What a difference a week makes …

This time last week I felt very frazzled – a project which I have been working on for more than a year was nearing completion and the end of term was fast approaching with lots of material still to cover and assessments to set.  Thrown into the bargain I was off to Belfast for the weekend with my mum and my sisters, which I was really looking forward to, but which was adding to the feeling of ‘lots to do but no time to do it all’.  I often work at the weekend so going away was adding to my troubles.  As it turned out, the weekend away was probably just what the doctor ordered   It was lovely to be out and about doing normal things and having a good time (as an aside this was my first trip to Belfast but it wont be my last.  What a beautiful, friendly city )

So from being very frazzled this time last week, I now feel remarkably less frazzled.  A few things have happened over the week to bring about this change.  This coming Friday is D day for the aforementioned project so apart from some minor amendments to documentation, the die has now been cast and the fate of the project lies in others hands.  All I know is that I have done all that is humanely possible to achieve a favourable outcome and I can do no more.  I’m now also a week closer to the end of term (which is next week) and we have made significant progress through the material so we are now on track to cover all the material (an added bonus is that the two assessments needed for tomorrow are now also done )

Finally, two things happened this week which have taken me aback a little it has to be said.  Firstly I got my first nomination for the Education Blog Awards (http://edublogawards.com/) from Nigel Lane (@NL_84) for this blog.  This completely bowled me over as it was completely unexpected.  I got two more nominations for the Education Blog Awards from Michelle Moloney King (@MoloneyKing) and Sabine McKenna (@SabineMcKenna).  The kind words from Nigel, Michelle and Sabine about the blog are truly appreciated and gave me an unexpected lift in an otherwise difficult week.  The next step in the process is shortlisting.  Who knows what that will bring but to be honest I’m happy just to have been nominated 3 times.  The final unexpected lift I got this week was when the principal of my daughter’s school rang me to ask me if I would be interested in being involved on the Board of Management of the school as a community respresentative.   I have agreed to be involved and look forward to where this takes me for the next four years.  So the saying “what a difference a day (or in my case a week) makes”  is certainly true

Global connections

After a few false starts, we finally managed to connect my daughter’s class via a Google+ hangout with Michael Thornton’s class in Charlottesville, Virginia last Friday.  The excitement was palpable when I went in to the girls classroom at 12.30 to prepare for the hangout at 1pm our time (8am US time).  We began by checking out the webcam – the girls had great fun waving at themselves and each other on the interactive white board  The plan had been that the girls would go out to play after their lunch to allow time for the set-up but the rain on Friday put paid to that!  The other complication was that the girls started to learn to knit during the week so they were very excited to show me their knitting and ask for help to sort out a dropped stitch here or there

The upshot of all the excitement was that I didn’t check the sound for the hangout (note to self: always check the sound!!).  So, at 1 pm we joined the hangout started by Michael Thornton.  Of course it quickly became apparent that we had a problem on our end with the sound, so while we could hear the class in the US they couldn’t hear us.  We tried to get it sorted but unfortunately it wasn’t to be this time round.  Once we realised that we weren’t going to be able to fix the sound from our end, we started to use the chat area in the Google+ hangout.  Then we lost the picture of the class in the US, so they could see us but couldn’t hear us and we could hear them but couldn’t see them!  In some ways this made the whole experience even better because we were able to read their responses and respond and vice versa.  What followed was 15 minutes of great fun on both sides of the Atlantic.  We talked about uniforms (worn by the class in Nenagh but not by the class in the US), school start and end times (7:45 – 2:25 in the US compared to 9:10 – 3:00) and the subjects that the classes were studying (the class in the US studied Egypt last year with the girls in Nenagh studying it just a few weeks ago).  So the classes have begun the process of getting to know each other.  The next step in the process is for the students to write letters to each other in the next week or two with a follow up hangout in the week leading up to Christmas.  What surprised me was that despite the technical difficulties, we still managed to have great fun and learn lots.  To be honest, if you asked the girls I don’t think they would even remember that we had technical difficulties.  I’m really looking forward to where this initial connection will take us