The World of Social Media -- And What It Means for Kids, Parents, & Teachers

The following is an article I wrote for our school newsletter. I also posted it on our school website.

On November 20, over 300 teachers and administrators from our school division attended the Leading and Learning conference in Red Deer. This conference is sponsored by the Central Alberta Regional Consortium, which is an organization devoted to creating effective PD for teachers in school divisions in Central Alberta.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Inspiring Learners,” focusing not only on how our children can be inspired to learn, but also on how the adults in their lives can be inspired to learn. After all, we are ALL learners, even after we leave formal education.

One of the keynote speakers was Will Richardson, who is a former teacher and now writes and speaks about implementing instructional technology, specifically those known as “read/write” web (blogs, wikis, social networking, etc). At the outside of his presentation, he said his intent was to disturb us and make us uncomfortable. Then he went on to challenge us about our use of technology in our teaching, and more specifically about how we are (or are not) teaching our children to use the technology responsibly and safely.

Richardson’s own wiki offers examples of how our children are using the Read/Write web on their own, often without adult direction. We want our kids to learn how to use these tools, but they are often not being taught *how* to use them appropriately.

The Junior High students in our school have been fortunate to be part of the Emerge 1-1 Laptop project for the past three years and they are learning some of the digital citizenship skills needed in their world. Really, what it all comes down to is two things (as pointed out by Alec Couros, another presenter at the conference): 1) Once you post it, you can’t take it back; and 2) Never assume anything online is private.

But unless the adults in their world are also conversant with the technology, it’s difficult for the children to get proper guidance regarding these two key concepts. Do they have a Facebook or MySpace page? If so, do they know how to change their privacy settings to protect their personal information?

Do YOU know how to change your settings? (If not, check out http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/ for an introduction to how you can protect yourself and your children).

If you want to try an interesting experiment, go to Google and put your own name (or your child’s name) in the search field and see what comes up. That is your (or your child’s) online identity, and it’s there for a very long time. Increasingly, employers and post-secondary registrars are searching online databases to see what they can learn about applicants. There have been instances where applicants have been screened out of positions because of their online identities, which relates back to Couros’s two points; you can’t take it back, and it’s never really private.

Learning to be part of the Read/Write web is more than just privacy issues. There’s also the issue of recognizing the validity of content on the web. What is legitimate? What is not? Consuming information is far more complex than when were kids when all we had were the books and encyclopedia in the library, and maybe the odd magazine or newspaper subscription. We now have access to information from all over the world. Everyone and anyone is an author. How do figure out what is good information and what is not? Again, these are skills we learn through practice.

Take the time to see what’s out there and learn how your kids are using the web. Then talk to them about it. Together, the home and school can help our children become critical consumers – and creators – of online content. We can’t afford not to. 

Mountains...

I like mountains. It doesn't matter how many times I've seen them, I'm in awe. I'm in even more awe of volcanic mountains. And when those mountains are relatively close to home, I am humbled by the raw power that lays beneath us.

Driving through much of the northwestern US is a gift to people like me who enjoy the mountains so much. Add the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byways to the mix, and I'm in heaven. Yesterday's drive from Redding, CA to La Pine, OR fed my obsessions.

Before I go on, I have to say how much I enjoyed spending time with Ger's aunt and her family in Redding. Spending Friday afternoon at Whiskeytown Lake was a real treat and a wonderful way to beat the incredible heat. We talked about either meeting up in Tahoe to go skiing, or them coming our way to go skiing. I hope, one way or another, it comes to pass! Great people! Next time we come down, we really do need to spend more than a couple days.

Anyways...we pulled out of the Premier RV Resort shortly right around 10:30 a.m. Not bad for what we figured would be about a 4-hour drive. We travelled on I-5 north to Weed, CA, and then branched off on US Hwy 97. This route gives a wonderful view of Mt. Shasta coming from the south, around the west side and then looking at it from the north.

We stopped at Grass Lake Rest Area on Hwy 97, not too far south of the CA/OR border, to grab some lunch and check out the view. Apparently there used to be a real lake there, and a thriving small resort. However, someone used some dynamite in an unfortunate location, which resulted in a hole being blasted that allowed the lake water to drain away into the porous volcanic rock below. The resort failed not long after, but since then (almost 100 years), a thriving wetland has grown, supporting many different plants and animals.

The rest of our trip to La Pine was uneventful, except for when we were near Crescent, OR. First a big truck flashed its headlights at us, and then another driver in a pickup waved at us. We thought something was flapping off the motorhome, so we stopped in a rest stop and checked things out. Ger even climbed up on the roof. Couldn't find anything, so we kept going.

We got into La Pine around 4'ish, got set up and had a nice visit with an old school friend of Ger's dad before supper. It was still warm outside, but from past experience we knew it would cool off a great deal overnight. It's that altitude thing. It sure made it nice to sleep last night, and quite refreshing this morning. Housecoat and slippers were required as I uploaded my pictures, and had my coffee.

Today is a relax day -- I have some reading to do for the fall (thanks, guys! :-p), and today looks like a good day to do that!

Oh, yeah...I finally got my Flickr stuff all organized. All the pics from the trip are now organized into sets within the Holidays 2009 collection. Yesterday's set is here.

Ahhh...the pause that refreshes...

Standing on the Sundial Bridge in Redding. What a cool bridge!










Cooling off in Whiskeytown Lake. More pics are at the Flickr link to the right...

Trust me, it's really NOT hot at home!

The best thing about Facebook, and wi-fi in many RV parks, is the ability to keep up with what's going on at home, especially when there are grandbabies involved. Of course, when you're on the road, some folks like to know what the weather's doing at home too, so they can either gloat about what they have on their holiday, or know what they're missing.

I'm in the latter group at the moment. The weather is hot at home. Well, it's hot for what we're used to at home. 30C is warm, especially when there's no AC in most homes. After this couple days in Redding, CA though, I'll have to try to remember to not snark about 30C. It's 8:30 in the morning, and it's already 28C (82F). The forecast high for today is 39C; tomorrow is 41C. Ugh. The picture above is of the heat haze as we pulled into Redding at about 2:30 in the afternoon yesterday.

Last night we had a wonderful visit with Ger's aunt, and a couple of his cousins and their families. This is a part of the family we don't get to see very often, but they're a wonderful group of people and it's always fun to get together with them. Today, a couple of them are going to take us to Whiskeytown Lake to cool off. That will be fun! I have to remember to take my camera to have some pics to share later!

So the goal of the day is to stay cool, get some laundry done, and get ready to head north again. Tomorrow, it's off to La Pine, OR to visit an old buddy of Gerry's dad. A couple days in the high desert will be nice -- warm days, and cool evenings. I can get back to not being envious of the weather at home!

Lake Tahoe

Tahoe is beautiful.

We started out by having breakfast with Ger's buddy at the IHOP just of I-80 and McCarran Blvd. Banana/strawberry pancakes smothered in whipped cream were a great way to start off the day.

John suggested we go out Hwy 395 and then take the Mount Rose Highway to get over to Lake Tahoe. This provided spectacular scenery, and was one of the windiest roads I've ever been on. It's a really good thing we decided to do this little jaunt in the Civic as I'm not sure the motorhome could have handled it!

We stopped at several spots along the way to take pictures, and when we finally saw the lake, it about took my breath away! The colours were amazing, and it was just so cool to see all the boats out there on such a beautiful summer day!

The pictures say much more than words possible can -- the link is to the right -- enjoy!

Tomorrow we're off to Redding, California to visit Gerry's aunt. We're hoping to go through part of the Lassen Volcanic Park on the way. Hope to have more good pics tomorrow night!

More lessons...

Important lesson for yesterday -- make sure the windshield has been well-scrubbed before heading back out onto the highway, otherwise my little Sony focuses on the bug splatters, rather than the scenery. Unfortunately, we lost some neat photos of signs you'd only see in Nevada, thanks to the autoblur feature on the windshield.

The trip from Winnemucca to Reno was very uneventful. We travelled on I-80 and there were no winding roads or major holdups due to construction. Well, there was some construction, but the 'work zone' speed limit was still 55 mph!!! Zoom, zoom! Not sure *I'd* want to be some of those guys working on paving crews -- never mind the 99F heat!

The Nevada desert is beautiful in its own way, much as the rolling prairie is at home, or the mountains are in Banff. Some of the colours in the mountains, or hills, the stretches of salt flats (alkali?)...it's all a wonder (and I'd be able to share more of it with you, were it not for a focus on bug guts...*sigh*).

Reno is built in a valley, so it's not a city you can see for miles before you get here. You come around a big bend in the road and there it is. What stands out immediately are the major hotels in the downtown area. Not as many as in Vegas, but it seems like some of them are almost as big as those in that larger city.

We took I-80 through the city, and my big discovery was an IHOP just off Exit 10, on N McCarran Blvd. IHOP is one of my favourite brekkie places (but nothing touches Cora, or the Chuckwagon in Turner Valley!), and we have to eat at one at least once before going home!

As we continued out the west side of the city, there were trees! Evergreens!!! The landscape change in such a short distance is amazing. Look behind you, and it's desert; look ahead, and it's beginning to look like mountains at home, covered in pine or spruce. We were glad to see the trees, as we figured it might mean it would be a wee bit cooler than in the city in the middle of the desert! A few minutes later, we were pulling off I-80 at Exit 2 into Terrible's Gold Ranch Casino & RV Park. There's a small casino, a restaurant, a Jack-in-the-Box, and it's right off the highway. There aren't a lot of trees for shade, but it's pretty, and the place seems well-laid out.

After getting set up (we've got this down to about 20 minutes or so for the whole thing), we scouted out some groceries and Gerry contacted a buddy he met on a message board. His friend wanted to take us out for dinner, so he drove out after work and took us back into Reno to a restaurant called Ruby River, a steakhouse, very much in the Western style. We all had steak. Gerry and his friend had a 'jacketed' cinnamon yam, which was delicious. I had a 'jacketed' baked potato. The 'jacket' is almost like a batter you'd find on fish or something like that. I didn't eat the jacket, because my caloric intake was already through the roof, but the little taste I had was good. The steaks themselves were wonderful. Soooo...if you're ever in any of the locations on their website, and you like steak, check it out!

We came back to our campsite, and the guys visited for awhile longer, while I snuggled up with a cup of tea. I'd been missing tea in the evenings, and it was good to have some again.

Today we're going to do some shopping -- there's a big shopping center called The Summit at the south end of the city. Later, we'll check out the casinos downtown. The lady at the reception desk at the RV park said things are really slow in Reno this summer, thanks to the economy, so we should have no trouble finding parking. While it's sad to see the local economy (all of Nevada, from what I understand) struggling so much, I'm glad not to be fighting crowds.

And the last thing to check before you hit the road?

Make sure nothing spillable can fly around the fridge. A rogue jar of sliced dill pickles went flying around the fridge during the very first part of our journey out of Caldwell this morning. It was a rather bumpy stretch of road between the town and US Hwy 95 South.

I thought I'd pull out the margarine to soften up a bit so I could make some sandwiches on our way to Winnemucca, Nevada. When I opened the fridge, my nose was assailed by the smell of dill pickles. The culprit jar was on it's side on a shelf with out a rod in front of it, and the juice was pretty much all gone. I looked down, and sure enough, there was the yellow evidence on the 'floor' of the fridge. Needless to say, there wasn't much I could do about the cleanup while we were driving. I didn't make sandwiches either, because the bread bag was all covered in pickle juice.

Lee's new rule: Make sure all spillable items in the fridge are securely behind fridge rods or in the door BEFORE heading out on the road.

The ride to Winnemucca was pretty uneventful. Some ups and downs over some smaller mountains, but nothing even close to what we experienced between Missoula and Grangeville. We gassed up in Caldwell, so we didn't need to stop along the way. So far, so good.

Today was the first day where we spent some time trying to find the RV park we were booked into. We rolled into town about 2 p.m., which was actually 1:00 p.m. now that we're in the Pacific time zone. Ger forgot to get the directions from the Internet and save a copy to the desktop of his laptop. He knew it was south of I-80, and to the east. I'd taken a look at Google Maps and knew it was on the east side of town as well. Soooo, we spent a half hour driving around trying to find it.

We're staying in the Hi-Desert RV Park. An older gentleman on a golf cart led us to our spot -- which was the first one in the row right in front of the office. Close to the pool, showers, office...all that good stuff. Their website gives the impression that the park is quite new. It's not. It is older, but reasonably well-kept. The washrooms are clean. There appears to be a number of permanent residents here as well.

It will be okay for tonight -- tomorrow we're off to Reno. Actually, we're staying just outside Reno at Terribles Gold Ranch Casino and RV Park. From there, we hope to go spend a day at Lake Tahoe, some time in downtown Reno (the river area is supposed to be lovely), and of course, some shopping at the outlet mall at the south end of the city.

In the heat of the night (and day)...

100F. That's 39C in our world north of the 49th. It's HOT on either scale.

So what do we do when it's hot? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Cooked a decent brekkie this morning. Well, maybe not decent health-wise, but bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and toast always taste better when at least part of it is cooked outside!

Ger decided to play with his new toy -- a long-handled spray nozzle -- and washed the car and the motorhome. The front is actually white once you peel back all the dead bugs! Amazing!

After a wee snooze in the shade of the awning, we decided to check out the pool. It was heavenly! And Gerry still can't float worth a darn, even in a salt-water pool! Poor boy!

Tonight we're going to get everything all packed up and ready to go so we can head out bright and early in the morning. It promises to be another scorcher, and there's not a lot between here and Winnemucca, Nevada. Gerry figures 5 hours -- but we've heard that line before...

Check back tomorrow.

The long and winding road...Part II

This has got to be the longest downslope stretch of highway I've ever been on! Check out the Flickr link to the right and you can see the number of photos I took from the top, not too far from Grangeville, ID, to the bottom, down by the Salmon River, and from we could gather, not all that far from Hell's Canyon. According to a historic stop near the top, the site of the Battle of White Bird Canyon is also here. This was a battle between the US Army and the Nez Perce nation that happened on June 17, 1877. Seems that the discovery of gold may have had something to do with events leading up to this US Army defeat.

This stretch is on Hwy 95, south of Grangeville, and goes on for nine miles! I hope they don't get too much snow in these parts -- travel in winter could be downright nasty!

The start of today's journey left us a little concerned that we would be in for more like yesterday. However, the highway was good, there was no construction, and we motored along quite nicely. The first couple hours were in the hills like what you see in this photo, but although we traveled alongside the river as we did yesterday, the hills weren't as 'tightly' squeezed together, which meant the curves weren't quite as dicey. The final couple hours was mostly flat, with the odd stretch that went up over a large hill.

We pulled into the Ambassador RV Park in Caldwell, ID at about 2:30 p.m. MUCH better than arriving at 7:30 p.m! By 3:00, we were set up, and sitting outside, under the awning in the 37C (99F) degree heat. Yes, the AC was going full-bore inside the motorhome. We sat outside for a couple hours, and I even dozed, but then the heat (even in the shade) got to be too much, and I had to seek the relief of the AC.

After barbecuing steaks for supper (yum, they were good!), we went to find Gerry's favourite diversion -- Walmart. Picked up a couple things for the motorhome, as we're still discovering little things that will make this much easier -- like special bars for the fridge to keep things from falling out when we open the door after a bouncy journey like yesterday's. Tonight, I loaded the pics from yesterday and today into my Flickr site.

We're staying here until Sunday. Our next planned stop in Winnemucca, NV, but they have a huge softball tournament there this weekend with about 100 teams, so we figured finding a spot to camp for tomorrow night would be beyond impossible. We'll get there Sunday. It's supposed to be hot, hot, hot here, there and in Reno for the next several days. I think a good chunk of tomorrow just might have to be spent in the pool here at the Ambassador...

Life is good. (now that I'm no longer on the long and winding road...)

The long and winding road...

See this sign? This was the story of our journey from Whitefish, MT to Grangeville, ID today.

Up bright and early, we thought we had it made as we pulled out of Whitefish sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. The trip south around Flathead Lake was uneventful -- except for Gerry deciding that area would be a great place to HAVE A BOAT! Yes, Gerry wants a boat. However, in order to bring the boat with us, we'd need to leave the Civic behind. If we hauled a boat behind the motorhome, we'd have no way of getting it to the boat launches. For that matter, other than packing up every time we wanted to go somewhere outside the campground, we'd have no way of getting anywhere!

Okay, enough about the boat and how much fun it would be on Flathead Lake. Did I mention how gorgeous it it? And how big it is? Alright, enough about the boat!!!!!

We ran into some construction between Polson and Missoula that slowed us up a bit. There was a good 30 miles or so of road rebuilding happening, and a max speed of about 35 mph (maybe 55 km/h?). The sign at the end of the project said federal funding was over $28 million, and state funding was $0.4 million. If I'm not mistaken, we witnessed federal stimulus money at work -- and there were sure a lot of people working!

We got into Missoula, the biggest town or city we've seen since we left Calgary, around 2'ish. After filling up the motorhome, we found a Walmart on the south end of the city, on the 'right' side of the road, so we pulled in and picked up a few things for the motorhome -- storage bins, a new waterhose -- stuff like that. We got out of Missoula about 2:30, somewhat later than we'd originally thought. Ger had figured the entire trip would be about 5 1/2 hours. See that sign up above? Yeah...

It was an absolutely stunning drive (and when I'm on a better 'net connection, I'll get my pics uploaded to Flickr for all to see) -- streams that eventually turned into small, clear, rushing rivers, complete with rapids. A raft and someone to pick us up at the end would have been absolutely heavenly today, as the temps got into the high 20's (celsius). The skinny two-lane highway (MT/ID Hwy 13) wound alongside the stream/river along the base of the mountains. While not mountains in the sense of the Rockies that we're use to seeing in Banff, they were mountains nonetheless, and the road didn't go through them or over them; it went around them -- all.

When we got to Kooskia, ID, we thought we were out of the worst of it. Yeah, right! About 15 minutes south of Kooskia, we jogged right...and up. And up some more. Ger said he felt like Icarus flying to the sun. We just never quit going up! And the the neverending winding road!

We did eventually get to the top of the hill, and then went back down the other side. The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain... Some more winding road, some more up the hill, and we came out on what appears to be some sort of a plateau where the town of Grangeville sits. The Bear Den RV Park is just south of the town, just off Hwy 95. That's good, as tomorrow we head for Caldwell, ID, just west of Boise for the next two nights. And that's south of here.

The clock read 7:30 when we pulled in. The barbecue is on and the hotdogs are ready to be grilled. It's now 8:30 p.m. and we're both tired and hungry. The AC is on, the sun is shining, and we'll be up bright and early again to be on our way.

Checking in with the world...

Checking in with the world...
Originally uploaded by polgara59

Ah, this is the life...

What's a bank without an ATM????

Amazingly, I slept in this morning. As in later than 8:30 a.m! Had coffee, tried out the shower in the motorhome, got dressed, and then we wandered off to downtown Whitefish for breakfast. In Gerry's meanderings around the Web looking for places to stay, he found excellent reviews for the Buffalo Cafe, especially for breakfast. Well, it didn't disappoint. We both ordered "Buffalo Pie," which didn't have any buffalo in it at all! It *was* a nice slice of lean ham, with a healthy serving of hashbrowns, topped with shredded cheddar and two poached eggs. Yum! It's too bad we didn't find this place last night for dinner! The Mackenzie River Pizza was good, but it wasn't quite the "burgers and beer" Gerry and one of his professional 'partners-in-crime' like to indulge in. Ah, well...we're well stocked up, so it's burgers for supper tonight, on the barbecue!

After breakfast, we walked around looking for a bank with an ATM. Figured it was probably a good idea to have some US cash on us, just in case. Um...we walked into three different banks and couldn't find a single ATM in any of them! All three had drive-up windows, but nary a bank machine in sight! Now you may have to be Canadian to really understand the apparent dichotomy in this. A bank with no bank machine? We did find a free-standing (well, built into a wall) ATM down the street outside a casino, but it was out of commission. We finally did find one at the Glacier National bank location on Hwy 93 South. It was a drive-thru too. Never did get out of the car to see if there was actually one in the building.

A bank with no bank machine?????

So we're sitting here this afternoon at our campsite, plotting our next steps as we head towards Reno, Nevada. We're going to stop one night in Grangeville, ID, then on to Caldwell, ID for a night. We figure with a weekend coming up, it's a good idea to get some bookings in so we don't end up parked at a rest stop overnight. We've been there, done that a couple times at Cour d'Alene, WA, and it's not a very good night's sleep!

Of course, wireless and an orange smoothie Breezer (import from home, not the flavoured beer stuff that tries to pass itself off as a cooler here) makes the afternoon very pleasant indeed!

Wheeling down the road

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to have a place to record impressions of our trip through part of the northwestern United States this summer. This is our first big trip in the motorhome we bought last summer (on Ebay, no less!), and I thought it would be neat to sit down whenever I could and write about our journeys.

Our son and his young family are house- and cat-sitting for us, which is a huge relief. The three silly felines just cannot be left home alone that long! Also, dear son is taking delivery of my new Asus netbook that didn't quite arrive in time to make this trip with me.

We finally got started today after spending the morning babysitting our one-year-old granddaughter so her mother could take her grandmother into Calgary for a medical appointment. As is often the case with such appointments, this one was late, so we got away a couple hours later than we had planned.

The weather in Calgary's been rather pitzy for the past couple days, and it was no better as we headed south on Hwy 22. We headed west into BC on Hwy 3 through the Crowsnest Pass. The rain just got heavier and heavier. We ran into a good thunderstorm just west of Fernie; the rain was coming down so hard it was flowing on the road! The best was yet to come though, as we headed into Elko, a tiny little town at the junction of Hwy 3 and 93. Hail. Rain. Lightning. Thunder. My new Blackberry Storm did a fine job of recording the moment so I could share it with my friends on Facebook.

The clouds finally broke and after a pitstop to get REAL Smirnies at the duty-free shop, we crossed into the US at Roosville. After an uneventful hour-long drive, we finally pulled into Whitefish, Montana. The last time we were here was for our honeymoon, almost 27 years ago! All I really remember is the view of the Big Mountain to the north of the town. I'd still like to go skiing there someday!

We pulled into the Whitefish RV Park, and got the motorhome into a rather tight spot, unhooked the car, and headed out for supper. Because of the US restrictions on bringing meat and other agricultural products into the country, we needed to do some grocery shopping. Gotta love Safeways that stay open past 9 p.m! Even better was that our Safeway Club Card worked in the States too! Maybe, perhaps, saved about the amount we spent on the exchange rate.

So now, we're all settled in, food and drink (yes, the vino and coolers are in the fridge, along with the steaks and veggies -- oh, yes, and Gerry's beer and hotdogs!) stashed away, and we're both sitting here with our laptops, keeping up with the world.

Life is good.