Burst of Steam

Since my last posting I have had a burst of steam ...

 a burst to get me moving to finish up lots of things that will lead me to success.

The unexpected (or maybe UNWANTED) snow storm on St. Patrick's day led to a day off from school.  Of course, I had chosen not to listen to the weather forecast, so I did not bring home school work to complete in case of a day off.  So much time to use... What should I do?

I chose to use the time to complete Chapter 5, the final chapter of my Capstone project.  Amy promised I would enjoy writing the chapter.  I will not go as far as to say I "enjoyed" the writing, but having the opportunity to use an unexpected day off for the completion of the paper certainly took some of the stress off me.  After submitting the paper, I now just have some tweeking of the abstract and some editing of my favorite - APA style.

One of the best parts of getting this project done was that I could use it as an example for my FCCLA students who spent last weekend scrambling to get their projects completed for the Spring Leadership Conference.  I don't know how they did it, but all projects were completed, made it to conference and they were presented in professional manner.  Our students did well, with five students qualifying for National Competition this summer in San Antonio.  I am so proud of them, and I know that I will be able to help them edit and tweek their projects for national competition.  

They Powered Up with FCCLA so they can SOAR to nationals!

Not since the steam engine has any invention disrupted business models like the Internet. Whole industries including music distribution, yellow-pages directories, landline telephones, and fax machines have been radically reordered by the digital revolution.

— John Sununu

In keeping with my theme of steam, this quote certainly is one that related directly to my past week.  What caught my attention was the term "disrupted business".

As I continue to work diligently on this capstone project, I keep seem to run up against a variety of "disruptions".  In relating this to my data collection, I ran into the issue of one entire class not taking the post assessment survey due to the snow storm and the shortened day.  Off they went to their next elective, even though I pleaded for their participation.  Now the numbers may be somewhat distorted, so I am looking to percentages.  This will certainly be noted in the analysis of the data.

This week gave me quite an education in Excel.  I feel like I have some grasp of the charting capabilities.  Thank goodness my daughter could give me some pointers.  Now hopefully this is something I can continue to remember, at least until it has another update that will DISRUPT my knowledge base.

Talk about disruptions; I lost the land line about 3 years ago and have been happily using my "dumb" phone for any telephone based communication - calls and texts.  Unfortunately this past week my communication mode was "disrupted" when the phone refused to cooperate and work at all.  I didn't even drop it!  So off I went to Sprint to get a replacement... but since I have a "grand-fathered" old plan, the store can do nothing to help me.  So back home I go to ponder how "customer service" has been disrupted by the fast growth of technology. 

Is there a reason the the word "CAN'T" is so prevalent in the interactions I seem to have when I am trying to spend money?

So after two days with no communication (the good news is there is no bad news received) I broke down and bought a new phone - still a dumb one, as it will continue to be until I feel the monthly price is right!  Now on to re-creating my contact list.  I certainly should have written down all those family & friends numbers.

Will... to complete

“There is a force more powerful than steam and electricity: the will.” 

― Fernán Caballero

This week was an interesting one.  I realized on Friday morning that I was a week ahead of myself, but never really completed my submission of the intervention.  Thanks Julie for being there for my one and only melt down this semester!  I think the stress of the project, getting to know new students, and having a husband at home recuperating from surgery pushed me to the point where STEAM was literally coming out my ears.  My goal to work entirely on the Capstone project for the weekend was derailed again when daughter #2 appeared on my door step with dog and suitcase in hand.  Time for family!

 I have completed my intervention, in fact I've been using it for the first two marking periods, and continue to use it this marking period.  When I look at the intervention, I realize that the tweeking I did to the curriculum has made the course more manageable for both my students and myself.  I am pleased with the Google site and the students this marking period seem pleased to have a place to go for additional help with their projects.  I can say that so far (2 days into the toy project) that the creativity and enthusiasm for creating is very high. During class they are going to the site and reviewing videos as needed; which is freeing up time for the entire class to move at their own pace, without being burdened by in class demonstrations that they do not need.  The test will be if they have gone onto the site during the snow day.  Lots of projects went home over the weekend so Tuesday will be telling.

I think having this extra day to shovel snow and reflect on the journey I am taking is helping get me back on track.  So I will STEAM ahead, work on the numbers and get to my destination on time!

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