The #tiefit perspective

         I've really enjoyed my participation in the #tiefit group this winter. As many of you are aware (because I say it every time I share on this topic), it's #notmylearningproject, but my activity in the group has enabled me to make so many valuable connections in my real #learningproject, #tieyoga.
         One of the things I really enjoyed about getting out and getting active as part of this group was just having the time outdoors; forcing myself out had such a positive impact on my energy and my emotional well being. I frequently paused on my walks to take pictures of the many views I enjoyed, along with the occasional selfie, knowing that building my image library would be considered resourceful by some (including this digital citizen right here).
         Today as I was looking through the photos, I wondered how I might use them, and decided to throw together a little video. I've used Youtube's video editor several times now, and I keep going back to it. After playing on Vimeo a bit, trying iMovie and having had experience with iMovie Trailer, I find myself defaulting to #videoeditor. I've also experimented with Explain Everything with success--and I can see that I have so much left to learn with Explain Everything, having barely scratched the surface. For today's purpose and my looming deadlines, however, Youtube's video editor is the answer. I appreciate its simplicity and accessibility. Some would argue it's too simple, with limited options around sound editing and image editing, but sometimes less is better. I already spend far too long on my blog posts and I could spend days editing photos and videos; the limitations, as it turns out, are a good thing.
         I realize the video falls to this side of corny, but the message is authentic--I appreciated stopping to smell the roses these last three months; I am the first to say I don't do it nearly enough. I could have also created a video to evidence the many impressive neighbourly connections I made on my walks--it seemed I regularly bumped into old friends, long lost soccer parents, and my kids' friends. Extending beyond the familiar faces, however, I became very cognizant of the benefit of just connecting with people--saying hello to fellow dog owners, commenting to a passerby about the beautiful day, or laughing about a seal popping up and back under the water. No matter what my emotional or physical state of affairs was when I stepped out the door, I never returned home cranky.

         Ultimately, #tiefit has energized me these last many weeks and made me easier to live with. I am looking forward to continued steps and benefits in the months to come. I hope you enjoy my little video.  Step on #tiefit peeps!

Stretching My Practice #tieyoga

Okay, it’s off to the races. I’m trying a new strategy tonight: blogging in 45 minutes or less. Since my last #tieyoga post and revised plan for regular practice via Haiku Deck, I have had more success with my #learningproject.  I've been more regularly practicing yoga and trying to focus on poses that will support the 5 key postures I identified as targets to improve on. 

Several key factors have contributed positively to my improved yoga practice over the course of this last week.  First and foremost, my Accountability Log, the log of accountability, my #tieyoga journal; it allows for a concrete view of my success (or shortcomings). I leave the Accountability Log  open on my computer (it’s just a basic word document) and as I log out of my yoga site, I open the document and plug in the date, the name of the video I used, running time, yogi’s name, and how it went.  Bam.  Done. And I know it’s there waiting for me on days I’m not so inclined to practice, which often (not always) kicks me in the general direction of the yoga mat.

 My motivation for practicing yoga at home has climbed to a more positive place; I think it’s because I am actually noticing some improvement in my flexibility…What? WHAAAT??? Yes, that’s right, increased flexibility.  That’s a good hook for me. I noticed a similar phenomenon with my #tiefit participation (the #notmylearningproject fitbit thing).  I am feeling so incredibly good with all my #tiefit walking, that I am currently getting out every day. I don’t want to miss a single day. I have set personal goals, such as nothing less than 10 km a day, 12 000 steps minimum as a daily total and walking to/from work at least twice a week.  While the #tiefit community drew me in, it’s now my own progress and improvement that is propelling me forward. Bingo.

Photo Credit: Bikram Yoga Westshore

Lastly, I follow my local yoga studio, Bikram YogaWestshore, on Twitter and Facebook and recently they shared these 3 photos to emphasize the progress we can make with regular practice over a fairly short amount of time.

Photo Credit: Bikram Yoga Westshore

Photo Credit: Bikram Yoga Westshore

 These photos inspired me to use some of the photos I started my project with, along with some I've taken more recently, in a different way.  I plan to create similar “collage” pics as a way to compare my own growth in my 5 targeted postures. It’s one thing to feel you've improved, but it’s quite another to see you've improved.  I’m excited to see what my #tieyoga growth looks like as I move through these weeks and weeks of practice. It is inspiring to me to see the personal improvements in these pictures over the course of one, two or three months!








It turns out that #tieyoga is alive and well when, a week ago, I thought it might have crashed and burned altogether. It’s challenging to have to figure out my own obstacles to learning and problem solve ways around them without other learners who are working on a similar thing. Many of our #tiegrad group are working on #learningprojects, but the projects are all so different.  Seeking out support from  my peers can be helpful when I am simply looking for a new strategy for my own project or trying to overcome a specific obstacle, but sometimes just to get going you need a buddy who is working on the same thing. Being part of a team is a huge part of our #tiefit success. Being a lone yogi at home has been my greatest #tieyoga challenge. 

In light of my recent shift, I’m now wondering if pursuing this #learningproject on my own is going to make success taste all the sweeter. We shall see….but for now, Namaste.

PS:  30 minutes for the writing. Pics & video took a little longer though.

Being More Open…

There was some discussion on the importance of being open in our EDCI 569 discussion this week.  It comes on the tails of an interesting Twitter thread that I saw this week and this tweet by @ChrisWejr:

I’ve been inspired by the idea of openness and what it means for me in my own reflective practice, and those words of Chris Wejr, encouraging us to share our attempts, our mistakes, our “doing”. It’s a “walk the talk”-“be the change” kind of philosophy, one I always believed I embraced. In reflecting, however, I know I can do better, be more consistent, and be more aware. It takes time and effort, yes, and as someone who has little time or energy these days, it would be easy to fire off my excuses. I want to do my best and be my best though and live what I preach to my own kids and students; you have to take risks, make mistakes, and reflect in life if you want to grow and maximize who you are as an individual. In my mind, living this way is indicative of true engagement in one's own life.

As part of my move to walk the talk, I am sharing out my #tiefitbit activity for this week.  Like my fellow fitbitter, @ThorneSD35, I am competitive, as much with myself as with anybody else, and I’m finding this #tiegrad group of fitbitters to be extremely motivating. I had a successful week this week and, as best I could, recorded my 10000 steps efforts via my iphone through pictures and video.  I was quick to put out a first video, really with the intention of taunting my fellow fittbitters, and that was successful overall (as a video, not necessarily as a taunt!).  My next cluster of videos and photos sat on my phone for the week and I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to use them. As I loaded some of the videos onto youtube, a few of them loaded upside down. I searched how to correct this, I came upon: “How to Flip or Rotate a Video” which provided me with two methods, depending on my needs. I used the youtube method and, voila, discovered a whole new dimension of editing on youtube! Excitement ensued! I used the “enhancements” tool to, not only rotate my upside-down videos, but also to “auto-fix” them. How sweet is that??  But that wasn’t all…While I was waiting for my video changes to save, I noted an option I hadn’t seen before:  “Combine multiple clips and publish new videos. Try the YouTube Video Editor” .  Well, um, okay?

So, another new venture:  combining and editing my videos using the Youtube Video Editor. I hoped it would be a quick experiment, and generally it wasn’t hard to learn, but midway through my creative process I started getting error messages and, upon further explanation read that it can sometimes take 30 minutes for the errors to get sorted out. This was somewhat frustrating, but, as the message communicated, things seemed to right themselves within about 30 minutes.  I liked how easy it was to drag my videos and photos into the video creator and insert transitions between them.  I didn't like the music choices youtube offers; some sounded ridiculously cheesy and many others just sounded like bad-movie instrumentals. For this project, however, I just chose something random that, to my ears at least, sounded tolerable. I really would like to learn more about using music in my visual creations and, on a side note, have a whole bunch of drafted bits and pieces for a copyright blog I am writing. But that's a different blog, for another day...not today.

In the end, I had success, overall.  I didn't manage to effectively capture my 9:30-10:30 pm walk about the neighbourhood after class last Thursday, but otherwise the video does summarize the gist of my week as I tried to achieve my daily 10 000 steps and keep up with my cohort fitbitters.  

My learning successes:

1. I did it—I made a video using the youtube editor
2. It successfully presents my fitbit activity for the week (and, in many ways for the month)
3. I was able to include videos, pictures and music in the video
4. I problem solved successfully (rotating videos, adding music to a video) 
5. I am sharing it out

My learning areas needing improvement and/or more time:  

1.  Fading music in and out of a video;  regardless of my attempts to problem solve this one, I did not figure it out
2. Including more variation in images (ie. Less selfies)
3. Consider a shorter video…I think this runs a little long. 
4. Figure out if I can add music that is more to my taste and allows me to be a little more creative on that front.

In summary, this week I am proud to share that I did learn and what I learned.  I’m walking the talk and I’m feeling good about it!  Next up?  My #tieyoga attempt to video document some of my learning process through my online yoga practice. Maybe I’ll vlog it out.