Learning Centers

Ahh yes the fabled learning center. I was amazed at how many people showed up the night before they were due to work on them. I thought I was the only one that procrastinated but I was wrong. I do however think I was by far the biggest procrastinator on account I did not start on it until that night. I got to Knapp Hall at around 7:30 pm and did not leave until 4:30 am. In that time period not only did I finish my Learning Center but I finished 2 pots of coffee and a pizza.

Even though I started on mine the night before it was due. I think it turned out rather nice. My Learning Center was titled "Basic Electronics" I chose to do electronics because I figured I could get enough content out of it to make an effective learning center. My color scheme is blue, which is pretty obvious from the picture.

I actually enjoyed doing the learning center. It put me in control of what I was going to teach and forced me to think what the students would see and how they would interpret the directions. I think I did a decent job of giving directions. I really did enjoy this.

I believe the point of doing a learning center was to get us to really think in depth about how we tell directions and how others interpret them.

Blogspot

It has been a while since I have wrote a new post and that I am way behind on post. I know that since it is 2:15 and I have a meeting at 4:45, there is no way I am going to get all of my blogs done. So I am going to write about how much I have learned this past semester about my abilities as a teacher and what I have learned in this class.

This post is going to be about blogspots. If its not obvious yet, I dislike them greatly. I have nightmares about them and how I have not done a post in over 2 months. I understand that they are helpful for us to get our ideas down and to look back at how we have changed over the semester. But I would rather have done journal entires than these stupid things.

I do not like blogspots for couple of reasons. 1) I do not like people reading what I write. I tend to very self conscious about what people think about what I write. You would think that someone who runs around in short shorts would not care what people think. Well in a way I do not care with somethings like running. Its what I do and I like doing it and I have done it for long enough, 9 years to be exact, that I stopped caring what others think. Maybe thats the problem. I do not like these things and I have not been doing them long enough to stop caring.

The second reason is that I like journal entries more. They are more personal and are easier for me to convey my thoughts. You are probably saying its the same basic thing, writing a blog or a journal. You type both up on the computer and they contain almost the same content. I do not like how we have to put every post into a category. Sometimes a post might fit into more than one category.

Anyway thats my thoughts on blogspots. I hope I did not offend anyone with this post. Now I have a lot more to do.

Greater Louisville Classic

This past weekend the cross country team traveled to Louisville, KY to compete at the Greater Louisville Classic at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park. There were over 80 men and women teams at the meet with roughly 1200 men and women college runners. The 80 teams are split into 4 different races. Men Gold Race, Men Blue Race, Women Gold Race and the Women Blue Race. The Gold Races are usually the faster races with big Division I schools like UK, UT, EKU and UofL. The Berea Men's team competed in the Gold Race. Below is a picture of the start of that race and to the right is a picture of me running at roughly the 2 and a half mile mark. The team ended up getting 33 place in the Gold Race but would have finished 5 in the Blue race. Everyone on the team ran a personal best except for a couple of people. I ended up running a 26:37 which is a PR (personal record) by 45 seconds.

Balls and Ramps

In the picture on the left is a group mate of mine getting ready to release our ball to see if we could get it to roll 6 feet past the end of our ramp. As you can see our ramp has an incline at the start then it levels off before it hits our small ramp. Below is a picture of me and my other group mate measuring to see if our ball made the 6 foot mark. Unfortunately ours only went 5 feet 9 inches. We ended up tying for second place with another group. I think the carpet played a big role in how far our ball rolled. The carpet made it unpredictable to guess how far the ball would roll. One time it would roll right at 6 feet the next time if might roll 8 feet. It was very inconsistant. It was a good thing we got 2 rolls.

Starch and Glue turned Blue

This is a picture of me working with my starch and glue after i added blue food coloring. The starch and glue is supposed to mix together and form a putty substance mine however turned into a runny goo that stuck to my fingers. I do not know if it was the food coloring or not that turned it into the goo but I do know that before I added the food coloring my starch and glue made a putty substance that did not stick to my fingers. After my putty turned to goo I added some more starch to see what would happen. It ended up taking the goo off my fingers and turning it into somewhat of a putty but still a runny putty instead of a runny goo.

Sample

Sample