I can hardly believe it. Well actually, that’s a bit dramatic. After figuring out the ins and outs of the machine, I knew I’d be able to figure out this relatively simple project in the sewing world. Here’s a time lapse of the whole process! Here’s the breakdown of how it went: First, I bought a pack of fabric. It came with 5 different floral styles. I also bought knit elastic, which I ended up having to cut in half…
I thoroughly enjoyed our last class and chance to hear Alan Levine share a little bit about the topic of open education (full disclosure – I typed “Adam Levine” at first and thought… wait a minute…). Prior to hearing him talk about it, I didn’t really know how to define it. I knew very little about it. I suppose I could have taken a good guess at what it was, but it was definitely a weak definition prior to our…
For anyone who has been following along as I attempt to learn this new skill, I would just like to apologize for the extremely minimal amount of progress it appears I have made in several weeks. I can imagine it is a bit painful to witness, as I update with the small amounts of progress I’m making, especially to any avid sewers. Yikes! Today, I sat down at the sewing machine, ready to check off the “to-dos” I had listed in my…
I am so pleased to be updating my learning project posts with some positive progress! After the whole “sewing machine not sewing” fiasco, I asked my mother-in-law to take a look at the machine and see if it was threaded right and even able to function properly as it is quite old. Was it broken? Was it missing a part? My MIL suggested I try a new needle because perhaps the old ones were either too dull or didn’t fit the…
This week’s class focused on social media activism and we were given several opportunities to consider and voice our opinions on the topic. My initial thoughts going into the presentation were: I do not share much of anything online. I am much more of a consumer than a producer of social media content. Must I go out of my comfort zone to start promoting social justice in online spaces? Do I believe in fighting for social justice and equity? Of…
An update on my “learn to sew” project: Spoiler alert, we haven’t gotten to the sewing. Yet. I do have some exciting (well, at least to me) progress to share though! To start off, I searched the internet high and low, manual by my side, and found these videos/people to be the most helpful in my first task, which was threading the machine. First, I found this video by MrEdSnapshot on YouTube. It was one of the only ones I…
This is a tough one for me. I’ll start off by saying that I am not an active Twitter user; in fact, I had to fire up my account from the ashes, which was untouched and unused, since my last Ed. Tech. class. I suppose my greatest challenge with this platform is that it is simply not an integral or routine part of my role as an educator. That being said, I know there is value in actively using Twitter…
For my social media platform exploration choice, I chose TikTok. As someone who regularly uses Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, I figured this was the logical choice. It’s the one app in this category that I feel just “makes sense” for me to check out, plus it’s definitely the app of choice among my grade 7 students. Becoming familiar with a culture they are immersed in can’t hurt in building relationships and connections! The first step was creating an account. I…
Welp, I did it. I completed step one of my learning plan. That is, I retrieved the sewing machine from its home in the corner of the closet. And then, I took it one step further – I took the machine out of the box. That’s enough for one day. But seriously, just doing this helped me to solidify a better plan. Because until I opened the box, I really had no idea what I was working with. So, here…
Years ago, when my grandma’s hands got too arthritic for her to be able to use her sewing machine anymore, she asked me if I wanted it. I think she asked me because I had already dabbled in some of her other hobbies (crochet and baking) and she figured that maybe I would take up sewing too. Unfortunately, her sewing machine is sitting in a box in my basement, the same place I put it when I brought it home…