First Post from the classroom blog

Thought I might save some effort and repost my entry from the classroom blog.  Here it is --

This is the obligatory "First Post".

It is an important post for two reasons -

1. It gives me something to use to set the width of the post column and ensure everything fits on the page.

2. The aspirations for creating the site can be set down so that others can understand the purpose of the site.

The first is done. On to the second.

I can recall, from when I was a high school student, the "fear" teachers had about electronic calculators. This new technology was going to destroy the math skills of every student who owned one and brought it to school. They should be banned! What right minded parent would buy such a thing for their kids?

Embracing new technology can often be troublesome. Often times, it seems, public schools are slow to adapt to or accept new innovations when they should be racing to be the first. Youth have embraced the internet and cell phone culture. If a teenager doesn't have a Facebook page, they likely have one on MySpace. Almost half (48%) of the population 12 years of age or older have a profile on a social media network. The typical American teen sends or receives more than 50 text messages a day. Almost 2/3 of teens text during school. (Resource)

To ignore the opportunity to incorporate web content and mobile texting into the educational experience would be to pass up a significant opportunity to engage students with a modality that they are familiar and comfortable with.  

Therefore, it is the intent or purpose of this site to provide a first step into incorporating these technologies into my classroom.  This site will serve as a home base for future endeavors.  It is foreseeable that assignments or extra-credit material will be posted on this site.  Student generated content may be included.  This site may also be a place where photos of school activities will be posted.  I am sure students will also have suggestions for what this site could be used for.   

Dan in front of Chinese Buffet

2009 Pig Roast - Portrait

Canadian Crowd Control

Sgt. Jack William's Essay

The following essay was written by my good friend Jack Williams.  It has been printed by a few newspapers (mostly armed forces papers, but also a few smaller community newspapers).  It is reproduced here with his permission.  


He and I discussed getting his message out via the internet.  Please link to this post and share it with others.  Jack's perspective is that of the soldier at the tip of the spear.  It is important for folks back here (in the states) to hear how many in Afghanistan feel about their mission.




By STAFF SGT. JACK A. WILLIAMS

U.S. Air Force

As an active duty, Air Force medic, my four years' time in service, serving on the ground with the Army in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, has changed my perspective on combat, military sister services and my role as an Airman.

As my team approaches the halfway point of its deployment, I've been given an opportunity to demonstrate that an Airman on the ground can be a strong asset to the joint expeditionary team.

Here is my story.

The past four months have been both challenging and rewarding. I have learned and applied a lot of skills, leadership and personal restraint. I have performed cricothyroidotomy's (an emergency surgical opening, in the neck, used to establish an airway), needle decompressions, MedEvac'd critical patients following attacks, covered the bodies of my friends and leaders, performed detainee exams on the people who were responsible, pulled security on dismounted patrols, trained on a .50-caliber machine gun, treated both U.S. and Coalition soldiers, all on top of executing the mission of a Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Lazy Wolf

Charlie

I mentioned about a week ago that the long time Director of the ThunderBoomer Girl Scout Camp had passed away.  I wanted to post some pictures of Charlotte.  Or Charlie - that being what most of us called her.

One of the jokes at camp was that you could never get a picture of Charlie.  Usually you would get a picture of her hand in front of her face about 2 inches from the camera lens.  Or you would get her backside -

There are two shots that I have where she manages to partially hide behind other objects.  One is with an inner-tube at the pool - couldn't find it to scan it.  The other was behind two polaroid pictures.  That picture I do have a scan of.  It is on a page in one of the scrapbooks we kept.  It is a large scan, so click on it and it will open up in a much larger frame.  Charlie is the one hiding in the top right.

I did manage to, over the years, get a few decent photos (and some not so good photos).  Here are a few more of Charlie.

Life Guarding Photos

Had a great meeting today with the Director of the Milton YMCA and others.  We were discussing the Fall schedule for the pool.  Lifeguards and lessons instructors are getting more difficult to staff - we thought.  After getting everyone together, we seemed to be able to generate quite a list of prospects.

One thing I did re-realize is how much I miss instructing the Life Guard Classes.  I did have a great time this past Spring helping Ann Lawton at the East Lycoming YMCA.  I really should look into getting back into it.

Anyway, decided to post some old LG pictures with some new ones --

President addresses Boy Scouts at National Jamboree

Via video.  He couldn't break away from fund raising and other commitments to show up in person.



But that is OK.  Ronald Reagan didn't attend the Jamborees while he was President (he sent his wife).  And Bill Clinton and GW only attended one of the Jamborees of the two that took place during their terms.  Bush Sr. attended during his first term - good thing, yes?  Maybe Obama is counting on a second term?

Some people - mostly those with Scouting backgrounds or sons and daughters at the Jamboree - are upset that the President of the United States could not find time to attend in person.  After all, he is the Honorary President of the National Organization.  It is also Scouting in the USA's 100th Anniversary.  Google "President Disses Boy Scouts" and you'll get a sense of the thoughts of our country.  More people seem upset about people being upset than anything else.  How dare the Boy Scouts 'expect' the President to show up?  Frugal Cafe' Blog Zone has a good sampling of what people are saying.

Boy Scout Jamboree’s 100th Anniversary vs. ‘The View’: Boy Scouts Lose, Obama to Appear with Daytime TV Harpies

 Jane Chastain lays her thoughts out very plainly in her posting on WorldNetDaily -

Obama disses the Boy Scouts

Truth be told (I'd tell nothing else), the Presidency and the Boy Scouts are not that tight.  You might think, given the number of Astronauts, prominent business men and entrepreneurs, and other popular figures (like

Really late Boston Pics

I just never got around to them -



While in Boston, we hit a Red Sox game.  We also went to the Museum of Science.

To cute for me, but Cathy will like it.

More Steve Jackson Games - Cthulhu Lives!

Last week I mentioned how we bought some games while on vacation in Boston.  Along with Zombie Dice, we purchased "Cthulu Dice".  It is another simple dice game (die game actually - is that a pun?).  In this game, each player picks a target player and tries to curse him in an attempt to steal their sanity.  Sanity is measured with little glass stones.  When only one person has any sanity left, he is the winner.  If everyone runs out of sanity, Cthulu wins.

We have played this game with different groups of friends.  Learning curve is short - maybe three minutes to learn.  Like Zombie Dice, this game does not have the depth to be the sole focus of a game night.  Unlike Zombie Dice, Cthulu Dice has the "screw your neighbor" quality that many find fun - Kinda like "Lunch Money" - a long time favorite that I should write about later.

Supernatural - Season Four

I just finished watching season four of Supernatural.  Dylan W. and I started watching Supernatural about halfway through season one.  Santa bought me season 3 on DVD.  I never managed to have the time to catch episodes of season four.  I had some Amazon reward dollars to spend, so I purchased the fourth season through Amazon Video on Demand and have spent the past dozen or so evenings watching all the episodes.

I'm not very knowledgeable about the other internet video services.  I see the commercials but haven't felt the need to try them.  I've been very satisfied with Amazon's services.  And I am also satisfied with the fourth season of Supernatural.



The season starts with Dean returning/escaping from Hell.  Quickly, we are introduced to Angels, which is surprising.  The first three seasons presented a world with no intervention from heaven and gave the impression that demons were unchallenged by anyone other than hunters.  About half of the episodes deal directly with the season's over-all story arc.  The rest of the episodes are diversions from that plot and provide some levity and novelty to the season.

Episode 5 - Monster Movie - is shot in black-and-white and is an offbeat tribute to the classic creatures of the night - Count Dracula, The Werewolf, and The Mummy.  Episode 12 - Criss Angel is a Douche Bag - Title says it all.

My favorite new character is Castiel, an angel played by Misha Collins.  The introduction of Angels to the scheme of things has really increased my interest.  I've enjoyed movies like "The Prophecy", "Constantine", and "The Seventh Seal" that have angels and divine intervention involved.  There is a lot of involvement, for good and ill, in this season.

And, did I mention Sam becomes a demon blood sucker (as opposed to a blood sucking demon?)?



  

Why is Butch not the CEO of a Fortune 500?

Butch has got to be the king of die hard summer campers.  Timothy Noah, according to  his article "You Are How You Camped", would classify Butch (and myself I suppose) as someone who Really, really, really enjoys camp.  He titles such campers as Camp Cultists and writes that they are likely to grow up to be CEOs of major corporations.  What happened to Butch (and I)?

Timothy defines 5 groups of campers in his article and I kinda see where he is coming from.  I thought it would be interesting to take a poll and see if anyone would divulge what kind of camper they were and verify Timothy's predictions.

I can't promise the polls will work.  First principle for my blog - it is an experiment and poll widget is new.

What kind of camper are you?

What are you like today?

Brains . . . must eat BRAAAAAINS!

While in Boston, Tony and I did some game shopping.  Since we seem to be stuck in a Zombie mode, Steve Jackson's "Zombie Dice" seemed like a good pick.  A little more complicated then "LRC" and more complicated than Yatzee, this novel game can be mastered in under a minute.  We have played it on several different informal occasions.  Zombie Dice does not have the depth to be a stand-alone game for a game night, but would be fun as a filler between games or for casual play while shooting the camel turd.  No previous experience with undead required.

Who is the Bully?

You may recall that this past January there was a troublesome suicide in which a 15-year-old ninth grader hanged herself because, as the media portrayed it at the time, she had been the subject of terrible bullying and abuse at the hands of a half-dozen of her peers - The Hadley Six.  The young girl, Phoebe Prince, had recently moved from Ireland to South Hadley Massachusetts.  Immediately after her suicide, several students were the focus of accusations claiming their bullying had directly led to Phoebe taking her life.  A(n over) zealous District Attorney, Elizabeth Scheibel, decided to charge six students with various charges relating to the tragic incident.

http://www.slate.com/id/2260952/entry/2260953/

I clearly remember discussing this with my co-workers at school.  The consensus was that this was a witch hunt. The DA was trying to win points with the community by sacrificing teenagers who may have bullied Phoebe.  The first indication to me that the whole story was not being told was that rarely enforced statutory rape laws were being used to charge the two young men involved.  In Massachusetts any sex under 16 is statutory rape.  A 17 year old and an 18 year old have been charged for allegedly having sex with the 15 year old Phoebe.  The law here was not the focus.  If it were, there would be a lot more students in trouble.  Instead, the DA is citing an infrequently used statute for leverage in her campaign.  The DA's attempt to prosecute the students for criminal homicide in Phoebe's death is also rarely used because it is rarely successful.

In her three part article "What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?", Emily Bazelon masterfully accomplishes what rarely happens in journalism today.  She has spent the time and put forth the effort to dig into the facts of this under reported travesty.  Emily Bazelon presents a much truer explanation of what led up to Phoebe Prince's untimely death and examines how the over use of the legal system can freeze a community and prevent any effectual recovery from a tragedy like Phoebe's.  It is a longer piece then most people surfing the internet would take the time to read, but it is worth the extra time.  There are also a few links to other media or information that break up the reading.

Of interest beyond the article is the comments section.  Posts a-plenty and with extra hot sauce - flaming!  People have strong opinions about this article and the case it covers.  I must say though, I doubt more than half the people commenting actually read the whole article and did a little extra research on their own.

My favorite quote from the article is from Alan Dershowitz with regards to trying to charge the defendants with a civil rights violation with bodily injury - "That's a real stretch.  People want to think that there's always legal accountability where there should be moral accountability.  But in the criminal context, you should always err against overextending the law."

http://www.slate.com/id/2260952/entry/2260953/

Fooled Again

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

This kind of deceit seems to be the standard in journalism today. Sometimes deliberate, sometimes through ignorance, "facts" are misrepresented. Even in this article/post by Bob Cesca, information is distorted. In the second paragraph "The videos turned out to be misleading at best, and the fake pimp character went on to plead guilty to charges of entering federal property under false pretense." seems to imply the charges are a result of the ACORN videos. They are not. The charges involved a separate stunt played out by James O'Keefe and others and were not related to the Pimp and Prostitute videos investigating ACORN.

See how easy it is to mis-represent the facts. Certainly, I agree that both sides of the media are failing at being journalists. Where's Walter Cronkite when you need him? (please, no flames about Cronkite - tis a joke)

"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society." - Attributed to John Adams.

Droid wins - IMHO

From "MASHABLE" after being spotted on "I Love Charts".

I, as you may know, own the Droid (not Droid X) and think it is superior to the I-phones.  Sorry Heather and the rest of you apple fans.  My screen is bigger, battery is replaceable, I have more memory (and can change mini-sd chips), and open market apps (most of which are free).  You get video chat and a bigger price tag.  Oh - and only one type of phone will use your OS.  Android OS works on lots of phones.

As far as the Droid X is concerned, if I decide to give up my Droid for a Droid X, I could transfer just about everything to the new phone.  Can you change to a different phone with Apple?  For now, I'll stick with my Droid.  It lacks a bit in the camera department (takes good video, but photos are often blurry.  Does not take good pictures of moving targets) but makes up for that with a super GPS package that is FREE!   

Another Peanut Butter Cup Moment

Sometimes two good thing go great together (this may not be one of them).  I'm not a guitar player.  My brother is.  And we are both Star Wars geeks.  We had all the Star Wars figures (first generation).  For some reason he always got the good guys.  I remember the first Easter after Star Wars came out.  I got Darth Vader.  He got Luke.  I got C3PO.  He got R2D2.

I never got the vehicles.  He did.  Hands down, the best ship was (is) the Falcon.  He had it and it was awesome.  I can see it flying through the living room in our house in Avis.  Rear legs retracted.  Front leg down so it could serve as a handle for the person "flying" it.  You needed the handle because it was huge (for a ten year old).

Now, someone has turned one into an electric guitar.

Details are at http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/21/millennium-falcon-gu.html via Boing Boing.

Sam versus the Skloosh