Another Spool Sewing bird softie

Here are more birds that I made following the spool sewing pattern.  I used felt for the body and cotton fabric for the underside.  I embroidered the front and added a bead for the eye.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some mini birds that will make nice ornaments. I made poinsettia flowers using oyster stitches and french knots.

 

Half eaten gingerbread man ornaments

I made these gingerbread ornaments from felt, using Elsie Marley’s pattern/instructions at http://elsiemarley.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/pattern-for-a-half-eaten-gingerbread-man/

Thanks for the inspiration, Elsie!

 

Softies trio

To give you an idea of scale, my hubby photographed my first three softies together. Note that the dog sits on a standard pin cushion.

 

Bird softie

Using the free pattern from Spool Sewing, I created this softie from felt and embellished it with embroidery. The inspiration for the stitching came from Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray.

This is my first bird softie and is unfinished (still open at the top) because I’m considering sewing a ribbon hanger at the top and adding a satin-stitched or seed bead eye. When it is done, I’ll post the photo on the Flickr Spool Bird Softies group.

I am also considering making Christmas-themed birds with holiday embroidery on it. If you have ideas, please post a comment and share! I am an embroidery and softie novice and appreciate any ideas/advice.

 

Mini dog softie

I just bought a book on softies that is fantastic: Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals by Therese Laskey

This book is loaded with great ideas and I made my second softie following the dog pattern and embellished it with embroidery. I took the idea for the eye from the rabbit doll in Laskey’s book – it includes a seed bead.

 

Owl Softie

An avid cross-stitcher, I recently started learning embroidery and am loving it! I learned from two great books:

Stitch-It Kit by Jenny Hart and Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray.

Hart’s book is a great starter with a lot of nice transfer patterns, starter supplies, and towels.

Ray’s book is inspiring – I was inspired to create my first softie:

Owl softie

 

Interested in Teaching Online or Using Laulima (Sakai)?

KapCC has created a self-paced online course for faculty who wish to teach online using Laulima. This is also appropriate for faculty interested in enhancing their face-to-face courses with Laulima. There are many helpful resources for those teaching with technology including resources that will save time and effort in course development. More information about this online professional development opportunity is available at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~maryh/DE/DEProgram.html

Anyone who completes the entire sequence will be awarded a Distance Learning/Laulima Professional Development Program certificate. Some faculty have been able to get CE units from their professional associations/organizations with this certificate.

At KapCC, we will enhance this online resource with a face-to-face workshop on how to get started in the course and Laulima, as well as monthly Laulima support sessions. These events are open to faculty/staff from any UH system school. To see a list of KapCC sessions, go to http://makahiki.kcc.hawaii.edu/wks/

 

Why Do I Teach? Part II of III

Why Do I Teach? My Three Cs: Creativity, Control, and Connection

Control

I am a recovering control freak and moving from the face to face classroom to an online environment has done much to help my recovery.

In the traditional face to face classroom, one can enjoy a sense of control over nearly everything that occurs in that environment.  I’d plan every lesson, practice my lectures with slide shows, design prescriptive hands-on activities, group students into small easy-to-monitor units, and try to anticipate questions or problems.  I loved being master of my ship, setting and stating the common course and goals, steering the students toward those goals.

When I moved to teaching online, I found my planning skills to be very useful in designing effective course environments.  I planned activities to foster a sense of community among my students and in my graduate classes, this really challenged my controlling tendencies.  While a lot of communication and collaboration was occurring in the online environment, I could sense that students were so well-connected with each other that they were getting together, helping each other learn, and solving peers technical problems off line.  Students are among the best learning resources for the online teacher and by surrendering controlling tendencies, I could successfully leverage these rich resources to make my class more effective.  Students now want to take my classes, not just to learn new skills, but to connect with new people!

 

Why I Teach Part I of III (Creativity)

Why Do I Teach? My Three Cs: Creativity, Control, and Connection

My dad loves math so much that he used to teach advanced courses at a local high school for free. It was his vocation; what paid the bills is his job as a geophysicist. I became a teacher because I love computer science and information technology so much that I feel compelled to share that with others. My mission is to show others how to improve the quality of their personal and professional lives with technology, whether they are students, teachers, secretaries, health workers, managers, or leaders.

I have been described as a classic type-A personality, quirky, anal retentive, and notoriously efficient. Programming and teaching since the early 1980s, I have come to the realization that my love of teaching is based on three elements that exist in most of my classrooms (physical or virtual): creativity, control, and connection.

Creativity
Academic freedom gives me creative license to use any methods I can dream up to effectively teach my students. When teaching the Java programming language, I use graphic models rather than the traditional mathematical models and have built a problem-based course around an arcade game. When teaching pre-service teachers about computers in education, I set up a social network which allows them to experience this tool so many of their own students embrace as part of life. I have geek-speak-free classes during which my computer science students must use metaphors to explain complex concepts.

 

Private Social Networking in a Distance Learning Course

Why Consider Social Networking in A Distance Learning Course?

A social networking site makes a great supplement to a traditional online class. It is an very effective tool for facilitating relationships among students and development of a learning community.

Since many students and teachers are put off by the dangers and horror stories told about popular social networking sites like MySpace, a private social network can be created for course purposes.

Distance learning instructors can create a safe social network site and leverage the informal and communal nature of the technology to enhance their online courses. One simple but powerful tool is offered free of charge by Ning.com; many faculty are using Ning to establish social networks restricted only to students in a class. Most course management systems like WebCT, Moodle, and Sakai permit linking the course website to a Ning site, so students can enter the social network from within the course website.

What Are the Benefits?

Students who feel connected to classmates are less likely to drop out of class when challenges arise and are more likely to seek assistance and support from their peers. As a professor of pre-service and in-service teachers, I have found that private social networks allow current and future teachers to go beyond the purely academic and abstract understandings of the social networking phenomenon. My students can safely experience a social network without concerns for privacy and fear of negative responses to personal disclosures. Their feedback has been entirely positive; they appreciate the opportunity to actually engage in a phenomenon that most of their students and children engage in regularly. It may also be a stepping stone to future engagement in public social networks.