Sonya Duke

A Little Fishy

2010-08-07T02:32:00.000-07:00

My dad took us fishing in Fairview Canyon July 4th weekend. We had such a good time. "lucky Liam" caught several fish. He caught a fish before anyone else had their poles ready!

What a blessing

2010-08-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

We blessed Cody on June 6, 2010. We had family and friends over for lunch afterward. This baby has been such a blessing to our family.

I am not a fan of getting my picture taken after just having a baby. But I was a good sport and took one for the team!

Held Captive!

2010-08-07T02:10:00.000-07:00

Liam and Riley are constantly kissing, cuddling, and admiring their baby brother. They even try to play with him. The other day I walked into the living room, Cody was in his swing with toy handcuffs on. Liam and Riley were playing that they were arresting him!

An Update

2010-08-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

Okay...so it has been almost a year since my last post. That's what being exhausted from being pregnant will do to you. Oh yeah...then being busy with a baby. Our sweet Cody Talan was born on March 28th, on his daddy's birthday. Funny he was born on Will's birthday because he looks exactly like Will's baby photos.

Cody is such a good baby. I've known since I was pregnant with him that he would be my little peacemaker (or was I simply wishing?) I love him so much and so do his brothers. Liam and Riley are constantly kissing, cuddling, and admiring their baby brother. They even try to play with him. The other day I walked into the living room, Cody was in his swing with toy handcuffs on. Liam and Riley were playing that they were arresting him!

I am proud to say that I am the mother of three boys. I love my boys...this includes their wonderful daddy!

Riley Turns 4!

2009-11-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

On August 29, 2009, our little Riley, "Riley Roo", or "Rooster" turned four years old. I love Riley so much. Riley has had a very strong personality from day one. He has always been either really happy or really mad, never in between! He makes us laugh and keeps us entertained. He has such a cute giggle and always says the funnies things. Will likes to call Riley "Rooster". I say it's because he is so loud!

We were having a hard time potty training Riley. He knew exactly what he needed to do, he is very smart. However, he is stubborn and does things when and how he wants! He finally decided the day he turned four that he was big enough to go potty on his own, and he didn't really have any accidents. All it took was for him to decide on his own!

For Riley's birthday we had a Thomas the Train party, of course! We had cousins and other family members over for cake and ice cream and let the kids do a pin-iota.

Happy Birthday Riley....you will always be very special to me and I know you will continue to make us laugh!

Riley Loves Trains!

2009-11-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

Riley has always loved trains. For the past 3 years his birthday has been a Thomas the Train themed birthday, because that is what he has wanted. He has about every character of Thomas the Train there is available.

This year for Riley's birthday we took him to ride the Heber Creeper. The Heber Creeper is a train that is stationed in Heber City and goes down the canyon, to Vivian Park and back. Jamie, Havalah, Zaria, and Sheldon joined Will, the kids and I on this ride. It was a beautiful ride.

Baby News!

2009-10-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late posting this announcement....but we are SO excited to have another baby! The night we announced this to the boys they were having a sleepover at Grandma Duke's house, because Will and I both had to work early the next morning. So we went up there and gave them each a present, a T-shirt. Liam's shirt had a picture of him on it that said, "Big....Big Brother!" Riley's shirt had a picture of him on it that said, "Big Brother!" They are excited for the baby and love their shirts! Grandma and Grandpa Duke were excited for the news as well!

The baby is due March 26th!

Living Planet Aquarium

2009-10-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Misty has two kids, about Liam and Riley's ages. We decided to go to the Living Planet Museum together. The museum is in Sandy. It has sharks, sting rays, corrals, an anaconda, an octopus, jellyfish, and all kinds of fish. We had a great time.

Days of '47 Rodeo

2009-10-30T07:53:00.001-07:00

During the summer one of our favorite things to do together is go to rodeos. The days of '47 rodeo is one of the most popular rodeos in Utah. We had a great time. Our favorite part was watching the monkey riding the dog, rounding up sheep!

Liam's Junior Rodeo

2009-10-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

This summer Liam, our future rodeo star, participated in a Junior Rodeo in Kamas, Utah. Liam did the muttin' bustin' event. Last year he was highly disappointed because his sheep did not move. This year Will promised Liam that his sheep would give him a good ride. So, after helping Liam onto his sheep Will gave it a little kick! The sheep did take off but still not long enough for LIam!

Liam is such a cute cowboy and I love him so much. He is an excellent horseman and often practices his roping skills with his dad. Liam is Will's little sidekick and will not let Will leave him out of any hunting trips or horse back rides.

As you can see from pictures, Riley is not as much as a cowboy as Liam is! Riley would rather be in the house playing with his train set. Riley melts my heart and his mommy's little sidekick. However, he completely admires his dad very much as well.

I love my family! We had a fun summer.

Yellowstone Trip

2009-07-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

We went on a trip to Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time. Liam, my little cowboy, enjoyed driving through all the cowboy towns. Riley was most excited about his bag of rocks he got from Yellowstone! My favorite part of the trip was being able to see several bears up close. It was neat to run into them. Will was stoked to see a wolf. We saw a lot of amazing animals such as buffalo, elk, bears, eagles, etc. We had fun swimming in the pool each evening. I got really sick the last two days of the trip. We had tickets to the Bar J Wranglers and I ended up leaving early and just slept in the motel room.

Life since graduation

2009-06-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to since graduation? I really haven't relaxed as much as I thought I would! But...I have been enjoying my extra time.

-I have been busy looking for a job in my field.
-I have been enjoying my family and given more hugs and kisses to my kids and to Will.
-I have been keeping up on my laundry!
-We have gone to the ranch.
-We have gone to Lagoon.
-I have been working in my yard.
-I have started a garden.
-I have gone on lots of jogs.
-I have taken my kids to the library.
-I have gone on leisurely rides in the truck with Will and the boys (something they have been doing without me).

What are my goals for this summer?:

-Get back into shape. (Graudate school about killed me....stress does bad things to your body!)
-Continue enjoying my family, giving lots of hugs and kisses.
-Continue working on my yard and garden.
-Go on some vacations.
-Organize my house.
-Relax a little!
-Continue looking for a job in my field.

Done with my masters degree!

2009-06-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to be completed with my masters degree. I'm glad I did it...glad I'm done! I have been looking forward to the day when I get to have a regular mommy blog. Graduation was amazing. I had the chance to relax at a resort for a couple of days with my family. I was also able to talk with some of my professors and with some of the friends I met while going to school. It was an amazing experience. I am proud of myself for finishing. I am glad my family still loves me, I have a very patient husband.

Design Journal Entry 19

2009-03-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Brice and I met yesterday and we produced the videos he created using Camtasia. We produced the videos into .swf files so they can be uploaded into an internet site. Brice did a great job on the video tutorials. They will be a great asset to the aviation course we are redesigning. They will provide a much more visual learning mode, much better than simply learning the information from the text. Our next task will be to create learning activities to have the students complete after they video the tutorials.

Design Journal Entry 16

2009-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

This week I have been researching the best software Brice and I should use for our video tutorials. We have used Jing and this was an easy way to create the videos, however we were restricted to just 5 minute videos. I asked Doug Holton, an instructional technology professor at USU, for his opinion of great software for creating video tutorials. He replied that he likes Camtasia, however it is an expensive program to use. I have used Camtasia in previous projects and really liked it. I also asked Andrew Walker, another instructional technology professor at USU, for his advice. He has created some great videos for the Flash class I am currently taking. I am waiting for his response.

Brice and I are contracted to complete two lessons of the AVAC 4200 course. We worked on the first lesson last semester. Last week Brice and I also discussed that there are a couple things unfinished from last semester. They were to create a test for the lesson and fix minor problems to our website. Brice has since created the exam. I suggested to Brice that we should submit our material to UVU's web people for them to add it to their website template. Brice was going to check regarding the preferred format for submission of the material.

For this semester we will be working on the other lesson we have been contracted to create. This week my job it to review the material and familiarize myself with it, then I can brainstorm with Brice some beneficial ways of teaching the material. Then we will discuss some learning activities.

Family Pictures

2008-12-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

We just recently got family pictures taken. It was freezing outside, but it was fun.

Enjoying a Break from School

2008-12-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

I made it through another semester!!! I cannot be more excited! Only one more to go! It's a good thing because I'm getting pretty burnt out. Tonight I decided to do something I enjoy with my kids...baking. I love to make cookies with my kids but haven't had the chance to do that for a while, because of school work.

I thoroughly enjoyed making gingerbread cookies with my kids. We had fun making little personalities with the gingerbread men. Riley wanted to make a gingerbread ice cream cone! Liam wanted to surprise Will with a gingerbread reindeer. We attempted a gingerbread house...it was very entertaining! I didn't include the picture of it because it is way too embarrassing! Liam held the walls up while I took the picture...(as we were both laughing so hard we could hardly stand up!) As you can see, we ended up eating the walls of the gingerbread house! Afterwards we read the Gingerbread Man book for family home evening.

I love my boys and am looking forward spending some time with them the next few weeks before I get back to school again. I am so excited to be posting a regular "mommy blog posting" and hope to do so more in the future!

Design Journal Entry 5

2008-10-06T20:44:00.001-07:00

This week Brice and I had a meeting with the president of Aviation University. There was also a guy there who works side by side with the president, he is an instructor and is in charge of the online courses, I think. There was also another professor in the meeting named Sontiago. The meeting did not go as well as I was expecting. I was under the impression that they were excited for our help and input. However, during the meeting I felt like I was stepping on some toes. The president seemed impressed with my ideas and seemed excited to have me work on the project. However, the guy in charge of the online courses seemed offended that his course needs improvement. He even made a point to say that I can "recommend" all I want but that does not mean they will accept all the changes. I think he was intimidated by my knowledge! He even had to make the point to tell me he was in the process of getting his MBA. (I was not impressed). Also, I was unaware that Sontiago is currently under contract to update the course and we are taking work away from him. I plan to talk to him and let him know I was unaware of this. Despite this, he was very nice and seemed to like my initial ideas for the course. My last disappointment was that my main position in the project was to be the technology person, to implement the changes to the website. While Brice was to be the subject matter expert. I found that they will use their web person to change the web site. So I feel that my position is not as important. Despite these disappointments I plan to move forward with the project and do an excellent job. I hope to blow them away! Meanwhile, I have a 500 page CRJ flight manual to study!

Design Journal Entry 5

2008-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

We have finally been able to contact Jeff, the president of Aviation University. He is excited about the project and wants to meet with Brice Williams and I to discuss our ideas and the timeline of the project. We will be meeting with him Tuesday, September 30th. This is a positive thing, he has some good resources we can utilize.

As part of the assessment phase I have completed a learner analysis, context analysis and detail on the instructional approach. The assessment survey is completed. Here is a link to the survey:

The respondents to the survey are students who have recently completed the online avac4200 course. From the survey I am expecting to gather information regarding their experiences with the course and any improvements they would suggest for it. Once the surveys have been completed I will gather the information and the assessment phase of the project will be complete. I am excited to move onto the design phase but will not until assessment phase has been completed. I do not want to miss any important information. I feel that the analysis phase is important to the success of the project.

Design Journal Entry 2

2008-09-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I traveled to Orem and met my project partner, Brice Williams at the UVU campus. We discussed the details of the project. We reviewed the current Aviation on-line course, AVSC 4200. We discussed in detail what needs to be changed to the course. The things we will change are discussed in detail in the project proposal. Mainly, we will change objectives and add more information, add a learning community aspect, change the assessments, and add more learning activities.

Brice and I discussed that we will need to meet face-to-face weekly. Also, between meetings we will correspond through e-mail. We plan to use a wiki for our documents. This will allow more ease in collaborating on documents.

We plan to meet with the president of Aviation University this week. Brice will be setting this up.

This week I also finalized my project proposal and wrote my first correspondence letter to Doctor Waters. This week was a good start to the project. I am excited to begin the real work!

INST 6120 Distance Ed Products Design Journal 1

2008-07-08T18:53:00.001-07:00

Last week I spent 8 hours on my project proposal. For my project I will be working with Brice Williams. He is in my cohort, working on his masters degree in Educational Technology. He is not in this particular class with me because he is not doing the distance education emphasis. Brice Williams is currently an aviation instructor at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The major project for Brice's degree is to redo the online course site for UVU's online aviation courses. My goal is to someday teach at UVU, so I decided this would be a good project for me to be involved in. Brice is the subject matter expert and I will be working with him to make improvements to the site and add some better use of technology to the site.

Brice and I have discussed basic needed improvements we plan to make to the site. We have not discussed in detail our plans. We plan to do that this week, working through the ADDIE steps will be helpful for this as well.

Educational Tools Day 4

2008-06-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

This morning we began with a presentation by Mark on Second Life. I am very apprehensive of using Second Life for educational purposes. I see the positive aspects because it allows your students to interact with other people, allowing them to learn other cultures. I also think it can be a good thing for distance learning. It allows people to come together and interact. However, right now I think the negative things outweigh the positive. I think virtual worlds can be very addicting and they are too easy to stumble on pornography and other inappropriate things. The only way I would set up a virtual world in a class is if it were password protected and the students could not go to any other islands.

We had a class discussion on DE evaluation. We discussed how distance education is not considered to be quality education by accreditation people. Our conclusion is that DE is here and will continue to get better.

Christie gave a great presentation on 2.0, and mobile technology. Web 2.0 is a concept that the web is becoming more and more connected. Technology is becoming more mobile, allowing DE to be more mobile.

Janet introduced us to Instructional Architect. I like this program because there is a search for NSDL documents. This allows students to search without

Educational Tools Day 3

2008-06-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

We began the day with a presentation on blogs. It was an awesome presentation, because I gave it! We then learned about apture. We were amazed by this new technology tools which allows pop-up boxes of information on your blogs. The group chat session on cost effectiveness of distance education was fun. We discussed that there are initial costs associated with DE but it is worth it. More students will enroll if distance learning is a possibility. We discussed Breeze which is web conferencing and e-learning software. Captivate software that is a deliverable for communication, training and learning experiences. We then created our own movie using iMovieHD. Julie taught us how to use iMovie with Podcasts. This was my favorite presentation because I enjoyed creating my own movie! Facebook is a new tool that is being used for communication. I like this tool for building on-line communities. I added everyone from my class to my Facebook account.

Educational Tools Day 2

2008-06-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

I am in Logan, Utah, taking my Educational Tools class. I have enjoyed getting together face-to-face with students in my class this week. We have already covered a lot of information, and I have learned a lot. Today we started the day discussing open courseware. Ron and I facilitated this discussion. We learned about MIT launching the first open courseware site. This began in 2001. They currently have 1,800 courses available. I think MIT started a great movement. It is good to see people sharing information. I like their goal which is to spread knowledge. This discussion lead the next topic which was intellectual property. We talked about two different perspectives on intellectual property. Some people feel it important to keep their ideas protected so no one steals it or gets recognition for it. Other people feel it is good to share your ideas and allow people to expand on them. I think there is value to both of these, however I tend to agree that we need to spread knowledge.

In the afternoon we had a presentation on MIT. We looked at their website and were taught how to download a course. We had a group on-line chat and discussed faculty effectiveness and creative commons. This was a fun and fast paced discussion because we were all in a chat together. We talked about how important feedback is and how it should be given quickly. If students are to know what to improve they should be told early so they know what to correct. This illustrated how technology has allowed us to connect with others in many locations. We also discussed Instant Messaging and that young generations are very familiar with multi-tasking with various technology tools. It was a good, information packed day!

Educational Blogs

2008-06-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Benefits of blogs being used in education:

Moves learning beyond walls of classroom
Can share learning with family
Children get excited to see how many people view their blogs
Use map to indicate places people have viewed blogs from
Helps students ability to reflect
Learn about other cultures
Builds writing & grammar
Feedback from other students provide support for each other.

The video below represents a successful use of educational blogs.
TeacherTube - Guerrilla Season Book Blog Project

Shaving Cream

2008-06-12T23:07:00.001-07:00

One day Riley came walking into the kitchen as I was doing the dishes. Apparently, he had fun with Will's shaving cream! This made me laugh and I had to take a picture. However, as I followed the path of shaving cream through the hallway and into my bathroom, I was no longer laughing!!

Liam and his ranch

2008-06-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

Liam loves playing with his horses. He sets up amazing ranches with fences, barns, tractors, trucks, etc. He will play for hours setting up his ranch.

Duke Family

2008-06-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-06-11T23:08:00.001-07:00