Google Doodles for Brazil

Google has a number of Doodles specific to Brazil.  I stumbled over some of them today.  Here are a few of them.

Honoring Heitor Vila Lobos' 125th Birthday.

For Brasilia's Anniversary (and by Niemeyer and grandson)

Brazil wins 2016 Olympics

Discovery of Iguacu Falls

Festa Junina

The Beauty of Free Wi-Fi

The ultimate modern Holy Grail:  Free Wi-Fi access.  I stumbled across this pocket of it in a food court near my gate in Atlanta.  I thought, since I have the time, I would take a moment to post at the official beginning of this journey.

The first plane trip has been taken; we're waiting on the "big plane" now.  Fortunately, it's a night flight meaning it's okay to sleep through it and it won't tamper with the internal clock.  I can't wait to wake up in Brazil tomorrow.  To me, that is always a miracle.  It's one of the reasons I prefer to sleep on planes, too.  It makes that magic happen faster.

Other members of the group are already here.  We're going through the process of reattaching names with faces, eating a final meal before "plane food," working on presentations, charging up the devices.  Travel stuff.

Soon, the boarding will begin and we'll be ready for what comes next whatever that may be.  I can't wait to discover it.

Almost Time

It's only two days until trip time, and, of course, I have so much left to do that it seems the trip simply cannot come.  The big things, the passport and the visa, the necessary shots, new bits of luggage, are all taken care of. I even had to get a new netbook (which I'm typing on right now) because my old one died.  I think I have all the pieces; I just need to assemble them, make that bundle get in under the weight limit, and get to the airport.  If I can do that, then the adventure can begin.

And I am so very much ready for it to begin.  This process has been going on a full year now.  It's hard for me to realize that and how much I've learned and added to my teaching practice already because of it.  I can't begin to imagine what new information I will be able to get in Brazil.  How exciting to be going, and to be travelling for the reason that we are!  This is the ultimate in PD, I think.

Back to the non-packing.

About Time

I've been doing some tweaking here on the blog, and one of the things I did was to add a little countdown timer to my blog so I can keep track of just how long it is until we leave for Brazil.  You can see it over to the right.  If you'd like one, too, for whatever it is you happen to be anticipating, you can make one here and paste it into your blog following their instructions.  Easy-peasy.

The Joy of Google Maps

Love me some xkcd.

Yeah.  So.  Google Maps and I don't get along that well.  The blue dot and I frequently argue.  It likes to tease me, lead me astray, lead me down imaginary paths and leave me for dead in strange lands.  I have gotten lost rather famously trying to use it to get places in San Francisco, Rome, and other locales.  Recently, I got SO lost trying to use it in Tuscaloosa that a friend of mine had to come find me.  I just parked the car in a bank parking lot, told him Tuscaloosa wasn't that large and he knew it better than I did and to COME GET ME.  

It always starts out FINE.  I'm on the blue trail.  My dot is headed for the red dot.  I feel happy, getting that positive feedback technology gives us when we use it and it works.  Then something always goes awry.  The road dead-ends.  There is unexpected construction.  There are solar flares and Google's maps are all wonky (this was the explanation somebody offered me today).  

Privately, though, I think the little evil imps sit back and just wait for me to push that button, and then they high-five each other and say, "GAME ON."  They probably play rock-paper-scissors to decide whose turn it is to lead me on a merry dance this time.  Maybe it's like, I don't know, a company bonus?  

I did get back from the Smithsonian to the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel where we are having our TGC Global Symposium this evening, but I took a long, long, LONG walk through much of the Mall and other parts of DC to do it. Had it not been for a very nice gentleman in a guard booth who took pity on me and told me how to get around the block of the road that just ceased being there (really.  it wasn't me this time.  really.), I might be walking still.  Sigh.  Yeah.  Google Maps, you are not my friend.....

And So It Begins...

Starting another blog feels strange.  I have been keeping my private-public thoughts in another place for a long time, I guess maybe about seven years now.  This blog for my TGC journey will have a different feel, be yet another place to record what's happening during this extraordinary experience.

As is to be expected with any experience of mine, though, this one is starting out with me a bit behind, though.  I'm working to try to get the last of our latest installment of Capstone Project ready to send in for evaluation.  The Facebook group is lively tonight, and I suddenly don't feel as frustrated as I see that many of the others are in the same boat I'm in.

That's been one of the best parts of this project so far, the connectedness (not a word, but indulge me).  It's sort of incredible that this exists in any form, I think, too, because we are strewn all across the country.  I am the only teacher in Mississippi.  Others are probably similarly isolated.  Technology, that tool we spent so much time talking about in our online course, is the thing that is allowing us to collaborate and commiserate.  Every time I think about what it makes possible in my own professional life and what it can allow our students to do, I am just a little more humbled and enthusiastic, just a little more ready to get my hands on it and go.  Having just come out of a technology conference in Jackson last week, I guess I'm sort of double-dosing right now on the geekery.....

Only one more week until Washington.  I guess, though, if I'm to be ready for that, I need to stop writing here and actually get the Capstone things done.  Sigh.  Yeah.