Isolation 3

Monday 30 Mar
Technically the first day of our school holidays today. I cleared my school emails, listened to a podcast on Learning Space design and had a good browse through the Modern Learners Community chat. One of the questions that came up a lot for me today was 'what do you mean by learning?' Not a consensus on this, but I think the main thing is that learning is experienced through the senses. So much of what we need to do while we are in this weird situation is to look at learning differently. We can't just transfer what we were doing at school to an online environment. This blog really resonated with me. We need to be looking at wellbeing and learning about ourselves and what is going on. I know that this will guide me over the next few weeks.
Had a great zoom chat with a colleague this morning. It was nice to talk about all things education and how we are dealing with this situation. We had a good discussion around access and equality, it certainly is not an equal playing field for our students. I found out today there was thing called Social Data, where they can have access to social apps, but not anything else. Is this a way to get through to some of our ākonga? We talked about how to grow our self-directed learners. She suggested I watch Jamie Oliver's 20 years of Naked Chef (I missed this the other night), and we talked about how being self directed doesn't mean there is no input, we are never isolated, but it's about how that looks. How do we move parents to this stage of letting their tamariki be self directed learners? Are parents expecting us to send home worksheets and tell them what to do every minute of the school day? We need to let children play and not be directed. This will make a difference to how they cope with things down the track. What could school really look like? It os worksheets and tasks given out? Should school be only an hour or two each day with specific instruction and then have the rest of the time to explore, to play? It takes me back to a book I read a while ago "Lifelong Kindergarten" and how play is so important. We don't have worksheets when we start a ob, learning is not a worksheet even though many parents will think that is what is needed in this time of lockdown. How do we change this? So many questions. One main one - what are the problems that need to be solved now? So many things to think about!
I managed to clean out the shelves with all my spices and herbs on today. Well that was an eye opener!! I threw out a few things with dates that were just a few years ago! Maybe the Best Before dtae of 2007 is just a little bit too long to hold onto something. It's even before we moved to this house, so I obviously didn't clean out very well when we moved either. Also found the box shown here - been in the family for just a few years - anyone else remember this!? It even had the original bottles in it - now that's pushing it. That box is probably a collectors item now.
I was a bit tearful over a FB post by a friend, talking about our sense of honesty and our growing into strong women. It really hit home for me and made me realise how much we can influence people just from being real. I'm enjoying sharing my time with others and to be honest, it's actually about me just getting my thoughts into some semblance of order, rather than needing others to read this. I am OK if no-one does, but if it helps someone else, that's great.
More work on the latest jigsaw, a bit of reading and some social chat rounded out the day for today. Just remembered - Daylight Saving ends this Sunday.

Tuesday 31 Mar
Last day of March. Wow - where did that go?
I wanted to take part in the Bear hunt project - placing a bear in your window for those walking to find. Our place is up a long drive so I had to improvise a bit as you can't see our windows form the street - Teddy may get a bit wet, or even stolen, but it's worth a try for a day or three.
I found out last night that Ancestry was available through my local library. I haven't got a sub with Ancestry and getting to the library to use it has been a bit of a problem time-wise, so to get home access is awesome. I think there will be a fair bit of genealogy going on over the next 2 weeks. The library has access to a few sites normally but I have specific things I want to search for in Ancestry so now's the time. It's taking me a bit to get my head back into the tree, but I love it and it certainly uses up the time!
Watched some great YouTube clips by our kaiako today. A couple of them have made YouTube Channels which is a great idea to get some content across to ākonga. I have added my channel to the mix and put a new page on my site for these. I haven't put much up on my channel for a while, but there are still some theory sessions for those who want them.
Having the sun out today was great, time to get out into the garden and managed to fill the green bin ready for the rubbish at the end of the week. I need to empty one of my compost bins which will give me more space for garden rubbish as well.
Still managing to get through lots on my list each day - important to make sure I don't just sit around all day - although I could be convinced that researching my family tree isn't sitting around :)
Finished another jigsaw today - Wasgij number 7 done and dusted.

Wednesday 1 Apr
It's April Fool's day. Someone said they sort of wished that Covid19 was a cruel April Fool's Day prank. I think we could all understand that thought. There was a great meme on FB with Jacinda telling us it was an April Fool's joke - we wish...
I had an interesting day today. Lots of different things going on.
I went to the doctor today to get my flu vaccine - I am in the early group that needs this, due to my cancer a few years ago. It was an interesting experience, driving on the very quiet streets, even just driving was an experience. I had to wait in my car until they could see me, and then it was a very interesting experience, keeping distance from others. I feel for all those working in health at the moment, they are doing an amazing job.
I had a couple of really good chats online,with my daughter and with a colleague. I don't know what I would do without that contact. It's so important to actually see people online. I am concerned for those that do not have that ability to access internet or a device - how do we solve this issue? I was talking to my daughter today about the questions we need solving and how to solve them. It's a real issue and I am sure there are some amazing minds out there to solve a lot of what we have to deal with. We just have to find them!
I spent some time out in the garden again today but really was struggling to get my head around the day. I felt a bit removed from people and felt that life was a wee bit difficult today. I don't know how long this will continue, but I know that life will not be the same while we are on lockdown - it's hard. I don;t know if it will be the same after lockdown either - things will change. I hope that people will support each other and make sure that their loved ones are safe and in a good frame of mind at this time. I worry about so many people.
It's hard to do my course homework for week 3 - it's random acts of kindness, which is not so easy when you are at home with one person! However, I am still managing it so far :)
I made tomato sauce today - made soup a few days ago and the amount of tomatoes in the garden, plus some from my nephew have meant a huge amount of cooking going on! It's great though - I'll keep some aside for others once we get out of lockdown.
I do love the sports news at the moment, watching how people are doing their sports training, it's been entertaining. I have been trying to keep fit and keeping the weight off that I have lost over summer - long may it last.
Loving the videos of my great niece that keep coming in - hope all is well up there in Auckland.
April it is. Stay home. Stay safe.