focus + procrastination + serendipity

I found a very thought provoking blog post tonight, by Inge de Waard (who has an alter ego named Ignatia)

http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2010/08/open-academic-education-people-with.html

She writes: Luckily for me the combination of procrastination and serendipity resulted in a wonderful, unexpected answer to a question that has been on my mind lately. Currently I am dabbling with the idea of a PhD. Although my mind keeps telling me to go for it, it also tells me to keep in mind to make a difference and not to accept 'a regular one'.

This is just how I feel like, too. I came to this blog post in my typical way, just googling a set of terms that came to my mind with no special intention! Amazing how well these thoughts (by Ignatia) actually describes the ongoing learning process that I've been struggling with - for years it seem.

I'm on my way, somehow, to something similar that might as well be sort of an Open PhD. Would you like to know my search term combination? focus + procrastination + serenditpty :-) Yes, that's how my independent brain and imagination works. Too.

Tomorrow, I hope to follow up on this and investigate how Leigh Blackall (mentioned in the blog post above) handles this idea of an Open Education PhD...

Postsecret by proxy

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2154691/postsecret_collage

Support orphanage in Cambodia and make my birthday wish come true

Imagine a poor country with about 1.600.000 children who have no parents! In the Roteang village, Cambodia, an orphanage helps children to a good, healthy life with care, love and trust building. You can help me support their cause! I'm trying to raise $1,200 for Sharing Foundation: Helping to Care for Cambodia's Children. The cause's mission: Help meet the physical, emotional, educational and medical needs of orphaned and seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia.I know about these children and the people who help them survive and get a better life, from Beth Kanter whose example I'm following now. She is a non-profit blogger, Facebook expert and expert - please have a look! http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/my-53rd-birthday-wish-care-for-children-in-cambodia.html

And, please consider how you can help too. The Sharing Foundation orphanage in Cambodia always need funding! My 60 year birthday wish is donations for this cause from my friends http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/358410?m=58674969&bws=s

My first patchwork blanket

Corners in the making
Originally uploaded by netopNyrop

I'm hibernating in my sewing workshop atelier, getting things done the creative way.

Pencils, pens, rubbers, glue and schotch tape

Pencils, pens, rubbers, glue and schotch tape
Originally uploaded by netopNyrop

Making order and clearung up clutter can be very satisfying. This is what I'm currently taking care of. Half of this collection actually came from my father's house, and I have tested all of them, bravely throwing away things that were out of order. I just did not want to carry around with too much useless items. But I admit being sentimental - those wooden pencils that were so carefully sharpened by hand with a sharp swiss pocket knife, by my father himself, are sacred; for the others I enjoy a new toy I always wanted; the semi automatic pencil sharpener...

Electronic Village Online 2010 - 6 weeks of mutual webheads training

Back in 2002, I did my first session with the Electronic Village Online EVO - an open online workshop run by volunteers and webheads and attended by some 2000 teachers worldwide over a period of 6 weeks prior to the annual TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages ) convention. In 2003, I was part of the leadership team for the legendary session known as Becoming a Webhead, with Dafne Gonzalez and Teresa d'Eca who are still running this amazing all-in-one tour de force, with many helpers doing a sort of trainee service, with a broad list of prominent guests sharing their online teaching expereinces, tips and tricks.
And there are many others that I can fully recommend. For myself speaking, I gave up being an active part of all this, mainly because January is a busy exam month for me. Still, I will keep an aye on what's going on, and jump in spontaneously whenever I feel I have some spare time.

All of these 6-week online workshops are run by volunteers, completely free of charge and a fine for participants to get hands-on experience in a particular area as well as making valuable connections with educators from around the world. It also serves as a very much needed hands-on mutual training for those who feel ready to take the role as instructor, workshop leader, facilitator or whatever you would like to call it
More details about the Electronic Village Online 2010 could be found here:
evosessions.pbworks.com

2010 - another new year (and happy about it)

First five days of the year, getting things done one by one. I'm not going to share details about what these needs are, just marking with some satisfaction each time these chores are cleared away from the clutter, and some valuable time invested in my life bank. We do live one day at a time, and still - who knows, what tomorrow will bring?

Decided to go back to blogging, because I realized that I do have one or more readers out there, after all, and also because the blogging as self biographical practice helps me to get an overview of this messy online world view. The Blogspot tool still keep me happy because of its ease of use , however I sometimes would love to have more power over the look and feel; this might be one of my next steps ahead. Or else, catching up with older blogs that are by now abandoned. I used to have a "veteran" homepage with my first blog attepmts back in 2001 (!), all of a sudden the page was taken down by the host last October, with a 20 days warning; my internet provider just does not offer hosting of our homepages any more, with no further explanation. I managed to capture most of the content the day before it was ultimately gone and away, a memo to self about the semi permanence of cyberhosted stuff. It did need some revision anyway, reminded me a bit about old school free style carnets, or the good old family portraits that I've started to scan, for a more up to date storage format.

Writing small blog posts like this one actually does make me feel quite satisfied and happy to share thoughts and ideas.
Please add your comments if you have any; for some reason I need to allow only comments from Blogspot members, or else I will get bot spam to clear out, which can be like messy, ugly and depressing. Which I don't want to waste energy on; on the contrary I need some organized overlook, beauty and happiness around my workplace :-)