Sam's Thoughts

I'm sad to see the end of Extension 2.0- it was my favorite way to begin the week with a fresh, new (or not so-new) tool. I have really enjoyed having a chance to learn more about certain tools and to think about ways that they can be applied to my work. My favorite week was probably on the productivity tools, as they were things that I never had used in my work. I've passed the information along to others both inside and outside of Extension.

On the personal front, RSS has changed my world! I love subscribing to my friend's blogs and some "mommy" websites and only having to go to one spot to check everything out. It's a great way to start my day!

I hope that we continue to offer these types of training in the future. If we are to stay competitive in the computer age, we can't afford to not know about these tools. Thanks Amy for imparting your wisdom!!!

Posted by samgrant at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a limited amount of experience using UMConnect. I have a project that I continually revisit my UMConnect site and use it more as a communication tool than as a presenter. My co-worker and I share our computer screen and go over our to-do list and share correspondence that we've received. After spending a little bit of time with UMConnect, I discovered some tools that will be useful for this project.

I also hope to lead a presentation over UMConnect sometime in the future.

Posted by samgrant at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was really interested to hear of the unique ways that academics use instant messaging. I can't say that it's something that I'm going to pick up, but in some settings, I can totally see the use. Instant messaging just brings me back to high school and the hours and hours that my friends wasted sitting in front of a computer. My ADHD (not seriously diagnosed) does not allow me to sit in one spot for more than a couple of minutes. So, there's the end of my minutes of sitting...off to work on a new project!

Posted by samgrant at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Loved the webcast and interview on social networking. The populations that I work with in 4-H tend to be low income families, and I have found that all of the youth are very savvy with technology. I thought it was something that was unique to my area, but maybe this researcher is on to something.

I happen to be one of those people who don't think that social networking is the devil...although I don't trouble myself with participating. I think my communication style/ personality isn't compatable with these types of encounters. Alas, one day my daughter may force me to do it! For right now, I will search the profiles of future employees because it's a quick way to learn something about a person!

I have often thought about incorporating these types of technology into 4-H programming. It fits well with the mission of providing experential education experiences that promote life skills. I would especially like youth to know about the dangers of these sites and the simple steps they can take to keep themselves safe.

Posted by samgrant at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The lightbulb has turned on in my world! Productivity tools are awesome!!! I have spent the morning playing around with some of the features of these tools and have fallen in love with Zoho...where were you when I was writing my thesis???

The slideshow tools are a personal favorite of mine, as the ones that I make look like something a kindergarten student could make! I'm hoping to use this in an upcoming presentation for an Extension Committee.

I'm always working between computers and have a panic attack when thinking of losing my USB device, so this is a great tool to use for documents that I continue to work on and share.

Thanks for sharing all of the things that I wish existed...now that I know that they're out there, my mind feels free to tackle new projects.

Posted by samgrant at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everytime I hear someone say wiki, I cringe just a little. This is one of those words in the English language that has adopted millions of pronunciations. In fact, I think you can date a person by the way that they pronounce the word.

Okay, once I got over that, I had a good time checking out some Wikis. A personal favorite of mine belongs to my husband for his AP US History course. I love that he integrates technology into his classroom and gets his highschoolers thinking in bigger terms. I learned something new about our history this morning!

I can see using this for group collaboration on projects. In some of our 4-H work, we have used a portal site,which has been nice, but there has always been a central administrator. That person gets dumped with the task of organizing information- not a fun job. So we'll see if this is something that begins to have more usage in the world of Extension. My type A personality has a little problem with the lack of control with this, but I suppose I can get over that too...

p.s. this blog post makes me sound quite neurotic. I would argue that most days this isn't the case.

Posted by samgrant at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My husband is one of those cool, new teachers who is interested in learning and applying new ideas in his classroom. Needless to say, he has been using podcasts. (In fact, as he drove our daughter to daycare each day, he brainwashed her with History podcasts...this is going to take years of counseling to fix!) I, however, have not used podcasts unless they were embedded in some training I was doing for work. Today, I did some searching of podcasts and found some good ones that I would be interested in listening to. I could easily spend my morning listening to funny, parenting podcasts, but alas, I have work to do. Looks like I'll have something to keep me busy at the gym...

Posted by samgrant at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Picking a place to store my photos has been on my do-to list since before my daughter was born. (She's 9 months old, so obviously it wasn't a top priority!) The editting feature of Flickr is what sold me because I always want to play with the photos that I take...maybe because my subject never sits still!

I am often sharing photos for work, and I think it would be useful to have a 4-H site for us to post images from our events. This way, we wouldn't have to e-mail each other to get the photos each time that we want to use them. I think I'll have to wait until after the State Fair to get the rest of the crew on board!

One question- how can you print photos from Flickr? I see that you can make some cool cards (hello, easy thank-yous!) but if I wanted to print the edited photos for my scrapbooks, can I send it to Target or get it via mail?

Posted by samgrant at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today my summer intern, Zeinab, will lead a presentation entitled, Life of a Somali. I am hoping that we can create a dialouge which will impact youth programming for kids.

Here's a picture of some of our cuties this summer:

Posted by samgrant at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I dabbled in a little bit of RSS...not sure what I think of it yet. My husband has been using this for some time now, and I know that he loves having his news come through like this. He always tries to pursuade me to set up my own bloglines...I think that's the teacher in him! I have to say that I miss having all the nice formatting that comes when looking at the whole webpage, but once I got over that, I can see that this could be an effecient way for me to stay up to date. I have been trying to increase productivity (and curtail my adult ADD!) by only checking e-mail 3-4 times per day. Maybe I'll add RSS to my tools to continue this increase in work time for necessary projects. As a new mom, I'm looking for anything that can organize my life! (Plus it's free!)

Posted by samgrant at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am busy trying to find a person who is motivated to work for only $1000 a month (plus health insurance!) Sounds like quite a task that I have for myself. I need to find an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow to work with our Willow Creek program. It's a super challenging group of kids so not every person would be cut out for the job. I hope that I'm able to post next week that I've found someone!!!

Posted by samgrant at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Continue reading "4-H Photo" »

Posted by samgrant at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a confession to make- I am somewhat addicted to blogging! My family has a blog which we've been updating for around a year- which really has turned into a chronicle of my daughter's life. It's such a great medium to share pictures and fun stories with family and friends around the country. I also love checking in on blogs that belong to my friends and family. Now, I just have to find some good reasons to create blogs for my work.

After taking this section of the Extension 2.0 course, I am considering teaching some of the youth that I work with in 4-H about the world of blogs. I know that many of them visit blogs, but because they don't have computers at home, they probably haven't started one. We'll see what this idea will turn into...

Posted by samgrant at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)