Digital movie

Here is a look at my family and home. I just realized that I didn't put any of our second son, Edward. He lives in Anch w/his family. This project was so much fun to do and I was scared to do it. My problem is slow internet or none at all. I've had more problems in the history of the www. GCI should be sending my equipment soon, I hope. I would love to sit in my own home (with the plump little granddaughter) and be able to participate in class at the same time. Aside from all the griping I would say that my comfort level w/this class has been raised a couple of levels since I did those silly software reviews (which I plan on redoing some day.)

pp assignment

I have never done a powerpoint presentation by myself in my life. Why? Because for the first 40 years of my life on Earth, there was no opportunity to make one, now I’m given the grand occasion to create one. In retrospect, I think very few can fail with the instructions given by the esteemed Mr. Skip Via. I say very few, and Jessie David is one of them. Before I begin my take on this assignment, let me explain a few things about myself. I don’t know why, but I always manage to do things the hard way. People can listen to 20 directives that are part of an assignment and just do it. I get lost on about the second direction. But I don’t give up. It would help if I lived closer to one of my classmates. I would be getting an “A” if I lived in the same community as, say, Alice, 2 Jessica’s, Becca, Crystal, and any one of them. Instead old Jessie is left completely dumbfounded and stumbles blindly about most of the time. So, when the explanation about “updating quicktime” happened, it went in and out of my big (and apparently useless)ears. So I found, through trial and error, of course, that we must have a computer that works to download the latest version of Quicktime. It took 1 hour to do that at my office and ½ hour to save it on my jumpdrive and when it came time to view the files, it still couldn’t work. Near tears, I then completely alienated myself from tribal staff and unhooked the only computer that works in our tribal office and hooked mine up and downloaded this stuff. After all this, I can now view any of Skip’s instructional files. How great that would be if I understood him the first time he said it. Alas, it would’ve taken me ten minutes to finish the project if I had computer savvy, like all of you. Anyway, I had a blast doing it and next time our council or school needs someone to set up a slideshow they will have the expert of Microsoft Office Excel at their service (I hope none of you question why the schedule shows only 3 days of the week and overlook the part where there is an extra row on the bottom. I know now that I could have easily corrected that by dragging over each corner to the exact spot I wanted it, which was 6 not 5 columns over and 5 rows not 6.) I also did not make a chart, for the simple reason that this type cannot be charted. I really wanted to make a chart that I will use to hang up on the door someday. I should have done one about the bakesale our church had. Here is the data:
Cake 4
Pies 8
Bread 10
Muffins 6
Cookies 5 (batches)
Now I would have been able to employ the chart
wizard with that info!

Life in Allakaket

At some point I would like to put some photos on my blog. Well, I am in my senior yr at UAF and enjoying all of it. On our off time we run dogs, yesterday we ran 2 teams of 4 about 3 miles. My husband, Harold Sr., has a knee problem so he holds the leaders while I take the dogs to the line and harness them. That is a lot of work, but great way to keep our 50+ bodies in shape. He is pushing 56 but you would never tell. Our 5 children all have participated in kids/jr. mushers 4 mile races and snowshoe races. These are always fun to watch. We enjoy spring carnivals during the spring, they are a blast! They seem to be substance fueled events, but I am living proof that you can enjoy them w/o anything except what the Good Lord gave you! We stay in fishcamp 20 miles below Allakaket during the summer (I've got to post a pic of us cutting for Alice to check out). Beautiful place. We do some trapping in the winter. This is how my late father made his living and I tell you it is a wonderful feeling to stay near where he lived and to wake up at 7am and see the sun and smoke rising out of our tent. I love it. Last February Harold stayed up and kept the fire going (it gets cold) and then I get up at 6 and make breakfast and read a book that I had to do a report on. Yes, I take course materials on every trip if I have to.

One on One Reflection

One on One Reflection
I am a visual learner, so at times I struggle with lengthy directions. However, the instructions for 329 are pretty straightforward and that is encouraging to me, because I am in a place where we don’t have too many computer techs. My children all know this “iphoto” MP4 stuff, so I’ve gotten some information from them. If it is okay with the people that made this One to One dvd I would like our principal to see it.
I enjoyed this video. Aside from someone coming in and setting up the equipment (whiteboard for distance ed) I think any school can do this. Our problem would be; the students here are not very respectful of others as they should be (we have a meeting with our son’s teachers today) and my worry would be inappropriate use and talking back if asked to go back to assignment. I guess we would have to get the discipline aspect down first. How nice it would be if my son could write out his research paper and have access to resources and cite those references accurately. If we could get our students to choose a favorite topic and using what they could find on the internet write a paper and email it to the teacher. The students all have been posting pictures and info on myspace or myfamily and who knows where for a while now, but it would be great if they could extend that learning to making movies or documentaries about our culture or stories from elders or even seasonal activities, not only would they be learning new technology that will instantly upgrade resumes but they will be perpetuating our traditional beliefs and lifestyle. How nice it would be if students, while doing a course assignment, find that they are really interested in the field of Journalism or the movie industry. I know for myself I would never go back to writing papers by long hand. Before I do a paper I still write out all of the points I want to cover and make a t-sheet, which we learned in Creed/Andrews classes, which is to put down facts on one side and then my own thoughts or ideas on the other. I have found that this cuts my writing in half. It would be great if our students could do these applications on a daily basis. All of these “simple” computer tools would enhance writing skills and possibly even make writing a fun activity. Our rural schools would benefit from technology courses and I can see where they would boost the reading/writing levels of middle or highschool students.