To blog or not to blog....?

To blog, of course! This semester has opened up a whole new world for me, and I'm enjoying it. Next Child was a great learning experience. I enjoyed the research, and writing the posts, but my true moment of triumph was when I was actually able to play with the CSS and modify my posts! Granted, I was following steps that a two-year-old could understand, but I was really delighted.

Over the semester, and especially with the work on Next Child, I feel that I have become comfortable in an area that I never would have been without this class. I can talk intelligibly about web 2.0 and blogging, and the word "rhetoric" has been popping up in my conversations at an alarming rate.

I never would have thought that a creative non-fiction class could look like ours did, but I am very glad it did. Thank you all for a great semester, and everyone for your help. Not only could I not have learned this without Donna, but I couldn't have learned it without the crowd wisdom of my classmates!

Expandable Post Summaries!

Ok, I'm sorry to Jake because he did mention this site as a bad blog, which, visually, it is. However, it's also really helpful if you can get past its garish design. Here's the exact link for the expandable post directions. They'll be on the pink side on the left. Follow the instructions CAREFULLY, and it should work out! The only downside is that I'm having to copy & re-post all my old posts to apply this to them, because it won't happen automatically. Not a big deal, though, because after doing this, you can just post-date them to the right days and they'll re-order themselves accordingly. Good luck!

Next Child progress

Thanks to everyone's input in class, I've made a few improvements to "Next Child," so if you have a second, please check it out and let me know what you think! (Especially about the new header) Also, I've e-mailed Donna about this, but if anyone else can help, I'm trying to find out how to shorten the post clips that my blog showed, like we talked about in class. I know it involves code, but I wasn't sure what... Thank you!

Next Child News!

Ok, it's up and running. I know it took a while, but I've got a few posts and a few pictures and links up, so feedback is great if anyone has the time. It's at wildcalling.blogspot.com, so take a look!

Progress & etc.

Life is crazy, isn't it? Just when you think you have everything together, you don't manage to show up to class...

BUT even if I can't get that straight, I do seem to be making more progress. Everywhere I turn I am finding more exciting sources to link my site to, and that is definitely going to be a little time consuming! (At least for me, as these processes still aren't intuitive). I've also been doing a lot of reading, so what I'm hoping to turn to this week is a little more of the actual writing.

I'm scared to admit this, but I'm scared to start posting on Next Child. It's such a clean slate right now. That is admittedly boring, but it is also rather flawless. I want it to be a better blog than this one, and I'm nervous about how to make it that way. So I've started practicing at home, on my non-internet-connected-computer (that way nothing sneaks online before I want it to!).

I want to be honest that I'm not a pro on this stuff, but I don't want to give so many disclaimers that no one thinks it is worth their time. I want to be a lot of things... but I've been enough of them for Tuesday.

Camping with Kids

I was reading through my old issues of Backpacker magazine (admittedly to do research on my upcoming September-long trip through the West...) when I found a section devoted to family issues. I'll blog a lot more of it on "Next Child..." but I wanted to share some highlights from their Sept '07 issue:

Age: 3-6 years:

"Unexpected challenge: getting your child to poop in the woods. Many kids this age will hold it as long as they can, rather than do their business without the cool, clean comfort of the porcelain throne. Obviously, this is not a good or healthy option...

Pack This: Headlamps for every child. If you don't, they'll beg for yours..."

I love the insight shared by people who have obviously been there and done that! With their help, the rest of the world can be a little more prepared.

BDS for Thursday

My "BDS" (read: Brief Daily Session) for today was not as productive as I would like for it to be. The internet is just so darned distracting... even when I'm trying to focus!

Be that as it may, I did find some good websites with directions for some of the projects that I want to blog about. I'd like to give directions during my blogs, too, but another resource is always helpful, and these sites will allow me to skimp on detailed descriptions when necessary. One in particular, on how to build a scale solar system is excellent- it does all of the necessary calculations for you. Even though I'd encourage older children to do these calculations themselves, or with help, it's nice to have a back up reference!

More Progress...

Today I've been working on topics to discuss. I'm excited to blog about different things that you can do outdoors with kids- a lot of these things are projects that my mother did with my sister and me, and some are new ones I've been finding. Eventually I hope to try most of them to give detailed reports on the blog about my tips and how they work, but obviously that won't be possible for all of them... here's a sneak preview of activities:

1. Gardening (of course!)
2. Learning about xylem and phloem by dying celery, Queen Anne's Lace, etc...
3. Making a solar system to scale in the backyard/ball field/wherever.
4. Making your own compass with only what you could find in the woods. (Dirt & sticks)
5. Camping, including kid-friendly backpacking food & gear.
6. Field identification.
7. Studying pond scum.

I'm aiming to provide lots of details to make these & other ideas as user-friendly as possible. Tips, criticism, and suggestions appreciated!

Progress

Today I spent time looking for pictures to illustrate my blog title. Lauren's blogs always look so professional, so I'm hoping to make mine that way too!

Unfortunately, the picture that I found and fell in love with is copyrighted, so I've sent an e-mail to the photographer asking permission to use it. Otherwise I'm going to have to get busy with my own camera and see what I can come up with...

Also, I've been compiling "nature oriented" activities to do with kids so that I can start blogging about them soon, complete with detailed descriptions of the activities. Most of them are ones that I remember from my childhood, but some are new, and all of them are benefiting from some detailed revision.

Finally, I've decided on a blog name. Juanita suggested that I use some of Richard Louv's language to come up with a name, and so I did. For better or for worse, it's going to be "Next Child in the Woods."

Research

My weekend went something like this:

Saturday night: Went out to steak house for dinner, and of course had about 12 lbs of leftover beef.

Sunday morning: Decided to enjoy steak & eggs, but had no eggs.

Late Sunday morning: Went to Hy-Vee to get eggs... walked in the door & saw mounds of loose Brach's candy. Impulsively scooped up a bag of milk caramels & husband announced that if I got caramels, he could get ice cream. Headed toward ice cream and noticed display of seed packets. Decided it was absolutely necessary to grow tomatoes, carrots, and beans this year...

Sunday afternoon: Played in the dirt.

Moral of the story: Compulsive shopping yields delightful afternoons? I'm not so sure if that's always how it works, but this time it was great. PLUS, it's good research. One great way for kids and adults to get involved in nature is to have a garden, even if it's a teeny-tiny suburban one, like mine.

Nomenclature, continued...

I know that I'm harping on this, but I feel it is really important. I'd like a title for my blog that indicates an appeal to being in/with nature, and I'd like for it to be provocative without being misleading or overly descriptive, aka Natureisgoodforchildrenanddultstooandherearsomeideasofhowtointeractwithitalongwithresearchthatsupportsmypoint.blogspot.com
You get the idea.

So, here is my only current idea, and I'm asking for responses to let me know if I'm on the right track, even just a tiny bit.

"Call of the Wild"

Too Jack London-ish? Too misleading? Too dull? Archaic? Sneaky? Tell me what you think...

What's in a name?

I've always believed there's quite a lot in one, really. That's what I'm struggling with right now. It's a minor hurdle, as far as hurdles go, but I don't want to start my blog until I've got the right name for it, and so far I haven't got one.

I know that I want the blog to center around the positive effects of nature on people, particularly on children, and on how to gain nature exposure. But within that realm, I'll be talking about adults, children, education, local topics, general topics, etc... and I'd like a name to encompass all of that. Or, if encompassing is too tall an order, I would like for it to be a connective link. Plus, I want it to be clever. But not too clever. Or punny. Even though punny can be good.

I'll keep thinking...

Web 2.0 in the News!

On the way home from Iowa I was listening to NPR, and imagine my surprise when I heard this story!

If you have a few extra minutes, it's interesting to listen to, but if you don't, I'll put it in a nutshell. Apparently Comcast was actually trying to block BitTorrent sharing and uploading with techniques they called "traffic-shaping." All of this info "hit the fan" last October, and this past week it was announced that Comcast and BitTorrent will be working together to ensure peer-to-peer file sharing activities can be conducted. The NPR story does a great job explaining some of the details in layman's terms for Luddites like myself.

Here's where things get really interesting, though. Not only was an arguably more "Web 1.0" company interfering with the success of a "Web 2.0" one, but it could also be argued that Web 2.0 is the reason this behavior has been corrected. According to Adam Theirer in an article I read, "The Internet community has the ability to closely monitor service providers and call them out when they make boneheaded moves. The power of collective pressure can keep providers in check." He and others think that it is this pressure that motivated Comcast to become a team player. The moral of the story? Don't mess with Web 2.0, or you may get more than you bargained for!

Spring Thinking

As usual, I did not achieve the things I'd hoped to over spring break. I have only myself to blame for my plans to overachieve and my capacity to underachieve. Here is what I had planned to do...

1. Clean house from top to bottom
2. Post a bunch of new blogs
3. Hem up towel scraps to donate to animal shelter
4. Rest
5. Spend time hiking
6. File taxes (I tend to procrastinate...)
7. Read ahead for all my classes
8. Visit friends in Iowa

and here is what I achieved:

1. Did a few dishes
2. Posted no new blogs
3. Broke sewing machine needle on first towel
4. Got sick
5. Took two great hikes at Three Creeks Conservation Area
6. Filed taxes
7. Did not read... for classes
8. Not only visited friends, but also got lost in Iowa and discovered the American Gothic House & its accompanying museum, hence the picture.

So it wasn't a total loss.

Also while in Iowa, I had a great opportunity to talk to my friend TJ about education. He's getting his masters in teaching, and while we were there, the local paper ran a front page story about best and worst high schools in Iowa. Unfortunately, the school he has been teaching in was the second-to-worst in the state.

We spent time talking about why that is, and his frustrations teaching there. The conversation ranged from a lack of teacher and parent expectations (TJ has been reprimanded for putting application questions on his tests, as multiple choice ones seem to be preferred in this school), to lack of student engagement. Why aren't they interested? Why don't they care? What would help?

Although when we left, TJ was still dangerously teetering on the edge of leaving the teaching world for good, and we hadn't answered our own questions, we had started asking them, and I got a chance to think a little bit more about my topic.

Progress? Maybe not astronomical, but I engaged my brain cells for at least a portion of the week on a topic that I found relevant, so I'll take it.

Going to Extremes

It is hard to find any sort of balance in life. I am an avid subscriber to the pendulum theory: the idea that society has a tendency to swing back and forth between extremes, rather than settling for a happy medium. I honestly don't know if we can ever change that, but change begins on an individual basis, so it's worth a shot.

Keeping in line with the pendulum, much of what I find in research tends toward extremist views. To some, living a healthy life with exposure to nature requires living in an area best accessed by helicopters (except helicopters are evil), with no access to, dependency upon, or interaction with the outside world. Others perpetrate the belief that nature is outdated and we may as well accept the virtual world as the new reality and not worry about these things at all.

I'm hoping (in reality, and with my planned blog) to land somewhere in the middle. I want to live a life that is conscious of nature, appreciating it and caring for it as best as possible. On my own, I might develop a more extreme vision of what this means, but thankfully (as I mentioned to Donna today) I'm married to a Wii-addicted, internet-poker-playing, tech-loving math geek. He won't let me swing too far.

Projected Finality...?

As I attempt to progress toward my final project, I am experiencing some difficulty. I started off with the idea of discussing the idea of living sustainably, becoming a compassionate carnivore, hobby farming, and the like. All fine and good.

But the more I research this, the more I realize that it is not my primary motivation toward living such a lifestyle. My children are. They are also hypothetical, but that doesn't stop me from thinking ahead...

Books like Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods," call attention to an issue that I think about a lot. Kids just aren't spending the time in nature that they used to.

Not everyone thinks that is such a bad thing. Our society is changing. Indoors, children have access to things that their great-grandparents would never have dreamed of, all through the internet. They have video games, television, and a myriad of distractions that are a normal part of life today. Read my previous post, and you'll see that I'm not rejecting all of that, but I am still concerned.

Researchers have begun to study the effects of nature on children. They have found that kids with ADD & ADHD experience significantly reduced symptoms after exposure to nature, and they are exploring the implications of these studies.

So... I've checked out a few books from the library, I put a bunch of bookmarks on my del.icio.us account, and I think I'm making progress.

Wii are busy...

Ok, the month of March is really getting to me, as my poor neglected blog can bear witness. My mother-in-law (she's a nice one!) decided it would be a good idea to celebrate Andy's birthday a little early. Not in and of itself a bad idea, but it was trouble! I was looking for a Wii, and I'd just lost a week in which to do so. Who knew it would be so hard???

Probably all of you. But I don't live in the world of video games. I don't even play video games. (Seriously. The first time I ever played one was when I was 20. I'm terrible at them.) So I spent the last week scouring every inch of Columbia, getting tips from small business owners and customers who overheard my plight, breaking speed limits and driving recklessly, only to see Wiis walking out the door in the hands of their proud new owners.

Finally I found one. I walked in, and there it was, under the glass counter in its little white box... surprisingly little for its ridiculous price tag. But Andy is turning twenty-seven and he's feeling a desperate need to reconnect with his childhood, and that is priceless. Right?

I have to admit, I've played it a little. I actually kicked Andy's butt bowling. I KO'd my boxing opponent in the first round. It's almost even fun... but I wasted a whole week finding it, so I'm determined not to waste this week playing it too! I think I'm back...

Happy Pi Day!

Not that there's a shortage of holidays this month. In my family we're celebrating my father's birthday, my husband's birthday, St. David's day, Pi day, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, etc. Pi day could easily be overlooked.

But today is 3/14. It's kind of like 3.14, which is awfully imprecise, but apparently good enough to celebrate. We're having chocolate cream pie and apple pie with friends, just because we can. So happy Pi day, everyone! More coming soon...

Five Mushrooms makes me hungry!

No that's not a typo, or a lousy attempt at Engrish. Five Mushrooms is the name of the wiki that I've finally decided to talk about! Check it out here. I've found a lot of wikis on topics that I'm interested in, but very few that I could endorse.

This one is a different story. It still seems to be a work in progress (follow the mushroom link to shitake, and there's no info), but that's a good thing. Wikis are works in progress, right?

The color scheme is basic and pleasing to the eye, with a simple brown bar at the top (recalling mushrooms?) and white background, with subtle advertisements on the right hand side, but my favorite aspect is the site's organization. Links are easily visible and accessible, and generally divided into food categories such as vegetables, fish, mushrooms, etc. Links under each of these categories lead to fivemushrooms.com, which is a culinary search engine extraordinaire!

Overall, I'm drawn to this wiki for its layout and topic, both of which I find appealing. Plus, it's got a great name. This is a wiki I could envision editing! (And yes, that's the sound of Donna cheering in the background...)

Wiki Woes

I've spent the better part of my free time today (only about an hour, but hey I don't have a lot of free time on Thursdays...) looking for a wiki that I like. Bad news- I'm having a really hard time finding any. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but my searches have yielded very few interesting results.

Google proved sketchy for specific wiki searches, so I turned to a few wiki providers like wet paint to search their pages. I tried searching for sustainable living, farming, goat farming, backpacking, etc, and I got a lot of hits, but what I found was a lot of pages with very little content. Many of the links on the pages led to nothing, few even had pictures, and content was a rare find. I don't know if they were all just very new, or whether they were just poorly maintained, but they were definitely disappointing.

I'm giving up for now. Wikipedia is the only wiki I've found that I like, and maybe that's my problem. I'm searching for wikis like I search for blogs, limiting my search to really specific topics. But with Wikipedia, I've found that its appeal is its far reaching capacity. Wikipedia doesn't specialize in any one thing: it has a little bit of everything. Is that just the nature of the wiki beast? I'm not sure. But that's all I'm going to get for today... more to come tomorrow!