A cool website

I found a cool website for the golden ratio. It is located at: http://goldennumber.net/ I was able to use this a couple of times with my class. I used it to open up a discussion of Phi. The site contained some very interesting facts and great pictures of art and architecture. I encouraged students to look at it. I came back to the site a few days after introducing and found that the students were more engaged to look at different information. It is so nice to look at a picture to gether and enlarge it to easily share the important features.

Projector

Just got a notice from Leslie to clean the filter in the projector. I think I will bring it home this week end and take care of that. It has been super to use it in my class. I was sort of wondering what would happen if I needed to replace the bulb. Where do those funds come from? That will be interesting when the time comes to replace it. One more thing about the projector. The feature that allows us to enlarge the slide or video by zooming is super. Sometimes I wish I could do that with my overhead projector.

SketchCast Completed

I finally got the sketchcast published on my blog. After attempting to Embed this Sketchcast address into my blog with several errors, I finally noticed the menu button on the right lower corner of the sketch. I pressed it and got two address options to copy. I could never get the full address of the sketch to copy. I then chose the URL address and finally it posted. Ta DA! My first Sketchcast posted.

sketchcast

http://sketchcast.com/view/ZKr9BqE

YouTube vs. TeacherTube

It was interesting to listen to Leslie's You Tube in the district update. I had received an email from the tech person in our building the week before apologizing to we teachers. There was a bit of frustration in that email because apparently the someone in the district that was in the position to make that decision, made it without any advance notice to the schools. I find it fascinating how we teachers are encouraged to utilize technology and You Tube. Almost as soon as we embrace the technology its ripped out of our hands. Preparing for classes is tough enough without dealing with time consuming relearning of Teacher Tube. I began a search online for a tutorial for the golden rectangle and ratio to use in my Math class. I went to the Teacher Tube as instructed only to experience the slow and ineffeceint design of this internet site. I could find no videos on this topic. My home computer in seconds could hook me up to a video via YouTube that was exactly what I wanted. On Wednesday at the 1930 Como building we could access You Tube. Why? Why were the "highways" of fiber optics open to these classrooms at a district office buildings and not the schools themselves where we should be enhancing our classes with reliable information? I don't care about bandwidth. Why are we learning this if we can't use it?

Who's in control?

I had an interesting response to the oncoming school break. I had this feeling that I needed a real break. Not just a time away from school. So I made a decision that I would not use the computer to blog or look up anything for 6 days. I just wanted to maintain the idea that I was in control. I have taken the time to reconnect with my family and communicate one-on-one and face-to-face. I spent some of those days at real peace. It is rejuvenating and healthy to take this type of break. The information age we live in can hook us up to ipods, computers and email 42 hours a day and ys a week. Instead of living patiently, we anticipate quick and accurate responses. When those responses go missing or late, we may begin to feel a type of road rage. This is the unhealthy dependence we feel for the information age. I think as teachers we need to be mindful of this and control our urges and dependency on this fast moving information.