Backyard Living

Has Technology Flipped Our Expectations?

Cindy — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 12:45:34 +0000

Tablets, Smart Phones, PC’s, Laptops, Smart pens, smart boards … Oh, if only I had had just one of these when I was in college! I swear I could have changed the world. Or, at the very least, avoided hand cramps from excessive note taking as I furiously tried to capture Doc Johnson’s lectures on the Civil War verbatim.

I have taught high school social studies for over 20 years. To be honest, burnout and boredom were starting to impact my teaching. Then, in 2012 my school made the decision that every student and every teacher must have an iPad. This is a private boarding school so the policy was quite easy to implement. What wasn’t so easy was getting the teachers excited about using technology in the classroom.

I decided I would ‘lead the charge.’ I immersed myself

in apps, podcasts, and YouTube. And I got excited about teaching. Granted, to a large degree, it was like being a first year teacher all over again. When I chose to flip my classroom I had to recreate lesson plans – from scratch (no textbook with pre-made tests and PowerPoints). It was a lot of work and very time consuming.

But the results have been worth it. I’m excited. The kids are excited. Most importantly, they are learning. The world they will work in and raise their children in will not be the same as mine. Whether you love it or hate it technology is here. It is our responsibility as teachers to provide the very best education we can for our students and that means teaching them how to responsibly and productively use technology as a tool for learning – not just for entertainment value.

In 1958 veteran broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered his famous “wires and lights in a box” speech to members of the RTNDA (Radio-Television News Directors Association). Television was the new technology and he was concerned about it being used solely for entertainment value rather than as a tool to educate and elucidate the masses. He said, “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box.”

He was right. And the television executives sold out to the corporate advertisers and delivered what the masses were so eager to see … entertainment. We can allow the tablets, smart phones and other technology gadgets to become platforms for social networking – or we can use them to teach, illuminate and inspire.

Backpacker Magazine

Cindy — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:25:03 +0000

First time winter camping at Overlook Mountain, New Paltz, NY.

One of my favorite hobbies (and really I’m below novice level here) is backpacking. After reading the book Younger Next Year for Women I was inspired to do something . . . whatever was available right in my own backyard. I had always fantasized about what it would be like to sleep outside in the winter – when the cold air is so pure, and you are surrounded by the quiet hush of fallen snow – blue in the moon light. And so I did. I walked right out my back door and into the woods. In preparation for my first winter camping trip I subscribed to Backpacker Magazine (http://www.backpacker.com/). An article I read today is actually the topic of today’s blog. I have lots of thoughts and ideas I will share in the future about Younger next year, hiking, winter camping etc. But for today I am going to reflect on this fact:

In 7 – 10 years, the glaciers at Glacier National Park and the Glacier at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa will be gone. Not diminished, not smaller — GONE. They have existed for 10,000 years and in my lifetime they will just . . . melt away. I can’t lie. Sometimes the fear of change of this magnitude churns my stomach and scares me to death. But then I remember . . . this is God’s world, not ours. BUT . . . like he gives us children to raise and nurture, so too, he has given us this earth. And it is our responsibility to nurture it. When I think about the power lines and NYRI and see the new gas pipeline going right past my house . . . I wonder. I wonder lots of things — but mostly I am sad. Sad because so many people don’t understand that the earth is a living thing and NEEDS us to take care of it. To nurture and respect this awesome thing that God has made available to us.

Christmas Card 2014

Cindy — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:23:04 +0000

Winter Wonderland

Cindy — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 01:34:34 +0000

Click to view slideshow.

I hear so many people complaining about the snow (and Lord knows, we got a lot of it and early!). It creates work, no doubt. Shovel it. Drive in it. Reschedule because it can’t be driven in, shovel it again. But I LOVE it. There is nothing like the feeling of coming inside after being in that brisk air, so clear you could see forever if the mountains didn’t get in the way. The dogs love it. They roll in it. Bury their noses in it. Hunt for little critters in it. They even play catch with snowballs…and look so surprised when the ‘ball’ disappears.

So, you won’t hear me complain. Just pictures of nature’s

Glorious Majesty.

Cindy — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:49:23 +0000

Winter Wonderland in the Backyard