Writing Webliography

URL	Site Name	Highlights
OWL	The Purdue Online Writing Lab	Comprehensive online writing resource.
Bedford Guide	The Bedford Guide for College Writers	Do not need to own this textbook to utilize this site. It offers writing resources and quizzes.
Guide to Grammar & Writing	Guide to Grammar and Writing: Capital Community College	Comprehensive online writing resource.
Daily Grammar Blog	Daily Grammar Blog	Blog gives a daily grammar rule with examples.
Grammar Girl	Grammar Girl: Quick & Dirty Tricks	Complex grammar rules and are made simple.
OED	Oxford English Dictionary	Meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words.
Merriam-Webster	The Merriam-Webster Dictionary	An online dictionary.
Roget's Thesaurus	Roget’s Thesaurus	An online thesaurus.
APA	American Psychological Association	APA Formatting Guidelines.
APA	APA Style Blog	APA Formatting Guidelines.
Citation Generator	Son of Citation Machine	Citation machine that offers in-text and reference citations.
Citation Generator	Citation Builder	Citation machine that offers reference citations and allows students to notice the differences with each format.
Citation Generator	KnightCite	Citation machine that offers reference citations and details multimedia sources.
Free Scholarly Journals	Oxford Journals	Open access to more than 100 scholarly journals.

Happy fliptMOMS' Day!

My favorite Mother's Day gift is actually that oh-so-sweet breakfast-in-bed made entirely by our loving keikis.

And it's not my favorite gift because our kiddos were thoughtful or creative or early risers. It's not even because I was able to sleep a little longer and not take breakfast orders, clean the dishes, and help all of the above get ready for church.

For me, the over-sugared oatmeal and diluted coffee is oh-so-sweet and wonderful because it shows the early signs of self-reliance in our children.

When they first tie their shoelaces without our help, I see signs of independence. 

And we do a little dance. 

When they wake up, make their beds, get dressed, and begin school on their own, I see signs of self-sufficiency.

And we do a little dance.

When they make me a Mother’s Day breakfast that is vegan and gluten-free and then sing me a self-created Mother’s Day song, I know our kiddos are well on their way to being self-possessed, confident, and creative individuals.

And we all do a little dance together.

"To find yourself, think for yourself." Socrates

Happy fliptMOMS' Day!  

Back to the office

One of us fliptmoms is headed back to the work-a-day lifestyle- suiting up and showing up 40 hours a week on campus. And it's me. I haven't worked a full time job at the office for over 15 years. And even then it was only for 6 months.

Here goes... I'll be working for a local private university to help them launch an online doctorate degree.

What I'm not looking forward to:

• Higher gas bill. More pollution.  
• Less time with my children. More guilt.
• Less time in my garden. More weeds.
• Earlier mornings. More bitchin' and moanin'.

What I am looking forward to:

• Listening to books on Audible during the commute. More time to read!
• Doing the job itself. More creativity and productivity!
• Working with my new colleagues. More socializing, less social media!
• Getting out of the house more often. More showers!

So, now our blog may have more to offer for more parents- stay-at-home, work-from-home and work-at-work parents. Wish me luck in this transition.

the fliptmom neurosis

An irrefutable constant about me is that I love to read. The only challenge I've ever seen to that fundamental has been the recent disruption of social media, and even that is mostly an interactive form of reading.

I also love to take ownership over those gems I come across when I read by flagging them for later. As a teacher this habit is useful and makes it easier for me to cross reference with students in the online classroom- unlike the face to face superstars, an online teacher has the luxury of looking up that "tip of the tongue" example that is just so apropo. 

I also have a three year old boy. And my bookmarking flags look like this:

So more than half the time I find them stuck to my son and all over the floor like this:

I laughed the first time. Then realized he had not pulled them out of the package but out of my dang book! I've hidden them in drawers, started putting them up high. But I still occasionally end up leaving them out next to a book and coming back to find the inevitable.

As flags should be, these are highly symbolic for what my children have been doing to my brain. For my reading habits, I make wise choices, I use the tools available, I establish good routines. Yet, this little guy doesn't care. Not because he's heartless but because he has no idea I exist beyond his reach... and hey, look! sticky colors!

In his wake, I lost my cool. my collected wisdom. my place.

And the neurosis sets in. 

Asking stupid questions. Why did you do this? Why can't I just read and mark my pages? Why can't I have anything???  

Pondering inconvenient truths. These flags are all wasted now. They're really a waste to begin with. Is this sustainable?

Listing the inconveniences. Now I've got to clean this mess up. Pick these up. And read this entire book over!

Reporting the injury. He got into my dang flags again. I had just finished re-marking this new edition. How much money have we wasted on them now?

Broadcasting the banality. This might make a good blog post. It's perfect for fliptmoms. I'll have to put some flags on the little guy and take a pic. *serendipity interceded and no staging was necessary. 

Rich content microblogging

I just learned something new on Twitter!

Using Slideshare, you can embed a full presentation into one tweet.

I have seen pictures and videos embedded, but this is the first time I had seen a slide presentation embedded, and it was from my own tweet. I uploaded a presentation onto Slideshare this morning, and used their Twitter link to share it. When I went to view it on my Twitter feed, I saw that the slide presentation is embedded in the tweet itself.

I find this exciting because so many people say that social media networks like Twitter only allow for snippets of learning or may be damaging to our attention spans. I think this is a legitimate concern, but I have found participating in Professional Learning Networks through these outlets to be quite edifying. I follow links to in-depth articles, I view informative or inspiring videos, and now I see that traditional forms of presentation adapt well to microblogging as well.

There are limitations with Slideshare. For example, only the most traditional forms of image + text do well in that format. I like to use animations and non-traditional layouts for live presentations, and this doesn't translate well for Slideshare. But there is a time and place for quick tidbits of info that your audience may find useful and slides offer a more engaging way to present some material than just blogging.

I plan to keep this in mind as an alternative to some of my blogging. I can start picturing PowerPoint as another blogging and microblogging tool through the use of Slideshare.

The Rainbow Inside Her

I sobbed uncontrollably when a developmental pediatrician told me our 6-year old daughter may never go to college. In front of a nursing student, the doctor told me it was okay to mourn the loss of the child we thought we would have. She then advised me to consider genetic testing if we were going to have more children. If I had my wits about me, I would have said, “Why? To ensure that we do not have another child like her? How dare you!”

After a minor mêlée with depression, I picked myself up and did what any over-educated parent would do – got a second opinion.

As the impressive pediatric neurologist from Johns Hopkins walked in the room, I guiltily hoped this doctor would disagree with that heartless pediatrician, tell me our child would outgrow all challenges, and successfully graduate from college one day. Instead he said the following, “If I could predict the future, then I would quit my job and go on Oprah.” Oddly, this ambivalent and noncommittal comment gave me hope.

Yet, the depression arrived again, but this time it was not because I worried about our child’s future. This time it was because I had allowed my intellectual prejudices to define and limit her happiness by academic victory alone.

Our daughter did not talk until she was four because she had an expressive and receptive language disorder, yet she is now a voracious reader and a competent speller. She has a processing disorder, and yet she can play the piano and do long division. These remarkable successes impress me as I watch her overcome significant cognitive challenges that are out of her control.

However, what inspires me the most about our daughter is the kaleidoscope of colors that radiate from her soul. She befriends and hugs the watermelons in our garden. She sings to narrate her daily activities, and the melodies are rhythmic and jubilant. She remembers everyone’s birthday because it is a joyous occasion for them. Typically, she accepts the big stuff in life casually and the little stuff intensely.

The rainbow inside our daughter brings me pleasure and joy, but sadly, it does not sufficiently remove my fears about her future. What I have discovered and will rediscover as our journey continues is that our daughter carries hope, faith, and courage inside her; they are the rays of her rainbow heart.

And I need to remove the labels from my mind and support her imaginative spirit and prevent the world (and myself) from inhibiting and restructuring her variegated path. E.E. Cummings said that “it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are,” and I must give her the sun and rain to do so.

Flexibility & Security

The two of us fliptmoms have found work as adjunct online faculty to help us support the stay and work from home lifestyle with our kids. And we appreciate this opportunity.

However, there are many downsides to being adjunct faculty with any university, public, private, for-profit, on campus or online. Namely, no benefits and little job security. 

One reason I decided to pursue my PhD after teaching for 10 years with a Master's degree was so I could find a tenure-track position and move beyond adjunct. I graduated with my PhD two years ago, and I have not found a tenure-track position yet. There are many discussions in higher education forums that point to a decline in tenure-track faculty and growing numbers of adjunct faculty. Universities are taking a WalMart approach to employment in keeping them part-time and temporary. 

You can read an interesting collection of essays on this topic in Academic Apartheid: Waging the Adjunct War. This collection of essays addresses the question: What does it mean for higher education when an individual in the fast food industry makes more per hour than an adjunct who holds three degrees?

Part of shaping a fliptmoms lifestyle has included facing this struggle between flexibility and security. As the security of my husband's job starts to look shakier, I am now seeking out full time work with benefits. Whereas the flexibility of being home with the kids was our first priority when we had health care through his work, my mind is now shifting towards job security and benefits as first priority. If having affordable health care weren't inextricably tied to full time employment, my husband and I might be more steadily working on launching our own business and both working from home as our back-up plan instead of scrambling to find another employer. In some ways, it makes me feel like a coward, and in others I feel it is my duty as a mother to be sure the kids have economic security and access to health care.

This is a tough transition, but I am glad I feel prepared for it and that I've put so much time and energy into re-tooling myself for the job market over the last several years. I also feel lucky to have these choices that may not have been available to parents in past generations.