Gobbilicious

I love Nathan at this age! He's just so cute I really could eat him up!

He's learning to talk, and almost every week sees new words being added to his vocabulary. Recently, he learnt about trucks.... except that because he can't say 't', it comes out right. He can't say 'd' properly either, so both 'truck' and 'duck' come out as 'kak'! (For the non-Afrikaans speakers, 'kak' is an Afrikaans swear word that means 'shit'. ROFL!) It's rather interesting to be driving along with him in the car, only to suddenly hear him shouting out as loud as he can: KAK! KAK! KAK! I wonder what other drivers think?

New things he's learnt recently:

• how to put a dvd into the dvd-player (seriously!)
• how to open the front gate by himself
• that standing on the lounge table gets a reaction from both parents
• that drawing on things with a black permanent marker also gets a reaction from both parents

Yup, he's a boy!

But he does have a tender side. He's started obliging and giving big MWAH kisses when I leave for work. Today we went for a picnic at Kirstenbosch, Graeme fell asleep on the picnic blanket. Nathan came and sat next to him, and gently stroked his head. Aahhh!!

Educational technology

For those who are not in the know (i.e. you aren't on the Christmas newsletter list, aren't on Facebook/ Twitter and don't email/ phone/ sms ... we still love you though!) I have a new responsibility at work. I have been given a reduced teaching timetable in order to pick up responsibility for educational technology.

This is a new post at the school, so I'm kind of figuring it out as I go. Essentially, the post has several key priorities - research the current educational technology (from clickers to making use of cell phones in school, to making use of Moodle or anything else vaguely related to schools and learning); creating a holistic & integrated approach for the implementation of EdTech at our school; training of staff in all & anything that will improve their job (i.e. learning how to use email or Excel, or Skype, or whatever).

It's a very exciting post, and I'm loving it already. Of course, as with any job, there are frustrations, but on balance, I think I'm really going to have a fun year. I get to play with gadgets and the web and stuff and call it work! Sigh! Such a hard life!!