Why all the turmoil?

As I listen to the news reports lately, I am amazed at how quickly certain groups of people are so quick to jump on the bandwagon for their own political agendas. It is almost downright disturbing when you really look and think about it.

For instance, I am all for teachers having rights and being able to settle for a descent wage, but not at the extreme expense of the taxpayer. It is high time that the government unions be broken down to size and remember that their employer is not the government, but we the taxpayers. How can a society continue to exist with such a heavy burdon of increased taxes so that government unions can fill their coffers and continue to push their ideological beliefs on the people because they "know what's best for the people." How about getting your hands off of our money and let us make those choices.

Then you have the recent events of Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and now they are facing a meltdown. Not even a week later and already our government and the "green-minded" liberals want to force a complete shutdown of our nuclear program along with all oil, natural gas, and coal commodities that are in overabundance in our own nation as they continue to break the American people and turn us from a free society into their socialistic utopia. Get over it people! Communisium and Socialism are dying horrible deaths! Just look what it has done to Europe, Greece, and Russia. These countries are failing left and right.

Thing #4--Searching the Web

For this excercise, we were shown several different search engines like webcrawler.com, ask.com, and google.com. It was a great refresher course for me because I had totally forgotten about a few of them. Webcrawler used to be one of my favorite search engines long before Google was out on the market and I forgot how easy it is to use them. But more importantly that Webcrawler is a "metacrawler" or a meta search engine, which means it looks at three or four search engines instead of just one at a time. It then pulls the best info from those sites and gives you the top of the top of the lists.

So how do I plan to use this in the classroom? I am going to start showing the kids how to use the various search engines and their purposes along with teaching them how to use them wisely, especially the younger kids. I would hate for inappropriate material to come up in our Christian School setting.

One of the other tools I plan to use is to develop a web search exercise where they will have to use the various search engines to see how they work and what is the same and different about each one of them. This is a great way to rethink how we use the web!

Thing #3, iGoogle Suite

Well, this is now my third thing to complete. I am really glad I have been doing the Clovis 23 things challenge this year. I have been learning a lot already about rethinking my teaching strategies for Computers and the classroom. I have students one day a week, but with this setup, I could teach my students 24/7/365.

The iGoogle suite has been very informative. I have already been "playing" with some of the materials, such as this blog and a few others I use, but not in the way that is being suggested here. I never thought of having the students create their own, iGoogle account in order to follow blogs, or share calendars, or other neat tools. I have seen the collaborative tools for the Google Docs before, but now I'm thinking that might just be a better way to do some things.

I have already sent this course info on to a few colleagues so it will be interesting to see how they respond. It would be great to have some of this in place by this fall, or at least start working with it. I have been reluctant to require the students to have an e-mail for several reasons, but I think I may be seeing the true benefits of this along with a personal iGoogle start page. Only time will tell.

Thing #2 My ??? Blog?

Okay, so this was suppose to be my first blog, but that really isn't the truth. I have already been blogging for well over a year or two now. My wife and I post blogs on a pretty regular basis and certainly follow others as a way to stay in touch with friends and families. It is a great tool especially when some of your family is living in Bangladseh.

So far, this has been pretty introductory of some sorts but the rest of the course looks really cool. I have already learned how to create an Avatar for myself and a few other things. I am an online teacher of Latin through Sevenstar Academy and I teach computers at my local Christian school. So the things I am learning through this program are a way to help me learn how to be a better teacher.

Thing #1

I recently signed up to learn more about WEB2.0 tools that are available as a teacher. This sounds like a really fun tool to learn new things to teach my students. Seeing as how I haven't been using my blog for several long months, I thought I would start with this one and see how things go from here. I am looking forward to this fun innovative adventure. The following link will take you back to the main website that this is based off.

http://clovis23things.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/register/



Above is one of the Avatars I created to represent myself as a Latin Teacher.

Already this is a pretty cool site.

Just a simple politicol thought...

Does anyone truly understand that the President of the United States is not the one who got us into the trouble that we are in right now?

I know, many people would love to disagree right now, but many of you are forgetting your Government 101. It isn't the President who makes the laws, it is congress! That's right, Congress makes the laws that the President either vetoes or signs into law. It is congress that has been racking up the deficit with all the "pork" that they are so eager to create. It is congress and Nancy Pelosi who are eager to keep us from becoming independant from the oil nations by blocking our US Oil companies from drilling offshoe, or in Alaska, or even in the Rockies where there is enough oil for hundreds of years. But what about protecting the earth? With all of the modern advances in drilling safety, the animals are actually doing better where there are gas/oil pipelines now then ever before? Why? Because we are cleaning up these areas for the environment and helping the animals survive. But what about Global Warming? Get real people! Global warmin is cyclical! It gets warm, it gets cold. And while it may be true that the North Polar Ice Cap is shrinking, no one ever mentions that the South Polar Ice Cap is actually growing. Hmm. If it were melting, wouldn't we be lossing states like California? Not on your life. Not to mention that the science Al Gore used was faulty at best? Since when did a politician become a scientist?

Okay, so maybe I'm just rambling at moment, but mark my words, if the dem's have their way in November, this country will go down the tubes in a heartbeat. We need to really look at the issues and point the fingers at who is truly to blame for the mess we are in with our economy. Did you know that the second largest benefactor of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is Barrak Obama? Stop listening to the political bias of the news media and do some research yourself. It might shock you with the truth.

Death of a friend...

Okay, so it may not exactly be the death of a real person, but it sure does feel like it. This weekend, I recieved an e-mail from a group that had been dedicated to saving the local Boy Scout camp I grew up with. Camp Avery Hand in Mansfield, OH has been on the chopping block for over a year or more now with the local Heart of Ohio Council. It is with much regret that the council board at the request of the Scout Executive, Barry Norris, has been wanting to rid the council of this beautiful camp and so succedded this past Thursday night.

So how do I feel about the situation? Well, yesterday was suppose to be a "happy birthday to me" kind of day. Today...well, things are just depressing to say the least. It is dissappointing that the people at the Scout office and board are so biased towards the other camp, that they can't see what they are doing to the people down here. Without going into much detail, there is a group of people up North who knew this was coming and so put Firelands Scout Reservation into a permament easement, meaning that that camp can never be sold pretty much. So now this council will once again loose another fine camp because of high overhead in the form of administration and other Scout execs in the area. Shame on you Barry Norris and the rest of the council board. Instead of saving Scouting in the area, you may have helped to put another coffin nail into it.

The most dissappointing thing for me at moment is the thought that I may never be able to take my son to the camp I played in or worked for 10 summers in. There are a lot of memories tied into that camp and now that will soon be all that is left, memories of some of the best years of our lives.