What an exhausting weekend I had, it was filled with some sickness and tiredness.
I was really excited about my next learning project and piled up all the necessary materials already, so I might be done early this week. But sometimes things turn around in a different way.

Last Friday, my daughter woke up in the middle of the night with her stomach upset and felt like she has nausea. I made some herbal tea with mint/cinnamon, and ginger, and thought to take her for welkin clinic in the morning. You might be thinking, I’m a herbalist, absolutely not, I heard these home remedies from my parents. My daughter didn’t throw up but had a painful night. I was glad she started to feel better next day, but guess what, I had another sad news that one of my friends brother passed away, so Sunday got occupied for the condolences purposes, as weekend is the flexible option to adjust some extra tasks.
That was the story of my hectic weekend. I couldn’t manage to complete my, this week’s learning project, but I will work on it next week. It was kind of a short weekend for me as I had a class for Saturday.
It was my plan to do embroidery on my casual dress trouser, but it didn’t work out.

I didn’t start anything yet, just collected my supplies, hopefully I will work on it for my next week learning project.

As I mentioned in my previous blog to work on my second pillowcase embroidery next week, so, I completed it using the same material,  I mentioned in my previous blog. I had a plan to use a different digital app or at least a different template to show my work, but I couldn’t find any specific one, hopefully for my next blog.  I simply completed my pillow case embroidery and attached some screenshots below.

There’s a slight difference in having Stem stitch for my recent work because I wanted to try in a different way. As I didn’t use any actual video demonstration without using a template, so I thought to try uploading my video for today’s project. I tried, but no luck this time. I will try again for my next learning project. Though, my pillow case embroidery was time taking, comparatively to my earlier learning projects, but  it wasn’t boring, I enjoyed it.

I mentioned in my very first blog about how to print your design by pricking  pattern and using some ink to shade your design. I was exploring some ideas for my future learning project, I found a video, it has a demonstration of how to print your design by pricking. The description can be found at the very last 8 minutes of the video.

Digital media and the use of technology has elevated our living in multiple ways; we can learn online, communicate easily, use multiple online resources to run our life by sitting home,… etc. It’s interesting how Michael Wesch in his video (An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube) describes the new culture of media as “……..the replication and the spreading of happiness……celebration of new forms of empowerment ……a celebration of new and unimagined possibilities.”
He further described “….media is not the content, media is not just the tool of community, I think the media mediates human relationships and when media stops human relationships stops.”
There’s no doubt that media & technology brought people closer by eliminating the distance barriers.

In regards to the use of digital tools in my future classroom, I would say it’s inevitable. In the digital world, I will try to promote digital learning as much as possible because its fun to learn via technology. There are different learning apps kids use to improve literacy, reading, math’s by using Raz kids, Mathletics, Epic or any other learning apps. I observed that kids enjoy learning through any digital apps.

Another good point is that, It’s convenient to reach out to parents using digital tools; Edsby/ Seesaw or through any other digital apps, approved by their school division.

Epic

Mathletics

Edsby 

SeeSaw 

(hyperlinked in MS)

These days, we can’t ignore the importance of including digital learning, but we have to be aware of the challenges we can come across. I believe we’re one global community, but it requires a big responsibility for how to use it properly. In my opinion, each parent/adult needs to teach their kids about some healthy boundaries and safety concerns. If we teach our kids about digital boundaries and a responsible use of media, it can be helpful to keep balance in our life.
Toni Bates in his open textbook, Teaching in a Digital Age talks about how to keep balance in the digital age. In the topic,  About the book and how to use it,  he explains about the use of technology as, “It’s about helping your students to develop the knowledge and skills they will need; not so much digital skills but thinking and knowledge that will bring them success in a digital age.”

(Book Title & the title page was linked using MS)

It’s time to take my next step in learning about hand embroidery. Following a period of reflection, I decided to create some floral designs as I wanted to learn about how to stitch simple flowers. I selected the video for some guidance after browsing on you tube.

I chose a few stitches because I wanted to stitch them on my kitchen towel. I used multicolored/tie dye thread that complimented my cloth.

After drawing a few flowers, I started to follow instructions provided in the video.
The flower patterns were woven rose stitch, daisy satin stitch and sunflower lazy daisy stitch. I used 5 strands multi-colored threads to make it colorful. I spent some time understanding each step before to get started. The cutest of all flowers was a rose for me but I enjoyed making daisy satin stitch. It was very quick to make and elegant after!