I am feeling a little overwhelmed right now. Despite the fact that I have a four-day weekend ahead when I know I will be able to spend time working on a paper, Moodle screencast, and my video, I am in the midst of one of those crazy weeks that included a whole day out of the office on Monday and a 3-hour meeting in Charlottesville on Thursday that manages to take up the whole day. First of all, I hate being out of the office on Mondays; it really just messes up the whole week. I had to shift media center hours to Tuesday so then I didn’t have that free either. EEK! Meanwhile, the paper is writing itself in my head and is to the point where I need to get the words on paper. I know exactly what I’m going to do for the screencast, too, especially now that I discovered I can record audio along with video in SnapZPro. As for the video, I’ve stalled out on the soundtrack. Decided to use public domain sheet music, but just need time to tinker and record.

What have I learned about my learning? I need big chunks of time to really dig into things. And this week, all I’ve got is an hour here or there. Not enough time to even boot up the computer. I know, if I just had a morning to myself, the paper would be done. Another morning and the screencasts would be published. With them out of the way, I could spend the rest of the weekend working on my movie. But, Friday seems a long way away. One strategy I am developing is to always have a book, magazine, or newspaper (mostly Education Week) nearby that I can read in those short time spans. Makes me feel productive and helps ease my anxiety a little bit.

As for my learning contract, I am working away at it even if I’m not working on the video. Watched Nanook of the North, which I will discuss in a separate post. Starting to flesh out the wiki for the Media Center and hope to hack away at that today.