Archive for the 'education' Category

Kitzmiller versus Dover Area School District (Intelligent Design)

Published by
gradster1
at December 4, 2007 in snow day, advances, starting, beliefs, snow, legal/illegal stuff, homework, controversial, December, intelligent design, humor, arguments, winter, facts, learning, school, religion, random, media, politics, high school, night, philosophy, education and Uncategorized. 4 Comments

It sounds like Super Smash Brothers at first (if you’ve ever played), as any good court case does - but this is the infamous discussion on the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.

What I know about ID (intelligent design) so far (PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong and feel free to add):

Intelligent design is a theory that came into use after the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District case on the teaching of “creation science” alongside evolution. It is based upon how complex life is. People who believe in ID believe that something as complex as, for example, a protein pump wouldn’t be possible without an intelligent being to guide the development of such things. ID is currently a very controversial topic - while some people believe that ID is valid and should be taught, others believe that ID is completely untrue. There are also many people in between who have many different views - one of these may be that ID is not necessarily true however to get a complete perspective students should be taught ID as one option, in case they choose to believe it.

Personally I believe intelligent design is a load of hooey (gotta love that word). To survive, creationism evolved into intelligent design. On a more practical note, we can actually see evolution in action in many types of bacteria.

I can see it from the other point of view though. How could little cellular machines like this do so much?

But then again there’s the obvious. Where else could fossils and geology and all the other evidence that’s rock hard (excuse the pun) come from? It’d be impossible for “non-believers” to fake something like fossils on such a large scale as this planet.

Jesus lovingly cradles a baby raptor.

Jesus lovingly cradles a baby raptor.

K12 Online

Published by
gradster1
at October 8, 2007 in advances, morning, betaphor, K12, r.ompo.us, October, bored, teachers, random, internet, school, learning, education, computers and Uncategorized. 3 Comments

Now, I haven’t the faintest what’s going on here - but I do know that as an educatee (if that’s a word) I have having a lot of fun speaking to educators all over the world waiting for the keynote of K12 online to load. Some people in the live chat are already posting comments and quotes from David Warlick’s speech. Excuse this for being a very short post, but I’m going to go chat with educators all over the world, from Bangkok to Starbucks in New York - about how they can make my school career better for me and my teachers - before I watch this video (download already!).

And P.S. - Remember when I mentioned that Arthus had given me r.ompo.us? I’ll be switching over there very soon - no matter what it looks like. Just don’t go there now, it’s got posts that are starting to reek they’re so old (they still taste good though!).

Learning for the Future

Published by
gradster1
at September 4, 2007 in lazy, arguments, bored, high school, series, September, beliefs, advances, betaphor, starting, fall, teenagers, night, teachers, blogging, school, random, internet, technology, facts, learning, education, beauty, computers, politics, writing and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

In preparing students for the twenty-first century we need to educate them in certain ways. Skills in certain areas will be necessary because of recent advances in technology, for example, the human race will need to accept that computers and robots may do our jobs better than we do. In other words we must learn humility. Other skills will become the norm as well, for example it will be necessary in day-to-day life to have basic programming skills in all the major languages, we will also need to be able to service the hardware side of things too.

I believe this video is the newest version, correct me if I’m wrong. It was originally made by Karl Fisch (see his blog at The Fischbowl) for a presentation on how his high school should be teaching kids. It has been remade so many times it’s not even worth mentioning who else helped.

I’ve always loved this kind of video - words that shock you along with some quiet music. This goes along with someone talking made into animations, such as Alan Watt’s videos. This was actually assigned to be watched, which is progress in our school system, however it was also assigned that we fill out a sheet and analyze the video, which totally ruined all the progress. The writing in the top paragraph is actually one answer of what I’m handing in! Even this is a connection to the video. If the right steps are made soon all classes will be on computers, and, even further along, blogs, which is why I like including my homework into something I consider fun.

This video makes me think. If a laptop available in 2049 will surpass the combined technological power of the human race put together, than what are we left to do? As much as anybody I wouldn’t like an “I, Robot” situation however this may be for the better. I choose to see these advances as an opportunity; with all the “menial” (think open heart surgery) jobs out of the way our kind will have all the time we need to express ourselves in ways we can’t program computers to; such as the arts. Think about it.

Tip II coming soon.

Tip I

Published by
gradster1
at August 29, 2007 in lazy, technicalities, bored, arguments, beliefs, August, starting, teenagers, high school, series, school, blogging, random, facts, learning, education, writing and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Alright, I was a bit tired when I wrote my last post, so I failed to reveal that I was to include tips about school life. And thus, tired again, I will do my best to write the first.

Tip I:

Don’t be too prepared.

Having recently spent a day at Walmart (among other places, thank god), I should know that preparing is hard. It can be a bit fun, fighting the crowds, sifting through the piles of stuff, squeezing into tight places to let that obnoxious person past to the checkout lane… But enough is too much. Get in, get out, and try to do it early. Later they may give you back to school prices, but they will wear you and your patience out very quickly.

After the ride home look at your items. Consider how much stuff you have. You’re not going to want more than one binder per class, so if you have too many discard or save them. Notebooks are essential for some classes but not others, find out from your teacher or maybe a friend. Pencils and maybe pens are obviously a must, but erasers are usually not necessary, the pencil ones will suffice. Your teacher may have recommended a calculator, even if this is not a requirement it is a very good idea for math classes. I suggest the TI-84, be it plus, silver, plus silver edition, or something else I have not yet heard of, it works very well for anything up to and even past college and the investment might as well be made now. Other than that accessories such as post-its and pencil sharpeners are surplus and not recommended by me, because they become clutter.

These are my main recommendations for materials for the beginning of the school year. I will take no responsibility if anyone gets in trouble their first day because of these, I am not forcing you to use these guidelines, merely suggesting. It’s rather ironic that as I type I am in my first day of high school, right before lunch, but this underlines my point that I do have experience and so am not a total dimwit when it comes to school preparation. It’s debateable as to whether this applies to blogging, but anyway… Try to enjoy or at least get through without mishap your first day at school.

School Special

Published by
gradster1
at August 24, 2007 in teachers, language, series, starting, betaphor, August, education, writing, blogging, random, school, learning, Spanish and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

After a very relaxing vacation, in which I went to many beaches and gamed a lot, I have come back with this post. Please get extremely irate at my sister who DELETED ALL THE PICTURES. What an idiot. Ah well, on to the meat of the post.

Hallway “Oh noes!” as some of my friends met online would cry. As the school year draws closer and closer we as kids have become more and more agitated, and I and my friends have even more reason to be so because we are incoming freshmen at Champlain Valley High School. I find it ironic that as soon as I begin to write this sentence the opening notes of the song “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper start to play. Despite my growing dread, I find the concept of high school fascinating. Though my freshman year will be packed; I have been taking and will take Band and Spanish; I cannot help but see the possibilities in taking classes such as “Design Tech” and other languages, maybe even Latin. Anyway, to act as a diary (so I can see how stupid, immature, and naïve I was), and also just to give any middle school readers a chill (not that there are any (*sigh*), but feel free to prove me wrong! :D) , I will be writing a weekly series on how life in high school is. This will be loosely regimented and not at all posted every week exactly; for example I may post next Tuesday (the first day) then post on Monday the next week, or perhaps Friday. Hopefully this will not be too boring.

By the way, thanks to Arthus for the idea.