A colleague of mine got me to set myself the goal of blogging today so here I am. I have been working on creating some online activities about communications for our middle school students. I am keen to make one of those an interactive one where students set up a google account, and encourage them to create a gmail address with a user name that doesn't make them sound as if they are some criminal in the making with a weird hobby! While I was at the gym I was trying to plan how to set this activity up and how I could do it in a learning platform and make it so that it wasn't linear and that there was a fair amount of choice in it.

Hot on the heels of the uLearn conference in Christchurch where, once again, the message was that our students are not linear learners, I am trying to create resources for students where they can learn in the way that mirrors the way that they think best. If I was still working in Montessori education it would be easier, I would need only a realistic context and purpose and the student would plan (with help and support where needed) their own learning path with their purpose and relevance clearly set out before they started.

Finding a balance between giving the students structure for their learning path and letting them choose and plan their own study is a fine line particularly as the students often don't know their own learning styles enough for them to know what or how much they need.

One of the most important things as an educator is that I keep on looking for this line with each and every student, an even harder thing when students are at a distance. But then if it was easy everyone would be doing it!

Today on what I consider to be almost fully a holiday day (that is hardly any school work to be done!) I reflect that while I have been doing housework chores and preparing to go away and baking etc etc, I have

• tweeted,
• updated my FB status,
• checked google maps,
• used metlink to check out bus timetables,
• used whitepages,
• updated my iphone
• been into a virtual world to have a 'clean up' (that was the work bit)
• skyped 3 different people
• blogged

Where would we be without computers, wi-fi and the Internet? I just can't imagine my life without these tools.

Interestingly enough in a recent survey one of my students commented that time in the virtual world could easily mean she would spend too much time on the computer and that wasn't a good thing.

How much time is too much time? How do we support students and parents to achieve an appropriate balance? What/how do we role model to them?

More questions than ideas or opinions today! But as colleague of mine recently reflected, its great being a learner and thats just what I am, definitely in this area, for sure!