BACK IN ACTION

Wow, first week of the new job, long weekend at the beach, and house hunting with my best friends...crazy week! I am so glad that my blog is generating so much talk about adoption! The more comments the better. I simply ask that you be respectful.

I want to share a story with you that I've only told a few people. About two years ago, I received a message on facebook from a friend I graduated high school with. She and I had a few classes together, but we never really kept in touch after graduation. So she randomly sends me a message and tells me that her mom is a labor and delivery nurse in our hometown. Her mom was assigned to assist a 17-year-old girl from our high school (I'm not sure who this girl was) as she went into labor at the local hospital. The girl started talking to my friend's mom, and she confessed that since she knew she absolutely could not raise a baby on her own, she was planning on having an abortion. However, after witnessing my entire pregnancy through high school and hearing about my experience with adoption, she ultimately decided to place her baby in an adoption. She admitted that the only reason she did not have an abortion was because of me.

I can't help but get teary eyed when I think about that. Can you imagine knowing that you saved a life? It's incomprehensible. There is a person alive today because somebody out there was impacted by seeing what I had gone through.

When I hear people say that adoption should never be an option because it causes a lifetime of emotional turmoil for the adopted child, I must disagree. Just as not every single adoption works out perfectly, not every adoption ends horribly either. There are plenty of people who have been adopted that speak positively about their experiences. I absolutely agree that parenting is the best option and I would never encourage somebody to place their child in an adoption if they were ready and willing to provide emotional and financial stability to their child...but unfortunately, there are situations that arise when emotion and financial support cannot be provided by the birth parents. So if adoption is not an option, women are left with only left with only one other option--abortion. And that is not acceptable to me. The way I see it, adoption is a way to save lives. Sure, there will always be the risk that the adopted child will have resentment toward the birth parents...but as we see with the example above, adoption has the power to save lives. I cannot speak for those on the other side of adoption who have that resentment, and my heart truly goes out to them...but I will continue to share my open adoption experience because I know that it has saved lives.

After serving as president of Real Choices, a pro-life student organization at NC State aimed to assist student moms, I saw firsthand how little support is available to women who have chosen to raise a child while completing their education. We need to provide these resources so that if a woman does want to raise her child and continue her education, she may. What usually happens is that a woman who unexpectedly becomes pregnant feels trapped and finds that she has no way to raise a child. Although she desperately wants to keep her baby, she knows that she cannot raise a child on her own, so she decides to keep the pregnancy a secret and have an abortion. If you truly believe that adoption should not be an option, I encourage you to get involved in helping young moms who do want to keep their babies. If you feel so strongly against adoption because you had a negative experience with it, I certainly hope that you find the strength to move past your experience and help others in the same situation. Because that's certainly what I've decided to do.

So, are there days that I wish I was holding Deanna's hand? Absolutely. I wouldn't be human if I didn't miss her. But by helping student moms who struggle to make ends meet and by knowing that I saved lives, I have found closure and I speak from a place of self-acceptance. I don't think I made the right decision...I know that I made the right decision. I consider myself a woman of deep faith, and I have a close and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The day Deanna was born I made a deal with God. We talked alot about my decision. I prayed, I listened, and I made my decision based on what God told me was right. The only thing I asked of Him was that He would not let me regret my decision. Every faithful, He has not broken His promise.

Deanna will ultimately have the final say in whether our open adoption was a success. I won't put words into her mouth or speak for her. She is her own person. We can only put this in God's hands and pray that the love Deanna has been given by so many people in her life will be enough for her to accept the decision I made. God has a plan for each of us, and this is the path that He has chosen. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" -Ephesians 1:5,6

It might not be the popular thing to do--to defend life or to promote adoption--but I'm okay with that. If I were to die tomorrow, I would die knowing that I have an incredible relationship with Jesus Christ, that I gave my daughter the gift of life and a wonderful family, and most importantly, that I spent the rest of my life defending what I truly believe is right.

"Cowardice asks the question,
Is it safe?
Expedience asks the question,
Is it politic?
Vanity asks the question,
Is it popular?
But conscience asks the question
Is it right?
And there comes a time when one must
take a position that is neither safe,
nor politic, nor popular,
but he must make it
because his conscience
tells him that it is right..."
-Martin Luther King

CRITICISM SCHMITICISM

Here's a picture of me and my beloved graduation gift from Don...
I told you I had an obsession with watermelon.

Okay, so I've been asked to blog about how our families have handled the hurtful comments from people about the adoption. I guess we've always had people questioning our open adoption arrangements since the beginning. People don't always believe that it works as wonderfully as we say it does. But I'm here to tell you that it truly does work. Granted, it hasn't always been easy, and there have been some really tough times, but in the end it all comes down to doing what's best for Deanna. It's amazing to think that the love of one little girl resulted in an inseparable bond between four families. That's how we make it work.

But then there's always those people who doubt. The ones who honestly can' t believe that something so wonderful could be true, and they simply want to rain on the parade. It's hard not to read into some of the hurtful things people say.

Here are some of the things we have heard:

"Did you not have a baby because you didn't want to get fat?" (to De).

"Won't it be too confusing for Deanna?"

"Did you get pregnant on purpose?"

"Having a baby is going to hurt like hell!" (don't ever say that to a pregnant woman. ever.)

"Aren't you jealous when you let the birth mother see Deanna?"

"Why would you ever want to adopt a child that's not your own?"

I was very hesitant to do the News and Observer article at first because I know firsthand how nasty people can be. Adoption still carries a stigma, and I just knew that someone out there would say something negative about the article. But then I thought about my favorite quote. And I decided to do the article anyway. The quote? "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather, the judgment that something else is more important than fear." And I thought about how many people the article had the potential to positively impact versus the number of people who would criticize. And I knew the answer. I had to share our story.

One of the comments on the News & Observer website said,
"I find it extremely strange that the adopters, De and Don, DO consider themselves parents. They are certainly caretakers, but they are not parents. It's sad that so many people have believed the adoption lies and Amy's beautiful daughter will grow up with those same lies, looking at Amy merely as her incubator. If De and Don loved this child so much, why did they take her from her mother? I'm so very sorry that De and Don have not had their own child, but I will not pretend that Amy's daughter is theirs."

I try not to read into the comments too much, but really? An incubator? I guess there's no way to handle criticism other than to laugh it off and thank God that we have been so incredibly blessed. The point of an "open" adoption is exactly that--it's OPEN. Which means there are no lies. No strings attached. No having to break the news to Deanna when she's 15 years old that she's been adopted. No no. Open adoption is truth. And truthful is all we have ever been throughout the entire process. And no, I'm not merely an "incubator." I'm a birth mom. And that is so much more! A birth mom puts the needs of her child above her own needs, and that's something to be proud of.

I talked to De about handling the criticism. She is so insightful! She said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But if you know that you the right thing, then none of that really matters. Because at the end of the day, we are the ones who get to hear that beautiful little brown-eyed girl say, "I love you Mama!" and "I love you Amy Hutton!" And I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Brainstorm and Debate Collaboratively

This morning I spotted Solvr on MakeUseOf and decided to give it a try. Solvr is a free easy and interesting way to collaboratively brainstorm and attempt to solve problems online.

It's very simple set up. You just got to http://www.a.freshbrain.com/solvr/ type your problem into the field and then click 'Start'.
You will then see your problem with a number of options underneath.


You can add different elements of the problem, make suggestions by adding ideas and leave comments.

The collaborative part comes in when you share the URL with someone, then other people can come and join in the problem solving and brainstorming. Here's the URL for the 'Making a living 'problem I set up.

I also set up a problem earlier on today, which was about integrating technology into the ELT classroom. I added a couple of elements of the problem and then posted it to Twitter. With a few minutes, the problem started to develop as people added in comments solutions, and even started to vote on the solutions.


If you would like to see how this problem is developing go to http://www.a.freshbrain.com/solvr/d/eltrilxlwu and feel free to contribute.

So how do we use this with students?
We can set up a whole range of debates and online collaborative tasks.

• You could set up debates on the environment or other issues that your students find relevant. Here's an example on how to end world hunger. Each students could have their own topic to brainstorm the elements and causes of the problem, then students could exchange links and try to offer solutions to each other's problems.
• You could use Solver to get anonymous feedback from your action research tasks. This would also enable you to enter into debate with the students and get a deeper level of understanding of their responses.
• You could use it to address classroom issues or learning issues and explain some of the rationale behind activities. This would enable students to safely and anonymously discuss the issues with you. Here's an example We don't like reading in class
• You could use it to brainstorm vocabulary around a topic or theme and then get your students to add definitions, and other elements of information about the words, like their parts of speech, collocations, example sentences etc. Here's an example on politics. Feel free to add to it.
• We can get students to share their strategies for learning English. Example: How can we improve our English?
• You could use Solvr to plan an events like a class outing, party or doing a play. This way you can get students to think about the different jobs involved and decisions to be made, decide who will do them and explore the potential obstacles.

What's so good about it?

• It's free. very quick and really simple to use.
• It encourages critical thinking skills and the breaking down of problems into manageable elements.
• It encourages debate and interactive discussion.
• It's very versatile.
• Great for interactive homework tasks
  
• It can be used synchronously or asynchronously.
• It can give students time to think about and review what they write.
• Students can see the ebb and flow of ideas and opinions and the way they interact.
• Solvr also seems to work in Second Life. Check out Peter Miller's posting: Problem Solvr
  
• It's anonymous so students can be honest without being identified.

What I'm not so sure about

• It's anonymous, so can be open to abuse.
• It shouldn't be used to replace face to face debate in class, where that is possible, but could be useful to prime students before class so they have more ideas when they come to class for discussion.
• Carries some advertising, but students can be asked to ignore the ads.
• It's still being tested, so you debates could disappear or there could be bugs.

I think Solvr is a really useful addition to any teacher's technological tool set, especially if you are involved in any kind of distance learning courses. I hope your students enjoy it and that you think of other useful ways to use it.

Related links:

• Create your own social network 7 steps
  
• How to create a wiki
• Using wikis with EFL students
• Using wikis for teacher development
• Online Video: As Communication
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
• Microblogging for EFL with Plurk
• Great Video Commenting Tool
• Video conferencing for EFL

Best

Nik Peachey

WWAHD

First of all....thank you to everyone who sent such kind and thoughtful messages to me after reading the N&O article...I loved reading each and every one of them! This weekend was such a whirlwind...it went by way too quickly. Between graduation, graduation parties, families visiting, seeing Don, De, & Deanna, and Mother's Day, I'm not sure where it all went! But I know this much, I'll never forget it in a million years. Deanna gave me a few special things for Tummy Mommy Day this year: A card reading "AMY HV ISE HUTTON WJE HIP HAPPY GRDVUY" which of course means Happy Graduation Amy Hutton. Also, De and Deanna made a beautiful bracelet for me with shiny gray beads. A tiny charm on the clasp of the bracelet said one word: "LIFE" and I thought to myself, what an amazing gift! But Don had a special graduation gift waiting for me when I walked into the Leonard house for my graduation party...he told me to close me eyes and put out my hands. He then placed a large, ripe watermelon in my arms. You may recall that there was a time during my pregnancy that I was obsessed with watermelon. I probably cut into three whole watermelons a week. That's alot of melon! Fond memories. Don came up with an Acronym for dealing with life's difficult situations. He told me after my after graduation, "WWAHD." "What does that mean?" I asked curiously. "What Would Amy Hutton Do? " he said with a huge smile. :) Final thing today. If you or someone you know if experiencing an unplanned pregnancy please contact me! Send me an email at amhutto2@ncsu.edu. I'd be so happy to speak about my experience and offer my advice and support. Okay, now I'm off to the beach for the week... http://blogs.newsobserver.com/multi/open-adoption-is-this-familys-path

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Happy Mother's Day (a.k.a.tummy mommy day)!

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1521288.html

:)

Using Online Sticky Noticeboards

For the last few days I've been playing with WallWisher a handy tool for creating online noticeboards that you can add sticky notes to.

• You can see a wall that I created here with some notes about Web 2.0 Tools for EFL ESL Teachers.

It's very easy to create your own noticeboard, just click where it says 'Build a Wall' and you'll see a new wall with some options on it that you need to complete. Basically these are:

• Uploading an image
• Choosing colours
• Adding title and subtitle
• Creating your password
• Deciding who can see and add to your wall

Once you have done this you just click the big 'Done' button and you are almost ready to start adding content to your wall. Before you start to add content you'll need to check your email account where you should find your password. Then you just log in to your wall and double click on the wall to start adding the sticky notes.

The sticky notes are quite simple, you just add some text and you can either link to an image, a video or a web page.

The nice thing about this is that when users click on the link it opens in a pop up browser over the wall. This means that you can use your wall to focus students access to sites like flickr or Youtube and stop them drifting into other content. It also means that you can use the wall to set up specific activities and get your students to post their responses on the wall (as long as you have selected 'Everyone' to allow others to post to the wall)

So how do we use this with students?

• We can create video tasks and get students to post responses to the wall by leaving it open for everyone to contribute. Here's a wall that I created about Ramadan. This wall has been left open for anyone to contribute to.
• We could use the wall to collect different links to various resources around the web for students to explore, a little like a web quest or treasure hunt.
• We could give students a theme and get them to create their own walls based around that theme.
• We could get students to create fan walls based around a favourite band or celebrity.
• You can use the wall to collect and share resources like this one on IELTS
• You could use the wall to set up video or image based activities. Here's a video activity that I have set up for teachers based around a Mr Bean Video. Feel free to contribute.
• This activity uses an image to get students to practice using present continuous.
• You can use the wall to create debates. You can do this either by posting your own contentious opinions or using videos from sites like BigThink.com and get students to respond. This could be a way of dealing with sensitive issues and enabling students to be able to express opinions that they might not feel comfortable doing in the classroom. Here's an example
• We can even create grammar walls and get students to post what they know and examples of different verb tenses or grammar points.
• We could even get students to post their wishes on it using third conditional.
• Or last but not least we could use it to notify our students or parents of homework assignments and keep them up to date with what's happening in class.
  

What I like about WallWisher.

• It's free and easy to use and requires a minimum of registration info
• I like the way the links open in a pop up over the page
• You can embed the wall into a blog or website
• Your wall produces an RSS feed which can make it easy to keep track of what is being added
• Students can get involved and post brief comments or create their won walls
  
• It can be used collaboratively
• Great way to create easy online learning tasks
  
• It looks nice

Things I'm not so sure about

• It would be nice to have a few more controls about who posts to the wall. At present it's either only the creator or everyone! Would be nice to be able to invite people to post to it.
• I'd also like to be able to add / embed more than one link into a sticky note so that you can include an image or video and a link to a site, but you could get round this by adding more than one sticky.
• Would be nice to have a bit more control over how the embedded wall appears in a web page. Here's what mine looks like.

Well I hope you like WallWisher and find it useful. If you have other ideas for how to use it please do post comments and links.

Related links:

• Create Image Books
• Create a Flickr Montage
• Great Time Line Tool
• Create a YouTube Carousel
• Interactive presentations
• Personalised flashcards
• Animating vocabulary
• A Picture's worth
• 80 + Online activities for students
  

Best

Nik Peachey

Getting Video Tasks Online

I've been aware of 280Slides for some time now, but haven't really tried to use it much as I'm a very keen user of Keynote on my MAC, but this week I was looking around for ways to get video type lessons online and discovered what an incredibly easy and useful tool 280Slides is for this.


Basically 280Slides is an online tool for creating presentations. It works in a very simple way and has a very intuitive interface which is very quick to understand. It has a few basic themes and layouts and you can do all the usual things like adding text, shapes and images to your presentations.

The two key areas though that I like about 280Slides are:

1. It's really easy to import and embed video into you presentation. Just click on the 'Movies' icon add a search term. Find your video and double click it and there it is in the the presentation.

2. It's really easy to share the presentations online. Just click on the 'Share' icon and you get the options to publish to Slideshare, email as a PowerPoint or (and this is the one I like best) get an embed code for your blog or direct URL.



This is a quick easy lesson I created and you can compare the two last options below.

This is the embed version, just click the bottom right icon to see it full screen.


This is the direct link version: Led Zeppelin or the Beatles

How about using this with students
Well as you can see this is a great easy way create materials that exploit video.

• You can create listening tasks with questions and comprehension questions.
• You can get students to create their own video related projects by getting them to import video into the slides and write about them.
• Great for digital narrative which combines video images and text
• You could get students to import significant news clips and respond to them.
• You can combine video into grammar presentations with videos that demonstrate grammar points
• You could just use it to make your presentations and get them online

What I like about 280 Slides

• Really quick easy to understand interface.
• Works in the browser so no software to download or install.
  
• Great way to make YouTube videos accessible without sending students to the site.
• Easy enough for students to use.
• Free and no sign of advertising.
• The only information they ask for is email address.
• Really quick way to get materials online without having to illegally download video or have server / web hosting space.
• Really professional looking results.
• Embedding the videos into sides with tasks might discourage students from wandering off to look at other YouTube videos.
• Great to have an embed code for blogs.

What to watch out for

• It's still in Beta and free and I can't see how anyone makes a living from the site, so they may start charging or advertising, but until then ...
• If YouTube is blocked in your school, this probably won't solve the problem, though you can get students to access your video activities from home.
• It doesn't have all the powers of a commercial product like PowerPoint, but how many people use those powers anyway?

Hope you find 280Slides useful.

Related links:

• Online Video: For Language Development
• Online Video: As Communication
• Online Video: As Knowledge Resource
• Online Video: Authentic Genres
• 15 + Video related activities for students
• Find out about free video editing software
• YouTube for IWBs with PicLens
• Free Educational TV Channels
• News Videos for EFL ESL Materials Design
• Exploiting a Video Viral
• Create a YouTube Carousel

Best

Nik Peachey