Week 46 - In Aura of New Technology.......

My wonderful mlearning course came to an end on Friday and I will miss being a student!!  I have always loved studying from when I was a child and just enjoy the process of learning something new.  This way, my life is always interesting and full of new experiences!!

I created an 'Aura' (interactive experience featuring an animation, video, or image) on Aurasma, an Augmented Reality site for the first time. I struggled a bit at first with this new cutting-edge technology.  I was an Augmented Reality newbie, and I tried my best, but it involved a little bit of determination and tenacity to get to grips with it. If you join the site and then follow JanetBianchini you can see my auras!!  An 'aura' is an overlay on a trigger = image. 

I learned that Aurasma is already being used in educational projects in schools and here is an interesting review of it by Edudemic.  

If you download the Argos catalogue app, you will be able to view some of its products in AR format. 





Link: http://www.aurasma.com/news/argos-launches-aurasma-powered-augmented-reality-in-app/

Early in the week, I created an action plan for implementing mlearning in my future teaching projects.

 

I had to create an Augmented Reality video farewell and below is the 'trigger' image I created with simple MS Word shapes.  I printed it out, put it on blue card, and then embellished the card with hearts, diamante buttons and pearls to make it something eye-catching and memorable!!

I even got Fluffy hooked on AR and this is his 'trigger' picture:

 

K was curious about the Aurasma site and promptly created an account and started playing around with it.  He has already created some amazing 3-D models, which move around, and the results in static pictures are below:

I was online quite a lot and I was checking that my webcam worked when I took this 'selfie' test screenshot.  I then edited it with Picasa tools!



Leaf Mulch
Now changing the subject completely (and getting back down to reality!), this week I have been collecting leaves, and leaves and even more leaves to make nice friable leaf mulch for spring!!  


I created a set of labels to add to old recycled compost bags and spent hours going round the garden with my tub and gloves.  We have an incredible amount of leaves all over the place, so I think I won't have to buy much compost next year!  I experimented with Word Art.

..and here are the labels on the compost sacks!!  I hope to add even more sacks full of leaves in the coming days.  They will then be left alone and forgotten until early spring 2015.  I will add the mulch around olive trees and my veggie plot.  This time I am cutting all the leaves up finely before adding them to the sacks, adding a bit of compost on top and then adding water to give them a great start.  This is something practical I learned from my 'Backyard Composting' book!

Also we have had a bumper crop of apples this year and I have been collecting them and will need to continue turning them into jams, purees, compotes, stews etc. to put in the freezer.

Finally, this week sees the end of my EVO Moderator Training session and it has been a great experience.  I have been commenting on some of the proposals for next year, and there is an impressive line-up in store, including Teaching Pronunciation, Using Minecraft and so on!!  All sessions need to be approved before they go 'live' in January.  I hope to attend the final webinar this afternoon.

That's it for now.  It's been an action-packed week, and I am ready for Week 47!!

Week 39 - all go in the garden!

 

This tiny toad was spotted in one of my pots and I had to take a photo of it.  It is so camouflaged that it is not easy

to see it.  Behind it an old owl tea light holder that lost one of its legs, now reclines against the wall watching over the plant pot.  Lots of lavendar cuttings surround the toad.

My compost bin is getting filled with spent veggie plants, especially the tomatoes, which are almost finished now.  I chop up the stems as finely as possible as it makes it easier to degrade.  

 

There must be thousands if not millions (not sure if I am now exaggerating here) of creepie crawlies in the compost bin underneath the new additions and I hate to see the mass moving and swaying together with a gentle whirring noise as they all get down to doing what they do... 

I use this plastic container to put my chopped bits when I am preparing food, and then it goes straight to the compost bin on a daily basis.   Used tea bags, celery leaves, end bits of peppers, onion peelings, lemon rinds, everything that can be composted goes in!

Leaves are beginning to fall so I am carefully picking them up and adding to old compost sacks with holes in them to make nice, firiable leaf mulch for the spring.

Below a sleeping cat lying in my rockery area!!! 

This fig tree was growing way out of hand and so I have pruned it back and it now looks much neater!

An elephant bench in the shade of the fig tree

I sometimes come here to sit and view the lovely countryside below...

Rosemary bush growing rampantly.  There is more than enough here to use in all my cooking!

This bay leaf tree got cut in half during a windy storm and we thought we had lost it, but is is now growing back very nicely.  I think I need to reshape it by cutting off all the offshoots at the bottom of the tree.

Roll on Week 40!!!

Week 38 - jobs in the garden

I woke up unusually early on Monday and just caught this beautiful sunrise from the balcony. It turned out to be a very nice day and I got lots of gardening done, inbetween popping into the wikis, blogs and forum posts on the online course I am currently moderating.

I caught this kitten red-handed lying in one of the nesting boxes in the chicken pen!  Luckily Freddy wasn't around, otherwise there may have been a problem......

Lots more potting and repotting and planting of bulbs and generally tidying up in the orchard.  I try to give the fruit trees a boost by clearing away weeds, and then adding fresh compost around the trunk of the tree such as this olive tree: 

Pear tree below:
 

We have quite a few trees, comprising of plums, peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, almonds, cherries, so it is a big job, and of course the 90 olive trees.  I can only tackle the smaller trees as it would take forever to spring clean all of them!

My cucumbers are still growing and this morning I made a cucumber and celery soup for supper tonight..

The peppers are also coming along nicely and I am picking them daily.

I have 5 tomato plants of a different variety growing very closely together at the back of the veggie plot. I made a mistake planting them so close together as they have now evolved into a huge mass with all 5 plants intertwined and linked and so they are too squashed and not enough light is getting to the fruits.  Mea culpa!!

The 'rockery' area is coming along well and I have interspersed false flowers amongst the sedum cuttings to give it more colour whilst the cuttings are growing.  A lot of weeds abound and it is a constant job removing them!

 

 A sedum cutting doing incredibly well below.

Below an 'Aloa Vera' plant growing really well from a cutting.  I used a part of its liquid sap to heal a cut on my hand and the effect was almost instant, with the balm soothing the pain very quickly.  I am happy to use what is in the garden as natural remedies....  One things though, this plant has very spiky edges and I have to be very careful when I am near it !!
 

Finally, for a bit of fun I created a certificate from a free online certificate maker that I had come across via Twitter a week or so ago.  Hard to believe I arrived in Madrid 35 years ago, ready to start teaching EFL at the Briam Instituto.  Where have the years gone?  How have I evolved as a teacher in all these years?  Do I still have what it takes to be an effective teacher?  Has my way of teaching evolved over these years?  I think I can answer yes to these soul-searching questions!!  I sometimes wonder how would my life have been different if British Airways had accepted my application to be a flight attendant....

Roll on Week 39!!

Week 37 - Time for planting bulbs..

I thought I was over the worst on Sunday and had had a good day, but Sunday night was sleepless and full of coughing, and I woke up on Monday feeling quite rough, so I had to finally admit defeat, and off I went to the doctor's in Civitaquana.  The very nice and sympathetic temporary female doctor listened to my breathing and looked down my throuat and told me I had a chest infection, and laryngitis.  She prescribed a course of strong antibiotics and I duly starting taking them.  This week has been full of restful periods, but also I have been trying to get to grips with a new online course and system.  Because I was still feeling under the weather, it was a bit of a struggle at times, but I think I managed to keep up with everything, thank goodness.

Inbetween working, my focus has been on planting bulbs!  I bought over 100 bulbs in the local supermarket and decided I would get them planted as soon as possible.

The bulbs included special trays, and I thought it would be good to see how they work out and so I treated myself to not just one but three trays of mixed colours and varieties.
 

 Below two of the planted up pots with green meshing and an ornamental cockerel on top of them to keep the cats away!

 Two curious kittens looking on...

This Fluffy look-alike kitten below in an old paint pot looks quite cute!  He seemed quite happy to be in there.  Maybe we should name him Max after the Max Meyer paint pot!

I also started repotting plants, and taking cuttings of sedum, which always 'takes' beautifully.

I gathered lots of fruit, including plums, grapes, apples, pears and figs and then made lots of bowls of fresh fruit salads for puddings, with icecream.

Finally, to finish off this post, an image of a souvenir of a San Gabriele souvenir jug I bought for my beloved grandmother many years ago, and which I was able to keep after she passed away.  I now keep it in the kitchen and put my basil in it....

The past couple of weeks have been very quiet, but I am now finally looking forward to being back to my normal self, ready for Week 38!
 

Week 35 - Sunflowers & Produce

 

A warm and sunny welcome back awaited me with the sight of some gigantic sunflowers in the garden!  I decided I wanted to enjoy their sunny presence in the house, so I managed to chop the huge stems down in order to get to the flower heads.  Next year I plan to plant a whole area full of sunflowers.

This week was spent in getting my veggie plot back on track.  A lot of produce is now reaching the end of the season, but we still have plenty to eat, which is good news.

I made some fig jam from the freshly picked fruit.  I couldn't resist eating quite a few straight from the fig tree!!  They were absolutely delicious.  Below the figs bubbling merrily away just before the setting point....

Freshly picked celery below waiting to be chopped up to add to the pasta sauce.

 A collection of freshly picked crops including some potatoes, onions, courgettes & tomatoes. This year all the tomatoes came from seed and they are cherry tomatoes.  I think I will buy plants to grow from the market next year, as these are a little bit too small to make too many jars of sauce.

 I couldn't decide which pics to add so have added all of them!

We also have tons of apples and pears and I will have to start jarring them up for the winter to use in puddings.

A lovely week back in Abruzzo with plenty to do around the home and garden.  Next week the weather is set to change for the worse with a lot of rain predicted coming from Eastern Europe.

Let's see what Week 36 has in store.........