Family Emergency

I have not quit the Monday night class, last week I attended the Wed. class. My mother went for what was supposed to be a small routine surgery last Friday evening for a bowel obstruction, but it turned out to be much more than that. I was scheduled for military training and was already at the training site taht night, when my sister called to tell me I had to get to Somerset as fast as possible because the nurses had came out to tell them my mother was not going to live through the surgery. She did pull through, but she is in intensive care at Somerset Hospitle. There is no certainty that is going to make it just yet, but things are slowly looking better. I am taking turns with my father staying by her side all through the nights. I am going to do my best to be in class tommorrow night, but I am still curious as to what we went over?

test 2!

i just wanted to confirm that we did NOT [do not?] have a test today! for some reason, i have it written in my planner that we do, but i thought we did not....if someone could help clarify for me, id really appreciate it!
thanks everyone!

Class Monday

I agree that class was helpful. But it also made me start my child search over! And then I thought I would use a 4 year old my cousin babysits, but apparently she is a child genious and has perfectly developed speech!

Monday Night's Class

I really needed monday night's class! I was definitely confused about the language sample project and had NO idea where to start. But last class really helped me out! I think I'll be doing mine over form instead of the other two. I seemed to grasp it more than semantics or pragmatics. I'm pretty good with sentences and I think that would really show that I know what I'm doing. :)

I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend!

Language Project - Make Up - Help Session

I am willing to do a Make Up session and go over each section of the project for ANY ONE who is interested - IF THERE IS AN INTEREST. I'll do this for ONE student or ten. Numbers do not matter. One is important.

Because of my full time work load the only time I could do it would be a Thursday evening or a weekend (most likely a Sunday afternoon). However, depending on IF and WHO responds I'll make the decision at that time.

If you are interested in attending a "How to Do My Conduct & Analyze My Language Project"

Nice Flair!!

I love the way some of you - at least there are some in this class and/or the other...have included their picture with their post! I think it personalizes the posts not to mention helps me put faces with names.

Feel free to upload photos to the blog, post your picture, etc. I encourage your creativity!

Language Sample

I now have a greater understanding of our language sample, I know that we all discussed that pragmatics seems to be the easier of the three, but after Monday night I feel that Form would be the one thats less in depth. We didn't hit on semantics but it would seem to be pretty difficult. Just for the sake of discussion, does anyone else have some thoughts about this or anything else to do with the Language Sample?

Hey everyone!

I'm at work at the EKU library and it's still snowing outside! I hope everyone has a safe and warm commute in the morning! :)

(BTW- if you're ever in the library when I'm working at the main circulation desk feel free to stop by and say 'Hi')

Tonight's class!

I enjoyed tonights class because it clarified a lot of questions that I had about the project!! Brainstorming really helped me to get an idea as to how I was going to do my project, and what child I was going to use as well! However, I'm very concerned about my test score!! Is there going to be anything that we can do for extra credit? It wasn't that bad, but for a perfectionist like myself it was heart stopping!! haha!

Establishing & Maintaining the Topic

It is good to see the various ideas that are being shared on the blog. As we are now used to logging on and posting to the blog it is time to take our online communication "to the next level." How can we create a place that fosters more effective communication, interaction and discussion of ideas in one place on the blog?

Pragmatics - how we USE language effectively is one of the components of language we are addressing throughout this semester. Online pragmatics are different than face to face. Establishing and maintaining the topic on a BLOG is a bit different than face to face.

One of the skills that would promote having ONE conversation about ONE topic is to post all comments about a topic in ONE place. This means prior to creating a NEW post please scroll through the recent posts and see what has been posted recently. Often times the idea or topic you are getting ready to post regarding is ALREADY in a another place with a current THREAD of discussion. Please post to THAT discussion MAINTAINING THAT TOPIC in that one location. Before you create a new post think about your idea and see if/how it might fit into another topic that has been submitted in the past week or so. If no posts/discussions on THAT TOPIC have already been started then "establish a new topic/create a new post."

You receive points for posts or comments that you contribute to the blog.

Welcome to Holland

Since everyone is talking about inspirational children I wanted to share one of my favorite poems written by a lady about her son who has Down Syndrome. It really puts handicaps into a new perspective.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
byEmily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Class Monday

I was also very moved by the stories shared in class. It has me thinking about my own dreams and what I want to do with my life and it's pretty overwhelming.

I also like looking at the books in class and hearing other people's ideas on how to incorporate them into classroom use.

Inspiration

Ok, so I didnt really know how to say this, and honestly Im not totally sure I spelled inspiration..right..haha but the lil mini talk we had tonight in class, about how you had to let your students dream big dreams, has really inspired me, and I cant stop thinking about it!!! Mrs. White your story about your son and his huge basketball accomplishments has stuck in my mind. I want to be a special education teacher more than anything and I feel like I should always keep in my mind that you cant lower your expectations but they should always be high for your students to meet...anyway this may have been pointles..haha just thought I'd share!

Help~!

I had to miss class tonight as well because I too have the flu!! I've gotten lots of soap operas in, and lots and lots of medicine and soup :-) Ive read that a lot of people have it, and I hope everyone gets to feeling better because it's definitely not fun!!

I also need Mrs Whites telephone number because I have lost it, and I got locked out of the test earlier, yes, leave it to me! I've emailed but I'm not sure she's recieved it!

The Stomach Virus

I really thought the sickness was all over with and now my family is starting with it. After nursing my husband back to health yesterday and spraying tons of Lysol I was hoping it would pass by me. I started getting sick late this afternoon and I hated to have to miss class because I really wanted to go over the test. If someone would post the details of Tonight's class I would really appreciate it.

The Test

I was late taking the test, but I did complete it today. I thought it was challenging to put the answers in different perspectives like that. I guess we get used to only having to know what material is for a test, and now we are having to understand how to apply it in an actual classroom. I think it is good to have to consider those things. It makes me understand how I will be using this information in the classroom, which is more helpful to me than just simply knowing what something means. If I can't apply it, what good does it do me to know it.

That test killed me !

Open ended question plus me equl bad news.... Just had to say that !!

Extreme Home Makeover

So I can't say that I watch Extreme Home Makeover all the time but I did tonight because it was done in Louisville (which is where I'm from). The guy on the show said something that was really inspiring (and made me cry) so I thought I'd share it with you guys. The guy was blind and had several other disabilities. He said that some people see being blind as a disability but he sees it as an ability. People who can see make judgements on an outer appearance and he can't see that, so we he makes judgements they're about a person's inner self. He said that the words black, white, yellow, and red mean nothing to him because he can't see them. It just really touched me so I thought I'd share it with everyone else. Hope everyone has an amazing week!
Renee

Hello everyone!!

Hello! I hope everyone is doing well and not taken any of the nasty viruses going around! I had to miss the last class due to a death in the family and then a couple days later, I got the flu. So, needless to say, last week was tough for me! Just thought I would tell everyone hi and I hope to see you all in class Monday!

hope everyone is doing well...

Well I finally took the test. I had to put it off for a few days due to my other 2 tests this past week. But it really challenged me to put the things I learned into perspective. And after I did, it seemed as though I came away with a complete understanding of the material discussed in the previous weeks. I found the test to be helpful in correlation with the things we went over. When I finished, I understood how the first 5 chapters related to one another and how they connected into daily life. I'm used to filling in a blank and never seeing that material again. But this test acutally helped me. And I'm not used to that!

Have a great weekend and be safe everyone! :)