Food For Thought

As I sat on the couch with my computer browsing screencasting videos on YouTube, my daughter sat next to me with her own computer.  She was much more interested in what was playing on my screen, however.

"What are you doing mama?" she asked in her sweet little voice.

I explained to her that I had to find videos for my class that showed good, better, and best examples of a screencast.  I don't think she was quite sure what that meant, but she didn't care - she was much more interested in what was on the videos I was watching.

"What are they doing?" she leaned in closer to see.

I was looking for screencasts on how to screencast with Snagit - something that would be helpful in completing my next assignment.  As I told her about the program she began to squirm in her seat.

"Can I do that?" her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

She about fell over when I told her that she could indeed download the program onto her own computer.  I know exactly what she was thinking.  She watched "how-to's" on YouTube all the time.  I could already see her envisioning the videos she could make for others to watch.  As I leaned over to show her, my son piped up from across the room (he was on his computer playing his favorite game, Total War).

"What?  What is she putting on her computer?"  he asked, indigent he wasn't getting it on his.

I reassured him that we could put it on his also, but made sure to set the guidelines.  Of course, my daughter kept getting an error message and it wouldn't download the program, which led to a meltdown, which you definitely don't want to hear about lol

Anyway, as all of this was going on, I was thinking that my children and I have our own springboard for a Personal Learning Network here in our house.  We all have this growing passion for learning about technology.  I have the ability to begin teaching them how to expand their communication and networking skills so they can expand their own personal learning networks (actually, they could probably teach me a thing or two about networking).  My son is one of those kids who is definitely all about choice, so learning through PLN's would be perfect for him. Definitely food for thought.