Photo-A-Day #6

This was Saturday's picture that I took while vacationing this weekend. Typically, when I hear the word vacation, my mind automatically goes to the hustle here, hustle there, see everything we can possibly cram into our limited days mentality. My college friends challenge my perspective on vacation as we venture off to a quiet lake house in the Pocono Mountains of PA. I love sitting on this dock, catching up with friends, and having time to unplug and process life. It often gives me a new perspective --- or at least reminds me of the perspective I've lost sight of so often.

Photo-A-Day #5

I'm headed out on a long weekend vacation with my college friends today. Once a year we come from wherever we're currently living to reconvene at a lake house in the Pocono Mountains of PA. It's been a yearly tradition and one weekend of the summer that I really treasure! No cell phone service, no fluffs and frills, no husbands...just the four of us girls, some junk food, a lake with boats, and grandma's 1970s cottage. The timing of this weekend is one friend's birthday, another's anniversary, and the third's almost anniversary. So for gifts this year, I took a new perspective. I've gotten into painting recently and decided I would personalize a painting for each of my friends to fit in a special place of their home. It's much easier to just buy something, but this year I wanted to make it. The above photo is my perspective from the morning as I'm getting ready to wrap gifts and head out for some adventures.

Photo-A-Day #4

It's that time of year again...
When thinking about perspective today, I immediately thought of school. It seems like just yesterday that summer vacation started, but today was rearrange my furniture, open the closets, and begin the daunting task of setting up my classroom again. I'm sure you can all relate to the love/hate relationship we have when Back-To-School displays start popping up mid-July!

Photo-A-Day #3

A roommate trip to the Philadelphia Zoo (with the free teacher admission in the summer, of course!) was full of adventures. Yes, we took pictures of and with several of the animals, but I also thoroughly enjoyed riding the carousel. It just brings out the little kid in me! :) Thinking about perspective this week, my roommate suggested taking our picture in the mirror while we were riding. This is definitely a self-portrait from a different perspective.

Photo-A-Day #2

When it's time to hang up picture frames, everyone has a different perspective. Should it go here or there? Is it level? Which picture goes where? My roommate and I are in the process of decorating our apartment and working on communicating our perspectives on decorations, photos, and life in general. Hence, perspective is the theme of the week!
PS...I know it's not QUITE straight! :)

Photo-a-day Day #1

It's time to start the Photo-a-Day Challenge. I LOVE taking pictures, so this was a great idea for me to think about a common theme in my pictures this week. I've chosen #perspective as my hashtag for the week.

My friends and I love to geocache. We went out tonight in the Mt. Joy, PA area and found several caches. This is a quick look at our finds from a different perspective.

I Knew I Was Going to be an Educator When...(Digital Story Created with a Cell Phone - u04a2)

This was a tricky assignment for me because there were an endless amount of approaches you could take to making a digital story. I thought about taking snapshots, captioning them in Pixlr, and rolling them altogether. I thought about calling in to iPadio and making a podcast to share. I also toyed with the idea of being behind the camera and making my friends tell my story. What I decided on, though, was the tried and true video function of my iPhone. I decided to tell my own story - to pick out props and mile-markers from my journey into education. As I was deciding how to approach my script, I thought back to what I teach my 2nd graders. They learn how to write with "comeback lines" because it keeps the reader (or listener) on track with their story. My comeback line was, "I knew I was going to be an educator when..."

This was one of my first times shooting a video that I've shared on my iPhone. I just came out of the dinosaur phone era 4 weeks ago! I realized when I downloaded the video that because my roommate and I planned and shot the video in portrait style, it needed rotated in order to play on the computer. I imported the video and did a quick rotate so that you wouldn't have to turn your head sideways to see when I knew I was going to be an educator! :) That was just one of the fun joys of this project. Thanks for the opportunity to stretch myself and look at my phone as a learning tool.

I had a hard time using Blogger's uploading video feature so I embedded my video from YouTube. Hopefully it's working!