My idea for a video is to interview instructors about how they use various technologies to teach their students. Possibly we could even tape a portion of an instructor's lecture.
Today instructors are requesting "smart classrooms" more and more frequently. A classroom is considered "smart" because it has a computer equipped with VCR or DVD player. The instructor can use software programs like Powerpoint to illustrate their lectures.
I previously worked at TC3 and had to schedule the classrooms. Some instructors insisted on having a "smart room". Because of this, the college began updating the existing classrooms with "smart" technology.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
A Whole New Mind - Design
The opening of chapter four - “How many artists are there in the room?” (68). As school children advanced to higher grades, fewer of the children raised their hands.
“The kids just looked around to see if anybody in the class would admit to what they’d now learned was deviant behavior.” (69).
Here is my most vivid memory from the seventh grade. The school district that I attended had five elementary schools located in different areas. After the sixth grade, the five schools were combined for Junior High School for 7th to 9th grades.
In my new school, I didn’t know any of the other girls in my class; however, there were five boys from Washington Gladden in my class.
Early in the year during art class, one of our projects was to make a Paper Mache animal. I was creating my favorite animal, a horse. It wasn’t just an ordinary horse; it was a Merry-Go-Round horse. I began painting it yellow with plans to decorate it with bright colors of blue, green, purple … when one of the girls in the class approached me and asked me why I wasn’t painting the horse “brown". I replied, “well, it’s a merry-go-round horse”. Tammy immediately demanded that I paint it “brown”. I replied, “it’s my horse and I want to paint it yellow.” Tammy responded, “do you want to fight about it?” It turned out that Tammy was a bully and rallied eleven of the other twelve girls in the class to force me to paint my horse the color she wanted (only one girl in the class didn’t join her gang to beat me up). Luckily for me the five boys from my school and a girl named Melinda, whom I’d never met before, came to my rescue. (Added information: I was the smallest, shortest child in the class.) The group of girls ended up in the Vice Principal’s Office and had to stay after school for detention.
The others could not stifle my creativity - I went on to finish painting my merry-go-round horse with bright colored paints.
“The kids just looked around to see if anybody in the class would admit to what they’d now learned was deviant behavior.” (69).
Here is my most vivid memory from the seventh grade. The school district that I attended had five elementary schools located in different areas. After the sixth grade, the five schools were combined for Junior High School for 7th to 9th grades.
In my new school, I didn’t know any of the other girls in my class; however, there were five boys from Washington Gladden in my class.
Early in the year during art class, one of our projects was to make a Paper Mache animal. I was creating my favorite animal, a horse. It wasn’t just an ordinary horse; it was a Merry-Go-Round horse. I began painting it yellow with plans to decorate it with bright colors of blue, green, purple … when one of the girls in the class approached me and asked me why I wasn’t painting the horse “brown". I replied, “well, it’s a merry-go-round horse”. Tammy immediately demanded that I paint it “brown”. I replied, “it’s my horse and I want to paint it yellow.” Tammy responded, “do you want to fight about it?” It turned out that Tammy was a bully and rallied eleven of the other twelve girls in the class to force me to paint my horse the color she wanted (only one girl in the class didn’t join her gang to beat me up). Luckily for me the five boys from my school and a girl named Melinda, whom I’d never met before, came to my rescue. (Added information: I was the smallest, shortest child in the class.) The group of girls ended up in the Vice Principal’s Office and had to stay after school for detention.
The others could not stifle my creativity - I went on to finish painting my merry-go-round horse with bright colored paints.
Friday, March 16, 2007
"Snow Crash" Concluded
Throughout the book, there is mention of religious matters. Stephenson spends several chapters to explain the history of early religion of Asherah, speaking in tongues, and how the origin of language ties into it. All this time ... I wondered what the “Raft” has to do with religion. Stephenson mentions the Raft as a place in reality but doesn’t provide details.
The Raft is a group of ships that are tied together. Each neighborhood has a guard to protect the community from being cut loose from the Raft and left to starve out in the middle of the Pacific. Hiro passes from country to country - the Nipponese, the Vietnamese, the Malaysians, the Soviets, etc.
In Chapter 53, Hiro goes aboard the Raft. He finds a guide named Transubstanciacion, “Tranny” for short, a refugee that Bruce Lee recruited. This name bring to my mind a doctrine taught by Roman Catholic Church, “transubstantiation”. The definition of transubstantiation is “changing of one substance into another”. There is an added meaning, “the conversion in the Eucharist of the whole substance of the bread into the body and wine becoming the blood of Christ, only the appearances (and other ‘accident’) of bread and wine remaining: according to the doctrine of the Roman Church.” (Oxford English Dictionary Online). What does the choice of this name have to do with the storyline or plot?
Hiro encounters the first of the antenna heads. A man Hiro has just shot and killed is still babbling away in tongues. When he checks the man, he finds a whip antenna about a foot long that is permanently attached to the skull by screws. Hiro figures this is how L. Bob Rife controls the people aboard the Raft.
Over time, Hiro pieces together what has been happening and with the help of others is able to bring the twisted situation with L. Bob Rife under control.
The Raft is a group of ships that are tied together. Each neighborhood has a guard to protect the community from being cut loose from the Raft and left to starve out in the middle of the Pacific. Hiro passes from country to country - the Nipponese, the Vietnamese, the Malaysians, the Soviets, etc.
In Chapter 53, Hiro goes aboard the Raft. He finds a guide named Transubstanciacion, “Tranny” for short, a refugee that Bruce Lee recruited. This name bring to my mind a doctrine taught by Roman Catholic Church, “transubstantiation”. The definition of transubstantiation is “changing of one substance into another”. There is an added meaning, “the conversion in the Eucharist of the whole substance of the bread into the body and wine becoming the blood of Christ, only the appearances (and other ‘accident’) of bread and wine remaining: according to the doctrine of the Roman Church.” (Oxford English Dictionary Online). What does the choice of this name have to do with the storyline or plot?
Hiro encounters the first of the antenna heads. A man Hiro has just shot and killed is still babbling away in tongues. When he checks the man, he finds a whip antenna about a foot long that is permanently attached to the skull by screws. Hiro figures this is how L. Bob Rife controls the people aboard the Raft.
Over time, Hiro pieces together what has been happening and with the help of others is able to bring the twisted situation with L. Bob Rife under control.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Religion and Drugs
In Chapter 25 - Y.T. has a delivery to make to Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates #1106. The parking lot is half full and there are people lined up out the door. The first thing that she notices are small glass vials scattered around behind a dumpster the Pearly Gates. Once inside the front room she has to wait for a transaction to be completed. Y.T. becomes restless but because this is a church, she remains poised. Once the transaction has been paid for with a credit card, “a wide pair of pearlescent doors in the back of the room swing majestically open.” Featured within the room is a blazing trinity: Jesus, Elvis, and the Reverend Wayne. The customer drops down on her knees and begins to speak in tongues, “ar ia ari ar isa ve na a mir ia I sa, ve na mir is a sar ia …” (196).
The addressee of the package, Reverend Dale T. Thorpe, grabs the package from Y.T. without signing for it. She never lets something like that happen but … this is a church. Y.T. follows Rev. Dale into a room where she observes him with an aluminum computer case. After the Rev. punches away at the keyboard, he removes a small vial and inserts it into a socket on the keyboard. The vial goes down into the machine and pops out again. “The red plastic cap is emitting grainy red light. It has little LEDs built into it, and they are spelling out number, counting down second: 5,4,3,2,1 … The Reverend Dale T. Thorpe hold the vial up to his left nostril. When the LED counter gets down to zero, it hisses, like air coming out of a tire valve. At the same time, he inhales deeply, sucking it all into his lungs. Then he shoots the vial expertly into his wastebasket.” (197).
Interesting combination.
The addressee of the package, Reverend Dale T. Thorpe, grabs the package from Y.T. without signing for it. She never lets something like that happen but … this is a church. Y.T. follows Rev. Dale into a room where she observes him with an aluminum computer case. After the Rev. punches away at the keyboard, he removes a small vial and inserts it into a socket on the keyboard. The vial goes down into the machine and pops out again. “The red plastic cap is emitting grainy red light. It has little LEDs built into it, and they are spelling out number, counting down second: 5,4,3,2,1 … The Reverend Dale T. Thorpe hold the vial up to his left nostril. When the LED counter gets down to zero, it hisses, like air coming out of a tire valve. At the same time, he inhales deeply, sucking it all into his lungs. Then he shoots the vial expertly into his wastebasket.” (197).
Interesting combination.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Cartoon, Animated Movie or Comic Book Strip
I think that “Snow Crash” could easily be made into a cartoon, animated movie, comic book, or the comic column in the Sunday newspaper. As each chapter begins, it’s up to the reader to determine whether the events are taking place in the physical reality or in the virtual reality, the Metaverse.
There is a lot of action from Hiro Protagionist, the male main character and Y. T., the female main character. Hiro seems to be more comfortable in the Metaverse at the beginning of the novel but the closer I come to the end, I see that he is becoming more comfortable in his physical universe. On the other hand, Yours Truly is definitely more comfortable in her physical reality and rarely enters into the Metaverse.
Today as I read chapter 47, I saw something that struck me. The chapter begins, “Once it starts coming clear to her, again, that these people are twisted freaks, she starts to notice other things about them. For example, the whole time, no one ever looks her in the eye.” Y. T. has been captured and is aboard a large ship called the Raft. The people that she is speaking about are Russians.
I have noticed that in the last five years or so that people no longer look each other in the eye. Does this mean there is a lack of trust among people? or have people lost their ability or want to care about each other?
Then there are the times when a chapter leaves me hanging that I think it could even be a soap opera.
There is a lot of action from Hiro Protagionist, the male main character and Y. T., the female main character. Hiro seems to be more comfortable in the Metaverse at the beginning of the novel but the closer I come to the end, I see that he is becoming more comfortable in his physical universe. On the other hand, Yours Truly is definitely more comfortable in her physical reality and rarely enters into the Metaverse.
Today as I read chapter 47, I saw something that struck me. The chapter begins, “Once it starts coming clear to her, again, that these people are twisted freaks, she starts to notice other things about them. For example, the whole time, no one ever looks her in the eye.” Y. T. has been captured and is aboard a large ship called the Raft. The people that she is speaking about are Russians.
I have noticed that in the last five years or so that people no longer look each other in the eye. Does this mean there is a lack of trust among people? or have people lost their ability or want to care about each other?
Then there are the times when a chapter leaves me hanging that I think it could even be a soap opera.
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