Homework Update
Here is a follow-up post to my March posting Tons of Homework!
Wonderland 101 – Dropping. Nothing against Wonderland, and I might return to it in the future, but I have found so much to learn related to clean tech, even some open source projects, that I want to focus my efforts there instead. Also, some hands-on experience with students is making me less interested, for the moment, in virtual worlds for education.
AMEE – As planned, I have studied all the AMEE Affiliates and wow, what an adventure in learning that has been, and continues to be! What is an expression for a wild goose chase that is not pointless? That is what it feels like. A gold mine? Whatever. I am a member of an Energy Management (sub) Group within a Clean Tech Forum started by Right Management clients and alumni, and I need to organize all the companies and information that I found by investigating these Affiliates. As a quick start, I created a delicious tag for myself called emg, because my green tag is now an overused mishmash. One of the best sites I found I blogged about already, Open Carbon World.
Objects First – Got my book back so I can finish doing all the exercises, and that continues to be a lot of fun. It is such a great book. My guinea pig student ran away until summer, but I have some other students interested in customized learning during the summer, too. My reward for finishing all the exercises in Objects First will be to work through the Developing Java ME applications in BlueJ tutorial. It says windows/linux only, so I may need to dust off my old 7lb laptop and update its ubuntu installation, which would be fun. Then I could get first hand experience with the complaint that ubuntu upgrades uninstall Java upgrades.
(On a recent short trip to Texas, I had a bit of fun with Greenfoot, too. I brought up the Wave-Lab simulation for Nick to play with on the plane. He figured out that when the game is paused, he can move around the balls that make up the string. Then when he runs the simulation, the results are quite amusing because the balls don’t “know” they have been moved, so they follow the wave as usual. He laboriously moved half the balls as if the string were doubled back on itself, or formed a circle seen on edge. Later I modified the scenario to add a switch to do that, and the results are posted on the gallery as Waveloop.)
WordPress 101 – I’ve gone deeper into this class and love it! I could spend all my time learning and hacking wordpress. It is effectively teaching me php and css, which I’d never bothered to study before. I’ve made so many modifications to the theme I’m using, I’m feeling tempted to write my own theme, except I have no reason to do that and I do have several reasons to set up some other wordpress websites. I’m sure my learning will continue when I do that.
Exercise Daily – Alas, my current grade in this class is a C. But I only fell off the daily-wagon a couple of weeks ago, so there is hope. My husband suggested a goal of climbing Half-Dome at the end of the summer, so if I can get camping reservations before the snow should start, that might make up our summer exercise plan. He has done it before, but I never have.
Littérature Jeunesse – Finally started reading, and listening to, Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingts Jours, par Jules Verne. It is wonderful to hear the language while reading along, but I want to pause it sometimes and re-read a sentence more slowly so that I can make sure I understand it and let the usage and vocabulary sink in. I’ve also been amused to find myself reading my little Larousse de poche, just a bit here and there. I’d always thought the idea of people reading dictionaries or encyclopedias was crazy, but actually reading a French-French dictionary is kind of fun. Not only do “those French, they have a different word for everything,” but the expressions are different, too, and so interesting.
Get a Job! – Turns out this is a required course, so I created a page about jobs I’d really like to have and companies I’d like to work for. Meanwhile, I’ll keep learning and working some for free while I wait and see which path will lead to income first.
Leave a Reply