My First Week at Grand Canyon University

The first week of my online school experience is down in the record books. In fact, we are half way through the second week. This makes me expert enough to chat with you right?

Maybe not...

I'm going to do it anyway. I love my school so far guys! It so far has been a wonderful experience. If this is any indication of how the rest of my program is going to go, I have nothing to worry about.

Gran Canyon (GCU) has so many resources to set students up for success. The level of student support is outstanding. Haven't been to school in a few years??? That doesn't matter. They have tutorials and webinars to help you with everything.

They have a dozen librarians on staff to help you utilize their large library to best meet your needs. Have no idea how to format a paper in APA or MLA format??? That doesn't matter... They have a tutorial and a template for you. Not sure if your Reference List is on point? Send it to a librarian for some advice.

I'm telling you, this University is amazing!

One of the best parts is, the accessibility. GCU uses an online platform called Loud Cloud. I was worried about this going in. There is no ap like there is with Canvas. I had never heard of it before. It was possible based on this, I was making a huge mistake right?

Wrong!

Up to this point, I have not experienced any issues at all with accessibility. Has there been a few minor hiccups? Sure, of course there has. Honestly though, that is to be expected with anything.

The faculty has been more than willing to help with anything I need. My teacher automatically offered to send me any class documents if I had issues finding something. She is very quick to respond to any questions I have about navigating the platform.

Grading...

It's still early, but this process has been fantastic. I have had experiences where you are waiting practically until the end of the quarter to receive a grade on a single assignment. This has not been like that at all. Don't quote me on this, but I believe GCU has a policy in place that gives teachers a four business day turn around on grading. This is a game-changer for me. I'm not going to lie. I get so stressed waiting for a final grade on an assignment some times.

I will leave this post here. I will explain more another day. If you are considering going back to school and you don't know where to go... I would absolutely encourage you to check out Grand Canyon University. They are a private school. There tuition is not much different than that of an in-state school. Check out some of their videos online, visit there website, or chat with an enrollment counselor. What have you got to lose? Nothing! That's what. You do have everything to gain. I promis you that.

Until next time friends

Volunteering At A Blind School

As most of you know, I was not born blind. Since I didn't go blind until basically adulthood, I have zero experience with blind children. I figured I should probably take care of that since I plan to get a teaching credential to be able to teach visually impaired students.

Where is the best place to do this you ask? Well my friends, let me tell you. I decided to start volunteering at a blind school. Great idea right?

So far, it has been a wonderful experience. I am loving it! I am learning so much and having so much fun in the process. All the staff are fantastic too.

It has been so interesting seeing how this works. I love watching the kids learn on an equal playing field. They don't have to fight to understand. The material is accessible and put in their hands in a way that best fits their needs. Accomodations are a part of every day life and totally normal. Technology is at their finger tips. The staff go above and beyond to give their students the best learning opportunities possible. It is beautiful.

I really love it here. Sometimes I wish I could volunteer more often. It is a great place to be.

I'm still not sure if I want to teach in a general ed school or a blind school, but I'm loving the process of sorting it all out.

Did You Miss Me? Me Too

So for the first time in ages, I am coming to you from my computer. Granted, at the moment I am on my old computer, but am on a computer nevertheless.


I have nursed this one for just about as long as I am going to be able to. I was able to get it to boot up today so that I could get all the word documents off and transfered to my newer one. I thought this mission was already accomplished. However, after looking through my email inside and out, frontwards and backwards... I realized I was wrong... unfortunately, dead wrong!

So, here I am...

I am getting very excited about getting back to work on an official capasity. It feels good to have a laptop on my... well... my lap. Okay, so that didn't sound as cool as I was hoping. You will forgive me right?

I know that in the past year I have really neglected this blog. I could spend countless sentences and endless words begging for your forgiveness, but I am not gonna do that. Do you want to know why??? Beacause it won't really matter!

What will matter is my promise and didcation that I still care about all of you. There has just been a lot going on with life that I can't disclose here. I am working hard to get back to the world of the living. As some of you may know, I have been trying to make myself seen again in the social media world. I am still hoping to get back to the land of Good Reads. That hasn't been difficult without a computer.

I also am well aware that I owe you some blog posts. I am in the middle of my series on my trip across the country to Florida. I am also going to be starting a series on blind traveling in general, blind dating, blindness in school and a blind technology section as well. As always I will be posting about my writing.

As mentioned before, I am going to be transferring the material from my other blog, over to this one. I think it will just be much easier for me to maintain one blog instead of two. Don't you agree? This will take a bit of time because I need to incoorporate the assistance of a seer. I will keep you posted on the development of this.

I will be slowly but surely uploading some of my more popular posts from there soon. Now that I can get to them that is. So, for those of you who have been loyal to bother blogs... sorry for the repeats, please bare with me.

I will be uploading some new videos to the You Tube channel soon too!

Are you as excited as I am? Okay, I know, you're probably not, but put on a brave face okay? Thanks.

Clandestine in audio book form is still in production. Yes, I know... you guys are ready and waiting. I am so sorry for the time it has taken to get it out to you. There has been some complications behind the scenes in the technical world, but I assure you it is coming very soon.

If any of you is good at creating wbsites... please send me a private message. I am looking for someone who can build me a spectacular, stupendous and out ragiously amazing web page. Of course, I should probably also mention that I am looking for someone that is willing to do this on either a volunteer or extremely cheap basis. If you are interested, or you know someone who is, get a hold of me via email or on Playing the Blind Card's Facebook page. The link to both can be found on this page.

Well, I have successfully rambled for long enough I think. I must get back to work transferring files. Thank you for allowing me to take a break with you.

PS... I noticed when I signed in that the blog is getting close to 60,000 page views!! Now all we gotta do is beaf up the ammount of people signed up to follow. Keep doing what you do and get the word out about the page. Remember, I couldn't do all this without you all. That being said, just know that you all rock and I love ya bunches.

As always... Look before you leap