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Belated {Birthday} Visit Post

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Well this post is a few months late - but what the heck I'm going to write it anyway.  Back in September, around my birthday, Don, De and Deanna came to visit me and see my new townhouse.  It was really great to see them and to be able to show them around my first real home.  They brought me a birthday card which was really sweet.  Here are some pictures from their visit.  They were on their way to an NC State football game, and I just got home from the gym - hence the sports-themed attire.  Go Pack!







{The gang's all here!}




{welcome, welcome, welcome}




{stairs slidgeage}




{Deanna insisted on cleaning my entire kitchen with a sponge. De looks amused.}







{whoa there! missed a spot...}










































{now smile and say "Type-A!"}










































{moving onto bigger and better things - like couch modeling}






























{sweet little thing}
































{a little monkeying around}






























{Hawaiian Punch - my beverage of choice when Deanna was in the womb and now she loves it too!} 


Mobile Learning in ELT: Survey 2013

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In 2010, after buying my first iPad I decided to do some research into how teachers were using mobile devices in their classrooms and their teaching. At this stage ‘smart’ phones were already starting to make an impact and tablet devices were just coming onto the market.  The research results from this first survey were published in the Guardian Online under the title ‘English language teachers connect to mobile learning’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/teachers-mobile-learning and the complete results and report can be downloaded from: http://technogogy.org.uk/mobile_survey.pdf



I followed this research up in 2011 using the same survey questions in an attempt to see how things had advanced with the intervening period and the results from that survey were  published in May 2011 on the DELTA Publishing blog under the title ‘mLearing and ELT: Are We Mobile Ready?’ http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/mlearing-and-elt-are-we-mobile-ready

One of the main observations from this survey was that many teachers were in fact ready and willing to embrace mobile learning and mobile devices, but that publishers seemed to be more reluctantly lagging behind.

Over the last 18 months since publishing the 2011 survey results, mobile learning seems to have made its way into the main stream of discourse surround the implementation of educational technology in our schools and universities, so I have decided once again, thanks to the support of the Bell Educational Services Teacher Training department,  to launch a more extensive survey building on the original one to try to discover the extent to which the ‘talk’ about mobile learning has had any genuine impact and realisation in our schools and classrooms over the past three to four years.

Whether you use technology, mobile learning or avoid it please find time to answer these 20 questions and share your ideas, opinions and reflections and I will once again publish the results for all to share.
Many thanks for your help and participation.

Related links:

Best


Nik Peachey

Two Contrasting Views of Educational Technology

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I’d like to share a couple of videos with you that I have used recently in the courses I teach. I find these videos particularly interesting because they show such contrasting approaches to learning and in particular - for want of a better word - elearning.

This first one is from the early 1950’s and is about something called a ‘teaching machine’ which was created by behavioural psychologist B F Skinner.


As you see Skinner’s teaching machines, though not exactly iPads do look remarkably like  what we would recognise as computers. What’s also remarkable is the claims that he makes for them and the reasons why he believes they are effective are remarkably similar to those made by many producers of learning and especially language learning software today.

However, despite the extremely logical reasoning that Skinner expounds I’m sure if you were invited to sit down and use one of these machines for a period of time it wouldn’t hold your interest for very long and like me you probably watch those hard working children with a sense of pity.

Of course it’s easy to look at videos like this with the advantage of hindsight and with a shinny iPad sitting close by and wonder at how they could ever have believed these machines would be effective, but if we look closely at quite a lot of elearning being produced these days, it isn’t long before we realise how similar in many ways it is to the kind of learning materials used on Skinner’s teaching machines. Gapfills, Multiple Choice Questions, True false Questions, etc. but with some multimedia rolled in still seem to be the mainstay of much computer based instruction and even mobile apps, so I’m not surprised to find that many of the teachers who come onto the courses I teach want to know how to use and produce these kinds of materials and to be honest I can see that they do have their place, but I think we should be aiming to do so much more than that with the materials we produce.

Here’s the contrasting video that I like to use.


This clearly shows a completely different approach to the use of technology and for me a much more powerful one. It shifts the role of the computer from being a storage place for predefined information and transforms it into a conduit by which knowledge is shared and constructed through the interaction between people. I think this aspect of computer based learning is the one that most critics of educational technology most often fail to see, unfortunately it’s also this aspect and role of the computer that is most often feared and blocked by educational institutions around the globe, and ironically enough, by governments wishing to suppress the rights of their citizens.

These videos and the methods of education demonstrated within them also highlight some other important points.

In the first video knowledge is clearly seen as residing in the materials of the institution. The students have no part in the creation of the content nor do they have the chance to question the validity and accuracy of the content and the role of the students is simply to learn and remember the content.

They sit in rows obediently working hard with no communication between them and no discussion sharing or collaboration of what they learning.

The second of the videos is almost the opposite of this. The classroom and even the school has become almost unnecessary. The student creates and negotiates knowledge through interaction with multiple sources of information and using multiple channels of communication. The student acts independently and works autonomously much of the time.

In a time when critical thinking, creativity and the ability to evaluate and manage information have become so important, it’s clear to see which kind of student we should be creating within our schools and the way we design and apply out learning tasks and materials will be a key factor in this.

It’s true that the student in the second video isn’t a language student, and developing linguistic ability is about more than finding and applying knowledge, it also has to do with skills and the practice and development of those skills, but what better way to do this than from the kinds of authentic network building and knowledge building tasks that can help our students become life long learners of far more than language?

The final thing that strikes me about these two videos is how they reflect the kinds of societies that the system of education seeks to create. For me the first is a society of obedient unquestioning worker drones being spoon fed information that will enable them to fulfil their predefined roles. The second is a society in which individuals are encouraged to think, act and explore, to question and to create. I know which I would prefer to live in.

Related links

Best

Nik Peachey

You look really familiar...

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Since the beginning of Amstel Life in 2009, I've kept pretty mum on the details of my love life. For privacy reasons, I rarely blog about specific people, situations and circumstances involving my love life - until now.  On this very rare occasion, now that I'm engaged (typing those words still brings a smile to my face), I want to introduce this very special person to my readers, share how we met and finally became engaged, and explain how he fits into our open adoption journey.



I met Aaron in March of 2009.  I was living the single life and was out on the town enjoying a few cold ones with my best friend Angela Bell (or as Deanna says, "Angi-bell" because she has beautiful red hair like Ariel) at a local sports cafe in Raleigh (sports cafe just sounds so much classier than sports bar).  I was a month and a half shy of graduating from NC State, and my life couldn't have been crazier.  I was juggling two internships, leading two student organizations on campus, had just begun a part-time job visiting medical practices in the area, and was desperately trying to get all of my school work completed before the end of the semester. Okay, so back to the "sports cafe." Angela and I were there to watch Carolina Hurricanes hockey game, and in order to get a table faster we decided to combine groups with some people we didn't know. Angela and I quickly became friends with the people we randomly got seated with. I was glancing around the room when suddenly, I noticed a very attractive stranger, a few tables away, looking straight at me. Well, actually, he was doing more than looking. He was kind of staring. We met eyes a few times, and I quickly became self conscious. Did I have something on my face? I asked Angela and she gave me a funny look because I clearly didn't. I decided to head to the restroom to double check myself in the mirror anyway. As I was coming out of the bathroom, I spotted the same guy who had been staring at me. He was in the hallway right outside of the bathroom...walking towards me!  This is my favorite part; he walked right up to me and used the old "You look really familiar...do I know you from somewhere?" line. I laughed, and we immediately hit it off.  Aaron was witty, smart, athletic, attractive and outdoorsy. He asked if I had a boyfriend, and I told him that I did not. Apparently he thought that one of the guys sitting at my table was a boyfriend, so he had decided to approach me privately instead of walking up to my table, introducing himself to me, and risk starting a bar - I mean sports cafe - fight. This explains why he believed a bathroom ambush was the best course of action. I thought that was very noble of him.



Although he was a few years older than me, it turns out we actually had a lot in common. He was athletic (he was a sprinter on the track team at Georgia Tech when he was in college), had three younger sisters, and was a Christian. I was smitten. After a while, I realized that I should probably let my friend Angela know that I was fine and hadn't been abducted.  So naturally, I sent her a quick text that may or may not have said something something along the lines of: "Met someone in the bathroom. Hot. 30." And Angela knew that I was fine.



Aaron and I talked for a while longer, and he asked for my phone number. A few days later, he called and asked me on a date. I told him I was too busy to even think about dating, but if he could wait a month until I graduated from college then I would gladly take him up on that offer.  Well, he waited. It was the evening before I graduated from NC State, and Aaron and his friends met up with me and some of my friends. We hit it off again, and later that same week we finally went on our first date. Three years later, he asked my dad for permission to marry me. Keith gave his approval.



One of the many things I love about Aaron is that even though he's rough around the edges and is one of the manliest guys I know, he is one of the most loyal and kind hearted people I know.  I have felt so comfortable and at ease around him since the minute I met him. It really feels like I have known him my whole life. A few weeks before we went on our first date, we became Facebook friends and he happened upon my blog. He sent me a little message to let me know that he thought the decision I made was admirable and he thought even more highly of me because of it. How rare for a guy to call my decision "admirable!" It was such a relief to know that Aaron wasn't going to be one of the many guys who ran in the opposite direction after learning about my past - and the four-year-old fruit of my loins.



Another reason I think Aaron and I bonded so quickly is because we have both experienced loss in our lives at about the same time. My loss was the result of me getting pregnant in high school and ultimately choosing open adoption, but Aaron's loss wasn't his choice. Unfortunately, his mother passed away from cancer in 2007 – before I had a chance to meet her. From what I’ve heard, she was an amazing, vibrant, Godly woman who deeply touched every person she knew. Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to watch a video of Myra speaking to their entire church on Mother's Day, and his three sisters, Jenny, Hannah and Anne, each have beautiful characteristics and personalities that give me glimpses of what she must have been like.



Over the past few years, Aaron has spent lots of time with me during visits with Don, De and Deanna. Recently, we took a trip down to South Carolina to visit our wedding venue for the first time, and we took that opportunity to spend some quality time with Don, De and Deanna (who recently turned 7!). We asked Deanna to be a flower girl in our wedding, and she then asked us if we could just get married "tomorrow" so she didn't have to wait until next year. We all laughed. So naturally, we decided to take her with us to our wedding cake tasting appointment. Turns out she is a pretty good decision maker. :) It's awesome to see Aaron and Deanna getting along so well, and of course Don and De love Aaron too.



It's so clear to me now that this is how things are supposed to be. If you had told me five or six years ago that I would be as happy as I am today, I would have never believed it. Never. I still remember the tears and the sadness and the depression and the guilt. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to overcome those things.  But here I am today, a very real testament to the fact that with a little faith, anything is possible.  It's amazing what God has done - and continues to do - in my life.  Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."  I'm so thankful that even when I didn't understand why I had to go thought what I went through, God did.  He used my lapses in judgement and turned them into tremendous blessings. After all of the heartbreak and discouragement and loss, it's encouraging to know that all along, God had a greater purpose and a better plan for my life. I'm still learning to trust Him everyday and walk by faith and not by sight, but I'm so thankful to have this amazing guy by my side to help me navigate through this crazy journey.




























































Photos compliments of Erin Dietrich Photography :)

Surprise!

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A few months ago I made the executive decision to finally hire {a professional blog designer} to give Amstel Life the look I'd always envisioned.  In previous months, I had played around with my template settings and for one reason or another, I just couldn't find the perfect combination of color, font, and layout to really make my blog a true reflection of myself and my story.  I knew I needed to find a blog design specialist who could give Amstel Life the visual boost needed to really stand out.



So I took my search to - what else - the Internet!  I began my search for a custom blog designer on Google.  I did lots of research and previewed a ton of portfolios.  By mere happenstance, I came across a website called Key Lime Digital Designs by the lovely Kendra John.  I absolutely loved her portfolio and her design style was exactly what I was looking for. I submitted an inquiry form and she responded almost immediately.  I felt so comfortable from the moment I read her first email.  Kendra worked tirelessly over the past few weeks, giving me mock-ups and more mock-ups and changes and more changes and edits and more edits until I finally figured out exactly what I wanted.  To say that I was a bit indecisive at times would be an understatement. :)  Thankfully, Kendra stuck around.  I'm so happy to finally have a blog design that really stands out and that reflects my personality perfectly.



Thank you times a million, Kendra!



xoxo

Online Teacher Development Works Best - 15 Reasons Why

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I've started this article with quite a bold statement, but it's a conclusion that I have been coming too over the course of quite a few years now. I should really put this into context though, as most of the teacher training I do deals with pedagogical training for the use of technology and is most often delivered during intensive face to face sessions, usually with groups of teachers working in a computer lab. Though, having said that, I do still believe that many of the reasons I have listed below do also apply to other kinds of more 'mainstream' teacher development too, especially intensive courses.


So, here are my 15 reasons why I think developing your teaching online can be more effective.

Learn while you teach - This gives you the opportunity to try things out with your own classes working in your own environment with your own students. Often when we take a face to face intensive course we leave our familiar teaching environment and come back with lots of new ideas only to find that in our everyday reality many of them don’t work or create unforeseen problems that we don’t know how to deal with. Studying while we teach can give us the time to try out new ideas in our own work place, discover the obstacles and try to adapt them to our own context.

Non competitive - Face to face courses can often become quite competitive and tend to favour people who are more confident and extrovert and who like to shine. This can often lead to the quieter more reflective types being overshadowed and not having the opportunity to contribute what may well be valuable comment or ask the questions for which they need answers. The text based and asynchronous nature of online training makes it much easier for everyone to have their say and can lead to a much richer and more collaborative learning experience.

Work at your own computer - This sounds like a very strange advantage, but training with technology on your own computer can be a huge advantage. Contrary to popular belief, computers do tend to be unique. The way one computer is set up and how it responds and the kinds of problems you encounter can be very different from one computer to another. Nothing is ore frustrating than going on a course with a computer that is set up to make things easy for you and then returning to your own computer and finding that there are a whole different set of problems that you don’t know how to solve. Training to use technology with your students needs to include training to trouble shoot the problems that you may have with your computer and learning how to overcome these and set your own computer up to run effectively in your own working environment.

Experiential learning - The best way to learn about technology and online learning is to experience it for yourself. Being part of an online course gives you first hand experience of being an online learner and helps you to understand some of the challenges and obstacles your students will face when they use technology to study online.

Develop digital literacies - Even if you aren’t doing an online course which is technology specific, you should still be able to pick up a few new techniques and develop some of your digital literacies by studying online. Again, a good online course will have some element of digital literacy and study skills development built in. This should go some way towards helping you understand how your students are learning in the real world and the kinds of study skills they need to develop.

Digital networking literacies - This really falls within digital literacies, but it is worth highlighting as I feel that developing your digital networking skills has real significance for your continuing development. If you can learn how to build supportive relationships with the other trainees on your course so that you can retain these contacts as a network after you finish the course then you can put these networking skills to good use within the various open online communities and networks that exist within various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Having an online learning network and knowing how best to work within that network can help to ensure that you can guide your own continuing development after the course you are training on has finished.


Build international contacts - Online training often provides a much more international learning environment than the classroom and so this can help to broaden the learning experience as there is a much wider range of experience to share. Finding out about how things are done in different countries and very different contexts to your own can be very refreshing and enlightening and can really enhance the learning experience and the network building potential of the course.

Differentiated learning - As a trainer when you encounter a group of teachers face to face, it takes time and effort to see them as individuals with individual needs and interests. As an online trainer this experience is reversed, you are constantly dealing and communicating with each member of the group as an individual and this enables you to more rapidly assess their needs as individuals and adapt the learning to suit them.

One to one time - Following on from the previous point, almost all tutor - student time in online courses is one to one rather than whole group, so again it is easier to ensure that as a trainee you get the attention you need from your tutor.

Personality types - For shyer less confident students online leaning can work to their advantage because contributing in text can be much less threatening than doing it orally. You also have more time to consider your contributions to the group and can edit and re-edit them to be sure that you express yourself clearly.

Longer period of study - Learning something well really takes time. Online training can often take place over a much longer period of time than most face to face courses can. This keeps you supported and engaged in the learning process for a greater period and so allows more time for development.

Your learning journey - Because the interactions within an online course are digital, they are recorded and captured so you have the opportunity to go back and retrace and review your entire learning journey. This greatly increases the chances of a deeper learning experience and greater retention of what you have learned.

Time for reflection - Online training allows more time for reflection and good online learning structures in this reflection, so that you not only reflect on your learning process but have time to discuss and share your reflections and share in the reflections of other teachers

Flexibility - You can study at times that are convenient for you and for time periods that suit your learning concentration span. A lot of classroom training time often turns into dead time, because the length of lessons are dictated by administrative convenience rather than pedagogical advantage and trainers and trainees are often left pushing their way through materials long after their optimum concentration period has been exceeded. When you study online you can have a break whenever and however often you feel like. This gives you time to ponder what you have learned or move on to new materials at your own pace and use your time more efficiently.

Lower cost - The costs, not only of courses but also of travel, accommodation and time off work are often vastly reduced when you take an online course rather than a face to face course.

So those are my 15 reasons. Feel free to add any of your own in the comments section.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey

National Council for Adoption: the blog

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Thank you all for the wonderful congratulatory comments.  Aaron and I are so excited to start planning our wedding.  I'll reveal the full story about how we met and how I realized that he was "the one" in one of my next blog posts.



Something I forgot to mention on my blog is that my story was published on the National Council for Adoption Blog on July 17th.  Here's a link to the story: Open Adoption: A Birthmother's Story |  Maintaining Openness in Adoption and Finding a Good Fit for All Involved.



Can't wait to share more!



Ames
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الجمعة، 14 ديسمبر 2012

Belated {Birthday} Visit Post


Well this post is a few months late - but what the heck I'm going to write it anyway.  Back in September, around my birthday, Don, De and Deanna came to visit me and see my new townhouse.  It was really great to see them and to be able to show them around my first real home.  They brought me a birthday card which was really sweet.  Here are some pictures from their visit.  They were on their way to an NC State football game, and I just got home from the gym - hence the sports-themed attire.  Go Pack!







{The gang's all here!}




{welcome, welcome, welcome}




{stairs slidgeage}




{Deanna insisted on cleaning my entire kitchen with a sponge. De looks amused.}







{whoa there! missed a spot...}










































{now smile and say "Type-A!"}










































{moving onto bigger and better things - like couch modeling}






























{sweet little thing}
































{a little monkeying around}






























{Hawaiian Punch - my beverage of choice when Deanna was in the womb and now she loves it too!} 


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الخميس، 6 ديسمبر 2012

Mobile Learning in ELT: Survey 2013

In 2010, after buying my first iPad I decided to do some research into how teachers were using mobile devices in their classrooms and their teaching. At this stage ‘smart’ phones were already starting to make an impact and tablet devices were just coming onto the market.  The research results from this first survey were published in the Guardian Online under the title ‘English language teachers connect to mobile learning’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/teachers-mobile-learning and the complete results and report can be downloaded from: http://technogogy.org.uk/mobile_survey.pdf



I followed this research up in 2011 using the same survey questions in an attempt to see how things had advanced with the intervening period and the results from that survey were  published in May 2011 on the DELTA Publishing blog under the title ‘mLearing and ELT: Are We Mobile Ready?’ http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/mlearing-and-elt-are-we-mobile-ready

One of the main observations from this survey was that many teachers were in fact ready and willing to embrace mobile learning and mobile devices, but that publishers seemed to be more reluctantly lagging behind.

Over the last 18 months since publishing the 2011 survey results, mobile learning seems to have made its way into the main stream of discourse surround the implementation of educational technology in our schools and universities, so I have decided once again, thanks to the support of the Bell Educational Services Teacher Training department,  to launch a more extensive survey building on the original one to try to discover the extent to which the ‘talk’ about mobile learning has had any genuine impact and realisation in our schools and classrooms over the past three to four years.

Whether you use technology, mobile learning or avoid it please find time to answer these 20 questions and share your ideas, opinions and reflections and I will once again publish the results for all to share.
Many thanks for your help and participation.

Related links:

Best


Nik Peachey

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التسميات: , , , , , ,

الخميس، 11 أكتوبر 2012

Two Contrasting Views of Educational Technology

I’d like to share a couple of videos with you that I have used recently in the courses I teach. I find these videos particularly interesting because they show such contrasting approaches to learning and in particular - for want of a better word - elearning.

This first one is from the early 1950’s and is about something called a ‘teaching machine’ which was created by behavioural psychologist B F Skinner.


As you see Skinner’s teaching machines, though not exactly iPads do look remarkably like  what we would recognise as computers. What’s also remarkable is the claims that he makes for them and the reasons why he believes they are effective are remarkably similar to those made by many producers of learning and especially language learning software today.

However, despite the extremely logical reasoning that Skinner expounds I’m sure if you were invited to sit down and use one of these machines for a period of time it wouldn’t hold your interest for very long and like me you probably watch those hard working children with a sense of pity.

Of course it’s easy to look at videos like this with the advantage of hindsight and with a shinny iPad sitting close by and wonder at how they could ever have believed these machines would be effective, but if we look closely at quite a lot of elearning being produced these days, it isn’t long before we realise how similar in many ways it is to the kind of learning materials used on Skinner’s teaching machines. Gapfills, Multiple Choice Questions, True false Questions, etc. but with some multimedia rolled in still seem to be the mainstay of much computer based instruction and even mobile apps, so I’m not surprised to find that many of the teachers who come onto the courses I teach want to know how to use and produce these kinds of materials and to be honest I can see that they do have their place, but I think we should be aiming to do so much more than that with the materials we produce.

Here’s the contrasting video that I like to use.


This clearly shows a completely different approach to the use of technology and for me a much more powerful one. It shifts the role of the computer from being a storage place for predefined information and transforms it into a conduit by which knowledge is shared and constructed through the interaction between people. I think this aspect of computer based learning is the one that most critics of educational technology most often fail to see, unfortunately it’s also this aspect and role of the computer that is most often feared and blocked by educational institutions around the globe, and ironically enough, by governments wishing to suppress the rights of their citizens.

These videos and the methods of education demonstrated within them also highlight some other important points.

In the first video knowledge is clearly seen as residing in the materials of the institution. The students have no part in the creation of the content nor do they have the chance to question the validity and accuracy of the content and the role of the students is simply to learn and remember the content.

They sit in rows obediently working hard with no communication between them and no discussion sharing or collaboration of what they learning.

The second of the videos is almost the opposite of this. The classroom and even the school has become almost unnecessary. The student creates and negotiates knowledge through interaction with multiple sources of information and using multiple channels of communication. The student acts independently and works autonomously much of the time.

In a time when critical thinking, creativity and the ability to evaluate and manage information have become so important, it’s clear to see which kind of student we should be creating within our schools and the way we design and apply out learning tasks and materials will be a key factor in this.

It’s true that the student in the second video isn’t a language student, and developing linguistic ability is about more than finding and applying knowledge, it also has to do with skills and the practice and development of those skills, but what better way to do this than from the kinds of authentic network building and knowledge building tasks that can help our students become life long learners of far more than language?

The final thing that strikes me about these two videos is how they reflect the kinds of societies that the system of education seeks to create. For me the first is a society of obedient unquestioning worker drones being spoon fed information that will enable them to fulfil their predefined roles. The second is a society in which individuals are encouraged to think, act and explore, to question and to create. I know which I would prefer to live in.

Related links

Best

Nik Peachey

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الخميس، 20 سبتمبر 2012

You look really familiar...



Since the beginning of Amstel Life in 2009, I've kept pretty mum on the details of my love life. For privacy reasons, I rarely blog about specific people, situations and circumstances involving my love life - until now.  On this very rare occasion, now that I'm engaged (typing those words still brings a smile to my face), I want to introduce this very special person to my readers, share how we met and finally became engaged, and explain how he fits into our open adoption journey.



I met Aaron in March of 2009.  I was living the single life and was out on the town enjoying a few cold ones with my best friend Angela Bell (or as Deanna says, "Angi-bell" because she has beautiful red hair like Ariel) at a local sports cafe in Raleigh (sports cafe just sounds so much classier than sports bar).  I was a month and a half shy of graduating from NC State, and my life couldn't have been crazier.  I was juggling two internships, leading two student organizations on campus, had just begun a part-time job visiting medical practices in the area, and was desperately trying to get all of my school work completed before the end of the semester. Okay, so back to the "sports cafe." Angela and I were there to watch Carolina Hurricanes hockey game, and in order to get a table faster we decided to combine groups with some people we didn't know. Angela and I quickly became friends with the people we randomly got seated with. I was glancing around the room when suddenly, I noticed a very attractive stranger, a few tables away, looking straight at me. Well, actually, he was doing more than looking. He was kind of staring. We met eyes a few times, and I quickly became self conscious. Did I have something on my face? I asked Angela and she gave me a funny look because I clearly didn't. I decided to head to the restroom to double check myself in the mirror anyway. As I was coming out of the bathroom, I spotted the same guy who had been staring at me. He was in the hallway right outside of the bathroom...walking towards me!  This is my favorite part; he walked right up to me and used the old "You look really familiar...do I know you from somewhere?" line. I laughed, and we immediately hit it off.  Aaron was witty, smart, athletic, attractive and outdoorsy. He asked if I had a boyfriend, and I told him that I did not. Apparently he thought that one of the guys sitting at my table was a boyfriend, so he had decided to approach me privately instead of walking up to my table, introducing himself to me, and risk starting a bar - I mean sports cafe - fight. This explains why he believed a bathroom ambush was the best course of action. I thought that was very noble of him.



Although he was a few years older than me, it turns out we actually had a lot in common. He was athletic (he was a sprinter on the track team at Georgia Tech when he was in college), had three younger sisters, and was a Christian. I was smitten. After a while, I realized that I should probably let my friend Angela know that I was fine and hadn't been abducted.  So naturally, I sent her a quick text that may or may not have said something something along the lines of: "Met someone in the bathroom. Hot. 30." And Angela knew that I was fine.



Aaron and I talked for a while longer, and he asked for my phone number. A few days later, he called and asked me on a date. I told him I was too busy to even think about dating, but if he could wait a month until I graduated from college then I would gladly take him up on that offer.  Well, he waited. It was the evening before I graduated from NC State, and Aaron and his friends met up with me and some of my friends. We hit it off again, and later that same week we finally went on our first date. Three years later, he asked my dad for permission to marry me. Keith gave his approval.



One of the many things I love about Aaron is that even though he's rough around the edges and is one of the manliest guys I know, he is one of the most loyal and kind hearted people I know.  I have felt so comfortable and at ease around him since the minute I met him. It really feels like I have known him my whole life. A few weeks before we went on our first date, we became Facebook friends and he happened upon my blog. He sent me a little message to let me know that he thought the decision I made was admirable and he thought even more highly of me because of it. How rare for a guy to call my decision "admirable!" It was such a relief to know that Aaron wasn't going to be one of the many guys who ran in the opposite direction after learning about my past - and the four-year-old fruit of my loins.



Another reason I think Aaron and I bonded so quickly is because we have both experienced loss in our lives at about the same time. My loss was the result of me getting pregnant in high school and ultimately choosing open adoption, but Aaron's loss wasn't his choice. Unfortunately, his mother passed away from cancer in 2007 – before I had a chance to meet her. From what I’ve heard, she was an amazing, vibrant, Godly woman who deeply touched every person she knew. Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to watch a video of Myra speaking to their entire church on Mother's Day, and his three sisters, Jenny, Hannah and Anne, each have beautiful characteristics and personalities that give me glimpses of what she must have been like.



Over the past few years, Aaron has spent lots of time with me during visits with Don, De and Deanna. Recently, we took a trip down to South Carolina to visit our wedding venue for the first time, and we took that opportunity to spend some quality time with Don, De and Deanna (who recently turned 7!). We asked Deanna to be a flower girl in our wedding, and she then asked us if we could just get married "tomorrow" so she didn't have to wait until next year. We all laughed. So naturally, we decided to take her with us to our wedding cake tasting appointment. Turns out she is a pretty good decision maker. :) It's awesome to see Aaron and Deanna getting along so well, and of course Don and De love Aaron too.



It's so clear to me now that this is how things are supposed to be. If you had told me five or six years ago that I would be as happy as I am today, I would have never believed it. Never. I still remember the tears and the sadness and the depression and the guilt. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to overcome those things.  But here I am today, a very real testament to the fact that with a little faith, anything is possible.  It's amazing what God has done - and continues to do - in my life.  Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."  I'm so thankful that even when I didn't understand why I had to go thought what I went through, God did.  He used my lapses in judgement and turned them into tremendous blessings. After all of the heartbreak and discouragement and loss, it's encouraging to know that all along, God had a greater purpose and a better plan for my life. I'm still learning to trust Him everyday and walk by faith and not by sight, but I'm so thankful to have this amazing guy by my side to help me navigate through this crazy journey.




























































Photos compliments of Erin Dietrich Photography :)
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الخميس، 6 سبتمبر 2012

Surprise!

A few months ago I made the executive decision to finally hire {a professional blog designer} to give Amstel Life the look I'd always envisioned.  In previous months, I had played around with my template settings and for one reason or another, I just couldn't find the perfect combination of color, font, and layout to really make my blog a true reflection of myself and my story.  I knew I needed to find a blog design specialist who could give Amstel Life the visual boost needed to really stand out.



So I took my search to - what else - the Internet!  I began my search for a custom blog designer on Google.  I did lots of research and previewed a ton of portfolios.  By mere happenstance, I came across a website called Key Lime Digital Designs by the lovely Kendra John.  I absolutely loved her portfolio and her design style was exactly what I was looking for. I submitted an inquiry form and she responded almost immediately.  I felt so comfortable from the moment I read her first email.  Kendra worked tirelessly over the past few weeks, giving me mock-ups and more mock-ups and changes and more changes and edits and more edits until I finally figured out exactly what I wanted.  To say that I was a bit indecisive at times would be an understatement. :)  Thankfully, Kendra stuck around.  I'm so happy to finally have a blog design that really stands out and that reflects my personality perfectly.



Thank you times a million, Kendra!



xoxo
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الأربعاء، 5 سبتمبر 2012

Online Teacher Development Works Best - 15 Reasons Why

I've started this article with quite a bold statement, but it's a conclusion that I have been coming too over the course of quite a few years now. I should really put this into context though, as most of the teacher training I do deals with pedagogical training for the use of technology and is most often delivered during intensive face to face sessions, usually with groups of teachers working in a computer lab. Though, having said that, I do still believe that many of the reasons I have listed below do also apply to other kinds of more 'mainstream' teacher development too, especially intensive courses.


So, here are my 15 reasons why I think developing your teaching online can be more effective.

Learn while you teach - This gives you the opportunity to try things out with your own classes working in your own environment with your own students. Often when we take a face to face intensive course we leave our familiar teaching environment and come back with lots of new ideas only to find that in our everyday reality many of them don’t work or create unforeseen problems that we don’t know how to deal with. Studying while we teach can give us the time to try out new ideas in our own work place, discover the obstacles and try to adapt them to our own context.

Non competitive - Face to face courses can often become quite competitive and tend to favour people who are more confident and extrovert and who like to shine. This can often lead to the quieter more reflective types being overshadowed and not having the opportunity to contribute what may well be valuable comment or ask the questions for which they need answers. The text based and asynchronous nature of online training makes it much easier for everyone to have their say and can lead to a much richer and more collaborative learning experience.

Work at your own computer - This sounds like a very strange advantage, but training with technology on your own computer can be a huge advantage. Contrary to popular belief, computers do tend to be unique. The way one computer is set up and how it responds and the kinds of problems you encounter can be very different from one computer to another. Nothing is ore frustrating than going on a course with a computer that is set up to make things easy for you and then returning to your own computer and finding that there are a whole different set of problems that you don’t know how to solve. Training to use technology with your students needs to include training to trouble shoot the problems that you may have with your computer and learning how to overcome these and set your own computer up to run effectively in your own working environment.

Experiential learning - The best way to learn about technology and online learning is to experience it for yourself. Being part of an online course gives you first hand experience of being an online learner and helps you to understand some of the challenges and obstacles your students will face when they use technology to study online.

Develop digital literacies - Even if you aren’t doing an online course which is technology specific, you should still be able to pick up a few new techniques and develop some of your digital literacies by studying online. Again, a good online course will have some element of digital literacy and study skills development built in. This should go some way towards helping you understand how your students are learning in the real world and the kinds of study skills they need to develop.

Digital networking literacies - This really falls within digital literacies, but it is worth highlighting as I feel that developing your digital networking skills has real significance for your continuing development. If you can learn how to build supportive relationships with the other trainees on your course so that you can retain these contacts as a network after you finish the course then you can put these networking skills to good use within the various open online communities and networks that exist within various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Having an online learning network and knowing how best to work within that network can help to ensure that you can guide your own continuing development after the course you are training on has finished.


Build international contacts - Online training often provides a much more international learning environment than the classroom and so this can help to broaden the learning experience as there is a much wider range of experience to share. Finding out about how things are done in different countries and very different contexts to your own can be very refreshing and enlightening and can really enhance the learning experience and the network building potential of the course.

Differentiated learning - As a trainer when you encounter a group of teachers face to face, it takes time and effort to see them as individuals with individual needs and interests. As an online trainer this experience is reversed, you are constantly dealing and communicating with each member of the group as an individual and this enables you to more rapidly assess their needs as individuals and adapt the learning to suit them.

One to one time - Following on from the previous point, almost all tutor - student time in online courses is one to one rather than whole group, so again it is easier to ensure that as a trainee you get the attention you need from your tutor.

Personality types - For shyer less confident students online leaning can work to their advantage because contributing in text can be much less threatening than doing it orally. You also have more time to consider your contributions to the group and can edit and re-edit them to be sure that you express yourself clearly.

Longer period of study - Learning something well really takes time. Online training can often take place over a much longer period of time than most face to face courses can. This keeps you supported and engaged in the learning process for a greater period and so allows more time for development.

Your learning journey - Because the interactions within an online course are digital, they are recorded and captured so you have the opportunity to go back and retrace and review your entire learning journey. This greatly increases the chances of a deeper learning experience and greater retention of what you have learned.

Time for reflection - Online training allows more time for reflection and good online learning structures in this reflection, so that you not only reflect on your learning process but have time to discuss and share your reflections and share in the reflections of other teachers

Flexibility - You can study at times that are convenient for you and for time periods that suit your learning concentration span. A lot of classroom training time often turns into dead time, because the length of lessons are dictated by administrative convenience rather than pedagogical advantage and trainers and trainees are often left pushing their way through materials long after their optimum concentration period has been exceeded. When you study online you can have a break whenever and however often you feel like. This gives you time to ponder what you have learned or move on to new materials at your own pace and use your time more efficiently.

Lower cost - The costs, not only of courses but also of travel, accommodation and time off work are often vastly reduced when you take an online course rather than a face to face course.

So those are my 15 reasons. Feel free to add any of your own in the comments section.

Related links:

Best

Nik Peachey
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الأربعاء، 22 أغسطس 2012

National Council for Adoption: the blog

Thank you all for the wonderful congratulatory comments.  Aaron and I are so excited to start planning our wedding.  I'll reveal the full story about how we met and how I realized that he was "the one" in one of my next blog posts.



Something I forgot to mention on my blog is that my story was published on the National Council for Adoption Blog on July 17th.  Here's a link to the story: Open Adoption: A Birthmother's Story |  Maintaining Openness in Adoption and Finding a Good Fit for All Involved.



Can't wait to share more!



Ames
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