Spring is here

The warm weather has finally broke through, and hopefully this time it will stay! Outdoor activities are picking up, people are sitting out relaxing, and most importantly .. summer is coming!

You can always tell when it's a nice day at Slippery Rock because instead of the field house track being full of runners/walkers .. the outside track and sidewalks are filled with people running/walking. The bike racks are full, and people are just spending time between classes sitting in the grass or on benches.

Spring is here, and next comes Summer and Summer vacation!

Month and a half

Only one and a half months left of school left, less than 50 days until May 1. I can't wait! I started 352 this past week and now have 7 classes until summer. Most of my classes just require small teaching assignments which are no big deal but with my Efolio and other tech projects and big lesson plans for 352, this last bit of the semester is going to be rough. Assuming I live through the semester, the summer is going to be a breeze.

Here's so procrastination and way too many classes!

Pittsburgh Sports

The Steelers brought home their sixth championship this year and now the Penguins are fighting for a playoff spot. Will they make it and make this Pittsburgh's year? Let's hope so. They are currently in 8th place and can swing anywhere between 8th and 5th in a matter of one game. They've been playing strong recently with the addition of Kunitz so I am going to say they make the play offs, even if it is just squeezing by in 8th place. How far they make it in the playoff depends on how well they can play together and if they can play each game without mistakes (blowing 3-5 point leads).

How about those Pirates? They haven't had a winning season since before I can remember .. but they are 8-4 in Spring training so far. Is this the year that the Pirates show some potential? I'm going to say they finally have a winning season .. everythting after this is just long overdue miracles.

Spring Break

Finally Spring break is here! I'm not going to the beach, or taking vacation from work .. I'll be working and also hopefully working on my Efolio! This is the last relief from school before all of the end of semester cramming starts so I'm going to enjoy the time off.

And I probably won't end up working on my Efolio. The troubles of being a procrastinator..

Sci-fi Technology

Sometimes when you think of technology you think of all the crazy high-tech gizmos that you often see in movies and science fiction shows. There are flying cars, lazer beam guns, watches that display holograms. You think about those kinds of things and you say to yourself, "yeah right .. those will never happen." What people don't know, is that some of those things are closer than you may think.

I could be considered a technology geek. I enjoy reading about science and math and inventions. I am suscribed to a science magazine and I regular read a comedic science blog, http://www.geekologie.com

There ARE phone watches, nucleur grade duct tape, rock, paper, scissor robots, and even memory erasing pills.

These are just samples of some of the extreme technology that you think are just science fiction myths but in reality they are closer to everyday life than you think.

Some other extreme examples are robots that play soccer, robotic scare crows, and 8,000 mpg cars.

Kickball: Advancing to the next base, defending the bases

I had my first teaching assignment in Striking & Field and as the title of this blog describes: it was about kickball. My group and I met during common hour a few times to work out the lesson and then we taught.

From the start, it wasn't the best teaching episode of the year. The warm up got a little confusing and our classmates we were teaching were all over the floor. We fixed it up and got through the rest of the warm up and moved onto the lesson.

The lesson started out good. I was in charge of descsribing the lead up activity and thought it was a fairly simple concept of turning a double play, but I was wrong. A lot of the groups were kind of standing around and it took a quick mini-explaination to get everyone started on task. I was informed later I should have used a demonstration of the activity to help visualize the activity.

The next part was a guide practice. I quickly explained the concepts of "tagging up" and "turning two" and set the class out on practicing those skills. I forgot to explain "sacrifices" like I had planned, and should have explained more specific rules (what happens if the ball gets kicked out of play, foul balls, etc..).

The rest of the teaching was my group members so I'll stop my reflection there. I learned valuable lessons from my mistakes in this twenty minutes. I learned the value of demonstrations. I relied too much on explaining and assuming everyone knew what they were doing. Demonstrations are a sure fire way to show the students what they were doing, and a good demonstration will only take a minute of time.

Dek Hockey

Saturday was my first experience with Dek Hockey. My friends and I decided to start a team for this Spring's league in Butler. I haven't touched a Hockey stick in years but this was definitely a fun experience.

We started out just warming up, passing back and forth, and taking shots on goal. Our goalie arrived and we tested him out and he passed with flying colors. Not long after we started, a few younger kids showed up to practice because they were on the Butler Hockey Team. We decided it'd be a good practice to scrimmage them and it was tons of fun.

I left the practice with a much better understanding of playing defense in a competitive game and I also left with a goal and an assist. It certianly was a wonderful first practice.