So I’m really happy with all my amazing plans for the year and so far everything is going well. Only I am definitely having to be very effective with my time management. The workload and stress is slowly starting to build!

Work Plans

The Computer Science students so far seem to be responding well to the new, interactive course design.

I have made a bunch of YouTube tutorials (not finished yet) and have a number of subscribers, some are my students and some are complete strangers. It’s really exciting for me to have complete strangers ask for my help and value my response!

My students are responding really well to lesson blogging and often turn up to class having already completed the lessons activities!! That level of interest and enthusiasm is fantastic! Even if it does make it a little awkward to teach something they have already gone ahead and done for themselves! (Still have to teach it, because there’s also a large percent of students who don’t work ahead..surprise surprise).

OneNote proved a lot more challenging to get setup and syncing properly than anticipated, but almost the whole class has got it going now (I have learned a few lessons and in future years I will know what not to do!) I am yet to form an opinion on whether or not it is successful, as we have only just got the syncing sorted.

My workload in general has bumped up to 0.95 which financially, is awesome! I gained a new bus driving role this year.
With the study on the side, I am freaking out a bit about how much time there is in each day!

Study Plans

The course with Udacity, all online, is brilliantly designed. It’s very interesting content and the short videos supported by quizzes are very engaging. The fact that you immediately have to learn to apply the knowledge you have just gained is very effective in reinforcing your understanding of the concept. I wish I had the time and technology to do this with my own course..I don’t, so I will just make do.

I’m really loving the Udacity stuff, but even so there is such a huge volume of content, that I am very glad its only running for 5 more weeks!!

My course at UTas started a week ago, and while it doesn’t have the huge volume of work that Udacity does, it certainly does require time and brain power. I am hoping that I have finished my Udacity stuff before my big UTas assignments. The topics so far are really interesting, and I am currently working on the module about ‘synchronous and asynchronous discussion and community’. We’re starting to get some pretty interesting comments on the discussion forum.

Travel Plans

In the few breaks I have had from work and study I am finally sorting out all the details of my Europe Trip.

Flights to/from The Netherlands has been sorted for a while now, and I have been looking at how to split up my time over the four weeks.

The plans include:

• An awesome wedding!!!
• A four day family holiday with mum’s side of the family
• A one day family event with dad’s side of the family
• I have booked a 5 day Barcelona Trip (at this stage I’ll be going by myself..but who knows if someone decides to join me at the last minute?!) I will have 2 full days and two half days in which I want to explore Barcelona. I’d love to see a heap of the Gaudi architecture: Park Guell; Sagrada Familia; La Pedrera; and Casa Battlo, perhaps taking a cooking class, go see some flamenco dancing, maybe visit the Picasso museum etc etc. I also have booked a full day trip to visit the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, and his beach house at Port Lligat.
  Salvador Dali is an artist…you have probably seen pictures of his melting clocks…
• Mum and I are probably also going to spend a few days in Belgium checking out Brussels and Bruges..since its only a short train trip, I’m sure we can go exploring for a few days.
• I haven’t told her yet but I would really love to take my sister-in-law to the theme park we used to frequent as kids: The Efteling. It’s not amazing for rides, but it is a bit of a traditional dutch children’s theme park, and I have so many childhood memories of visits there. I’d also like to show her around the area a bit, places we grew up, spent time.
• I’d also like to spend some time in a few Dutch cities that I haven’t spent a great deal of time in. First on my list is Utrecht, maybe Leiden and Maastricht. That’s as far as I have gotten so far..

So all in all, the year is off to a good start, but I am certainly starting to feel the pressure from the amount of study I have taken on. Please keep your fingers crossed for me, that I can keep up with the workload!!