everyday Happy is a positive, soul-renovating experience that delves into the core of who you truly are. It utilizes journaling, spirit-building, and community exercises to access the most radiant version of yourself and help you unlock your happiness potential. This course is unique — it builds positive self image, reconstructs your habits, and connects you to other participants in a thoughtful, like-minded community." 

Sounds pretty darn amazing, right?! Get to know the coaches here, take a look at the FAQ page here, and reserve your spot ASAP if you'd like in on it. Spaces are limited and the course begins October 1st.

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Next up is Marolsha, an Etsy store you've probably seen mentioned here on SOML a time or two before. Marolsha stocks the prettiest and most inexpensive jewelry - perfect for gifting (to someone else, or to yourself!). I absolutely love the vintage and timeless feel of this perfect little shop. Take a look, and get ready to fall in love.

Shop

How has social media changed you?

Day 8 Blogtember topic: Discuss ways that blogging or social media has changed you.

This one is difficult for me because blogging and social media has changed my life so much that I hardly know where to begin. For the sake of this exercise, I just went back to the very first post on my very first blog - if you’re wondering, it was on July 6th, 2008. It’s interesting, because I found that my writing voice and style has actually not changed much at all since then. But boy, so many other things sure have.

Blogging and social media have had many both positive and negative effects on my life. For one thing, they’ve caused this addiction in me to share my experiences with others. I used to live my life in a solitary fashion - you know, like most people do - but now, if I can’t photograph it, instagram it, tweet it, blog it, share it with the world, it almost feels like it wasn’t even worth doing. It’s such a strange thing, and when I put it that way, it sounds sort of negative (not to mention pathetic). But I find that in my life, this is a good thing. I am naturally disinclined to change, grow, experience new things, and get out of my comfort zone. Blogging and social media have helped me be less that way. Because, you know, my blog would be boring as hell if I remained a sad stagnant hermit covered in dog hair who mostly never leaves the house.

A second way that blogging, in particular, has changed me, is that it’s given me confidence I never, ever had before. I specifically remember being at the grocery store one day, a few months after I started Story of My Life and after I had picked up a few dozen or maybe a couple hundred readers by then. I remember noticing I had this extra spring in my step, and a stronger sense of self than I had ever had before. I remember noticing that and then immediately attributing it to my blog. People cared what I had to say, my great passion for writing was being affirmed, and I was connecting with people in a way I was missing in my “real” life! It just generally felt really nice. To have found a niche, a hobby, and something I knew I could excel at.

Social media has also caused me to be really freaking ADD/all-over-the-place, which I discussed in this post (the response to it was pretty incredible… so many of us suffer with this!). Since I already talked about it, I won’t go into anymore detail on that one. I’m getting a LITTLE better about this though. Re-training myself to focus when I really need to. It’s not easy.

And finally, this conversation would be so incomplete if I didn’t mention the way that blogging and social media have had an incredibly globalizing effect on my life - meaning, it’s brought the entire world right here into MY world. The things I have learned have been countless. The relationships I’ve made have been priceless. The art and talent I’ve been exposed to have been inspiring and invaluable. Basically, it's all made a giant world feel so much smaller and less intimidating. Maybe that’s the optimist in me talking. But I think it mainly just comes from a place of genuine passion for social media and other humans and their endless abilities to share and create.

What about you? How has blogging and social media changed you? Speak up in a comment or in the linkup below!

Favorite online places (to drop some dough)

For Day 7 of Blogtember we're sharing links to favorite online shops. I have so many and there are seemingly endless fantastic handmade shops in places like Etsy... it is a veritable black hole of awesomeness over there. But here are just a few of my favorites! Cannot wait to browse everyone else's picks, too. Happy Hump Day!


BLOOM THEORY // The loveliest camera straps I've ever seen. I don't own one, but it's on my bucket list.

DIMDIMINI // When we have a baby someday I will be decorating with these little critters. There are so many adorably whimsical watercolor animal prints in this shop!

PETITOR // This is one of my favorite shops for beautiful and inexpensive gifts for friends (and myself).

IVIEBABY // One of the major reasons I'd like a baby is so I can decorate its nursery with some Iviebaby.

RUCHE // Ruche is so timeless and classy, and new arrivals are added almost every day. I love this adorable shop!

Share your favorite shops in the linkup below! Have fun browsing. :)

Making lectures and lessons more interactive with mQlicker

As the traditional lecture has come increasingly under fire for being completely out of touch with modern teaching and learning methods, there has been a move by many teachers, conference presenters and lecturers to make their teaching techniques more modern and interactive. One of the key technologies for enabling this has been a range of audience response systems that provide real time responses to polls, questions and surveys while the speakers is actually presenting.

It’s great that many teachers are taking this step, but some of these response systems like mQlicker can deliver much more than a simple audience response, in fact you can use them to initiate debates, brainstorm ideas or even develop complete units of elearning which can help you to ‘flip’ your classroom and create motivating blended learning materials which encourage and keep track of student engagement.

mQlicker has a number of ways of encouraging interaction and displaying results. To see a live demo of how mQlicker look at: http://www.mqlicker.com/demo.html

Be sure to tab through the different questions types, enter data and use the settings tab to change the way the data displays. I particularly like the word cloud type data display for text and numerical entries.

To set up your mQlicker interactions you need to register and log in on the mQlicker site. This is free to do.

Once you have done this you see the admin user interface. This is much simpler to use than it looks at first glance and the initial field shows you the 6 step instructions for how to create your poll or questionnaire.

Once you have created your questionnaire and launched it, participants just need to go to: https://respond.cc/ enter a numerical code and then input their response.

Here are 3 short video tutorial which show you how to do that.

How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 1



How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 2

How to create an mQlicker questionnaire 3



Why I like mQlicker

• For a start mQlicker is cross platform compatible so as well as working an app on all the major mobile platforms it will also run in the browser on both mobile and desktop.
• It has a range of ways of displaying participants responses which you can choose from. I particularly like the one which shows responses to text input as a word cloud.
• I really like that you only need to set up one fixed URL https://respond.cc/ for responses and that respondents just enter a short digital code. This makes it pretty simple to get people to the right place at an event and they don’t have complex URLs to copy down or registration codes to handle.
• mQlicker is pretty simple and straight forward just to get started with, but it also comes with a complete manual http://resources.mqlicker.com/doc/manual.pdf that you can download to start digging into the more complex capabilities.
• You can embed mQlicker chart results into a presentation (PPT) and make it dynamic so that your presentation slide updates automatically when people vote.
• It’s easy to reuse questions or questionnaires with multiple classes as it collects questions together in a question bank.
• There are premium services if you want something that looks customized for your company or event.

Some tips for getting the best from audience response

• Don’t limit participation to the room. Why not send out surveys and polls for response through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook or through a back channel chatroom, then you can get a much wider variety of opinion and get the people in the room to respond to that.
• You can use the tool to brainstorm, especially with the word cloud data display. This would be great for brainstorming vocabulary based around topics, or words which collocate with ... etc.
• You can set up before and after votes for in class discussions, to see how many people can be persuaded to change their minds.
• You can create complete flipped interactive learning, by creating questionnaires with a video embedded into a slide at the beginning and then a variety of questions to get students exploring the video content. Then when you come to class students are prepared and you have some response data to get them working with and thinking and talking about in class. Using videos for flipped learning in this way when you are tracking the responses,  puts more pressure on students to actually do the work and watch the video as they know their responses are being tracked by the teacher.
• You can create questions based around images, so be sure to take advantage of this feature to help stimulate response from the students.
• You can allow students / participants to be anonymous, so this is a great tool for doing action research and to collect genuinely honest feedback on your teaching methods or content.
• You can use it to make your classroom more democratic, by setting up votes to find out which parts of the book or course students most want to study or what kinds of activities they want to do next.
• It’s great that mQlicker can enable open text input, so make the most of this feature. Participants are often frustrated wit questionnaires or polls that don’t really provide the answers that they want to give. Creating open text questions gives the respondent much more ability to express what they feel. This can though be more difficult for you to analyze statistically
• And last but not least you can use it for assessment and set micro tests as you class progresses. This can assure you that participants are following and understanding your message.

mQlicker is a great free tool for making your classroom, lecture or conference presentation more interactive. It would be great to see more tools like this being used at conferences and in classrooms, but of course you do need to make sure that your venue or classroom has good connectivity and get people into the habit of coming along ready with devices to participate, but as mobile and tablet penetration grows in the education sector and educational authorities realize that we have to stop banning these devices from classrooms and start exploiting them more fully.

I hope you find mQlicker useful

Related links:

• 3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations 
• Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students 
• Peer editing in digital and mobile environments
• The Web 2.0 School of the Present
• Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2
• Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak
• Survey Creation Tool for Students
• Create Quick Online Polls
• Create an ESL EFL Video Quiz
• Make your own chat room

Best

Nik Peachey