Picking my head up from my computer after over an hour of checking RSS feeds, checking Tweets, exploring technology tools for the classroom, and posting to my blog...I looked across the room to my two teenage children also glued to their computers. And I definitely had a moment of, "Oh my goodness, is this what we have become?!" But then I realized, over the course of that hour, my son had collaborated with his sister to create an inn on their Minecraft world, designed and placed the landscaping around his capital city and, best of all, created the "Library of Grace" for me (see picture below).
While my budding architect was busy building worlds, my daughter worked on composing music on the piano in her GarageBand program. She also wrote two poems and is very interested in checking out Storybird for herself. During the time we sat here, there were several, "Hey, check this out" from different sections of the room while each of us got excited about sharing what we created. And there were even times when they overheard a video link I was checking out and were interested enough to ask what I was watching. They especially liked the video of the 7th grader using Symbaloo . So, while our "family time" today was a bit different than our rousing game of Life the other night, we were still spending time together, creating and learning....and we have lots to show my husband when he gets home from work!