Costilla Speedy 2011

As Twenty-Eleven comes to an end, we are thankful for all the great memories. Happy New Year to all our friends and family.

See this past year's Costilla Speedy 2011.

Merry Christmas from the Costilla Family

In typical fashion, America and I are late in the process of sending out Christmas cards so here is our 21st century Christmas video card and family update...

This Christmas we are very blessed and thankful to have all our family together. The Costilla family has been very busy this year with many ups and challenges but through it all, we are grateful for all our friends, family and support.


Gabriella is home for the break and entering her last semester as a senior at the University of Texas at Dallas. She celebrated her 21st birthday this year and is officially legal... Alec, 17, is doing well at St. John's and learning all about military life and leadership. Caroline, 11, is in her last year of elementary school as a 5th grader. She has become a great artist and cartoonist. John Michael, 8, is deep into cub scouts and enjoys 2nd grade. He is also quite the WIImaster. And then there's Grace. She entered kindergarten this year and already has taken to writing everything and everywhere, including walls and chairs. It's fun to read her phonetic spelling and try to make sense of it all.

May your Christmas and New Year season be filled with all the blessings, love and support that you have shown us. We pray that your 2012 is joyous and inviting to all that is good.

God Bless,
John & America Costilla

Right Here. Right Now. Social Media is a FAD?

Wow. How long has it been since my last blog post? Does anyone really blog anymore? I think blogging is so 2010... Actually, I've probably spent more time in Google Reader, StumbleUpon and Twitter reading, sharing and posting in the 6 months than blogging. One of my favorite apps, now gone, was FriendFeed. This allowed me to post once and have it automatically linked to all my other social components. Now almost every app has a Facebook connector that allows all your post to automatically shift over to Facebook status updates. I find my self checking into locations using Gowalla, an Austin based location social media service...this of course let's everyone see where I am, most often eating out...hence, the additional 20 lbs.

In any case, it turns out that social media may not be a fad as much as a way of life in today's every instance connected world we live in. The question I ask, is how do we leverage this social tool in our work and personal lives as well as in our education system. For the most part, education has stayed away from it.

This updated version of the now famous Shift Happens takes on the reality of social media is here to stay... Very cool and well produced.




DO you use social media in education? If so, how?