Backyard Oasis - Meditation after a day of Education

Seems as though the heavy rains around the Ohio River valley haven't stopped the pollinators from keeping busy. Whether it's the purple coneflowers or the numerous other clusters of flowering plants we've added to our hillside, the bees have been prolific this year.




Closer to the deck, we've noticed from six to ten of these winged beauties each day since the Royal Knight butterfly bush started blooming in May. I was told this is a variety of the hummingbird moth, though it doesn't have the hummingbird colorization.





Our back yard is an oasis for wildlife. This fawn thought it would be a good idea to check out the new landscaping I completed over the summer. His mom wasn't pleased with his wandering eyes and hurried him back to the quiet of the woods.





Schools opened two week ago. After a long day at of classes, there's nothing better than coming home to relax with nature. Gardening well is hard work, but it's easier than the farming I grew up with. Sure, it's not 635 acres, but it's my little bit of heaven.






This weekend I spied a mature Broad-Winged Hawk atop a Mammoth Russian Sunflower. I finally realized he was investigating the 6' Black Racer that was entangled in some erosion netting. I got the snake out, but the hawk missed his dinner. I would have gotten a picture, but my hands were full with the racer. What a pungent smell he emitted. Defense mechanism?







Maybe the hawk was checking out the landscaping I finished before the trip the Salt Lake City. I should have locked the Jacuzzi spa while we were out of town. It seems some teenagers had a "party" in it while we were gone :( How upset would you be if you found vomit in your spa? Spinal Tap thoughts of "11" on a scale of 1 to 10 come to mind. I guarantee the spa has been sanitized beyond factory standards since our return.



Holly couldn't wait to check out the new bird bath, though she thinks it's her private watering hole.







It's a shame that the red hot pokers were gone by the time of this posting, but I had to let you see how well they grow in the humidity of Kentucky.

e-Learning DevCon 2006 opened my eyes

As UofL is offering a new course called Emerging Technologies, I thought it a smart idea to join the wife for this eye-opening experience into the future of eLearning. We flew to Salt Lake City for the August 7-9 e-Learning DevCon2006 hosted by Rapid Intake. I was lucky to walk away from one of the evening drawings with a copy of the new FlashForm Rapid eLearning Studio. That almost balanced out the cost of the round-trip flight from Louisville.

Brent Schlenker was energizing, presenting "Learning 2.0 - The Revolution Has Begun", that highlighted all the things we can do NOW...FREE. He discussed Blogs, starting a WIKI, downloading an RSS aggregator, Podcasting and VideoCast. His insight into the youth culture and future employees (my high school pupils) was mind-blowing when it came to Second Life and similar virtual realities. It's a shame a family emergency resulted in his early departure. Brent maintains the Corporate Learning Development blog - elearndev.blogspot.com. Great personality, great guy. I hope you search out Brent. He has tremendous ideas.

More later on the wonderful people and sessions presented at this great conference.

Welcome all Life Long Learners!

I welcome feedback and discussion of future technology integration projects as I attempt to enrich my courses with the newest tools looming on the horizon of the education spectrum.

Throughout the next few months, I will be integrating several new technologies in my daily teachings with high school students. I am currently busy creating these educational materials:

• Core Content for online courses (Humanities and Vocal Music)
• iMovie videos to enhance core content
  
• GarageBand recordings of vocal warmups and vocal repertiore
• Podcasting of lectures
• PowerPoint presentations with custom animations
  
• Vlogs