Busy day today! I caught up on classmate postings and started my paper. I am more than half way done, but it is so hard for me to write any more . . . so sick of doing papers!

My time wasting consisted of doing some of my favorite Sunday day things . . .watching CBS Sunday Morning, cooking something in the crock pot, reading the NY Times online, checking out anything that seems interesting online. Today I explored some how-to You Tube videos on how to carve a pumpkin in 3-D. I think I can do it! I watched some Thai chefs create roses out of gourds and melons - so beautiful! Since I have studied roses for 20 years and painted them for 10, I think I can really do this. I need to acquire the proper tools and found some online. I also found a guy that does an extraordinary job of carving a face into a pumpkin. His name is John Argevine and he posted a series of videos demonstrating his techniques. So cool . . . next year I am going to go at it and just carve - skip the patterns!

Also, to feed the creative side, I checked out Rapid e-Learning blog and discovered some cool tips when using PowerPoint. I can save PowerPoint as a flash file and pull it into Captivate and all the animation is done! I want to test this and see how this pulls into our learning management system at the hospital. We use HealthStream, but have not purchased the SCORM file integration nor have we bought the new web application to build course content.  I think our e-learning would be better received if we stepped up our content and interactivity.

As for my practicum progress, I cannot read 15 articles and write the bibliography when I have to read 5 chapters, write a paper, do the DQ's, and post 2xday for 4 days out of the week. It is too much! I will need to pick away at it during the week, but at least I am exploring the e-learning resources on how to create the quizzing content using Captivate and PPT. I spent a half hour on that tonight.