What’s that outside my window?

I was working at home yesterday with the window open as it was a beautiful Spring day. I needed to leave the study for some reason and so went to close the window. As I pulled the window shut I looked down, and to my great surprise saw that Jurassic Park had come to call. There on the ground, looking up at me, was a one metre long dinosaur! Of course it wasn’t really a dinosaur but a very large lizard.

GouldMonitor2 500 Of course once I saw the dinosaur I immediately forgot whatever I had been intending to do (I still can’t remember) and rushed to grab my camera. However by the time I had picked it up our visitor ws strolling round the corner of the house. I flew into the next room only to see that the lizard had walked under the “gate” where there was a narrow gap and into the fenced back yard area behind the house! An opportunity not to be missed, so I headed rapidly outside camera at the ready.

GouldMonitor3 500Numerous pictures later it was time to chivvy our visitor back out of the back yard. A lizard that size living in the back garden is not to be contemplated – too risky for us and him/her.

GouldMonitor1 500Our visitor, by the way, was a “racehorse goanna” so called because of their speed when they decide to leave in a hurry. Otherwise known as a “Gould’s monitor” Varanus gouldii.  I take delight, daily that I live in such an exciting place with spectacularly coloured birds, dinosaurs and kangaroos outside my window. Yesterday’s visitor will definitely find a space on the “Hart Calendar for 2014” that we make every year from pictures taken around the house and block.

 

Edublogs webinar overviews Oct 2013

Introduction

Still running behind on webinar overviews. A digest of  our recent webinars over the last few weeks.

Fine Focus – Presenting with Blackboard Collaborate

As always this session was recorded. The session was our last webinar before the Reform Symposium Online Conference #RSCON #RSCON4 and so we decided to provide a further training/practise/question and answer opportunity for presenters/volunteers.

Serendipity 17/18 Oct 2013

In this recorded Serendipity session we talked about the recent Reform Symposium Conference #RSCON #RSCON4. We were a small group and all of us had had some involvement as participants or presenter/volunteer/organiser, so the session provided an opportunity for us to share our thoughts, reflections and ideas.

Fine Focus – “Tech Smackdown”

This was another recorded session the intention was a quick tech smackdown type share of some favourite tools/applications that save time or that we use with students but we ended up discussing a variety of: tried and tested tools, some previously used with students and some new that we plan to try. All in all a great session with many shared links.

Serendipity 31 Oct/1 Nov 2013

In this recorded Serendipity session our chosen topic was “Blended Learning”. We started with a discussion on our understanding of the term blended learning, moved on to share tools that have been part of our best blended learning experiences, considered some of the advantages, and ended with a brief look at how/why we choose tools and strategies for blended learning.

Conclusion

Once again I am finally up to date with posting webinar links. Sorry again for the short session descriptions.

Our Next Webinar

FineFocusSmallOur next webinar will be an Edublogs “FineFocus” session on Thursday Nov 7th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday Nov 8th at 7am West Aus, later in the  morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room.