Enough Said.

I went ahead and made a podcast for my class using the site blabberize.  The best part about it, besides it being hilarious, I was able to do it all from the cell phone.  A lot of great ideas will be spawned from this.  Can't wait to see what the kids can do with it.

Busy, busy, busy.

This week was so much fun, but so much to handle.   We (my students and I) didn't stop getting used to the new technologies that we are going to use in class.   The soccer teams that I am coaching now had a game under their belt and we as coaches had a bit more direction to educating them.   My master's classes are now in full swing and the work, so far, is manageable.   My wife is in full support of all that I am doing and giving me great ideas on how to stay energized.   For example, this week we had Parent-Teacher night on top of all of the "BUSY", and she suggested I stay down in the local area at my parents, since we live about an hour away.  Great suggestion and I even had some of the kids ask me how I had so much energy.  I think I was running on fumes, but I'll never know.  I was pretty happy how I managed the week and hopefully can continue to reproduce this over and over again.
In class we were working with collecting and analyzing data.   This is the greatest approach to the subject that I have taken since I started teaching it.  The only problem is that it takes so long to work with the data, but I felt that the students were way more engaged in their projects.  I'm hoping we can continue to use chunks of data to recreate ways to analyze it.  I'm at a place where I feel that I want the students to understand mathematics and the beauty of it rather than understand the little processes of each integral part of a particular area of the subject.  The way I look at it is like a look at life, if we want an easier way to do something, we will either create it or ask if there is an easier way to get the job done.  This is a reason we create internally so we will tend not to forget the easier ways out of a sort of survival skill.   I'm hoping by providing the students with some authentic problems during the quarter, they are going to ask these questions. In turn, they have become lifelong learners of the subject, rather than students who regurgitate?? information.  We'll leave the internet for that.
This week we worked on Bell Curves and Box and Whiskers Plots. My goal was for the students to compare and contrast the same set of data through two lenses.  Although most understood the 'how to' of the process, many didn't understand how to view which one means more to that set of data.  Because this line of thought is open to interpretation and opinion, I think they were in shock that math could allow so much deep thinking.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun this week.  We created a reflection blog in class using this site, a Glog in Glogster, we organized posts and information in Edmodo & the students were able to start to understand that my expectations are going to be a lot different than any other math teacher they've ever had.  I hope they like it and stay engaged.

Foster Dog???

I've never been one to want to have too many pets. Yet, I've always felt that if you have one species running around the house, you need a second. I think that animals can communicate with each other on a different level and that they need each other. No matter how much love you give them, I think and feel that they are better off with one of their own kind.

In the house right now, we have 3 dogs and 2 cats. We got the third dog because the eldest, Lady, is such a good dog, I knew she would be a good trainer. And she has not let me down. The pup, Eko, who is now a year old, is so well behaved. She lacks a little bit of confidence, but hey, we are all flawed. I think she's a little upset about her size compared to the others, but I don't know.

Last night, we ventured into a world that I knew I wanted to try out at some point in my life. We got our first foster dog. She is a white pitbull pup, probably around 6 months old. Full of life, we fear she may have a hard time with her sight and hearing. However, we also have a theory that she is so desensitized from being with a pack of 94 and no one ever paying a bit of attention to her except for feeding her, that she had no reasons to use her senses.

She struggles going up and down stairs and using her nose, but she is so awesome!!! She gets along with the cats, actually, she doesn't even know what they are. She sleeps with her back up against the couch and loves having room to run. She was exhausted after about 20 minutes of play yesterday. Our (my wife and I) goals are for her to be able to go to a good home, but not before she we work on some of these things. She has really never had a reason to know her name or to smell or to see more than a foot in front of her. She has never run free and had fresh grass to smell. Never stuck her head out of a car window or probably never seen a bird. Last night was the first night of the rest of her life.

GOLFING

All summer, Pops has been calling me down once a week to play golf at Goose Creek.  I've never been the avid golfer, but the sport intrigues me because I suck at it.  Being involved in athletics my whole life, I usually can play any sport to a competitive level.  Above the golfing, and I'm sure this is why we play, there is nothing like being able to spend a few hours with family.  When living at home during my adolescent years, this was definitely not the case.  I wanted to spend every moment outside of the house.  Now, it seems like I would rather hang out with my family, whether it be on my wife's side or my side, rather than going out.  Our days are limited and you have to always respect those who will give you unconditional love no matter what.  I hope through the limited technologies of today that we................I can continue to document some of the great moments in life.  With people always loading pics up on FaceBook and Flickr or whatever else, I just hope that it will be as organized as it was for me in my families photo albums.