I cannot believe that three and a half years has passed me by so quickly. Today I officially finished all classes and all field placements. Therefore, that means that I have finished my my first semester of senior year....only one semester left.
Even the best writter in the world would not be able to describe how sad and disappointed to leave this amazing school. I will miss everything about being in a college and being a college kid.
I don't want my life to change. I don't want to leave this amazing town, with these amazing people.
MSU gave me the best four years of my life and I will be forever grateful for what is has done for me.
Thank you.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Google...my new best friend
I never knew how incredible GOOGLE is and how beneficial it can be to use in a classroom. The possibilities with google are endless. One of my favorite feature (besides gmail) is google docs. These things are incredible! They are so easy to use and share! The fact that you can have people working on the same thing at the same time in the comfort of your own home. You can create lessons, and forms, and excel sheets, and it can be between you and a friend or an entire school. The forms you can create also give you a number of options. You can make these into assessments, worksheets, homework, surveys, or activities for your students. One thing that I will be using google docs for is communication between teachers and especially with parents. It is much easier to send "notes or updates" home to parents and communicate them so you will always be on the same page.
Another feature that I have still yet to get more into but I think is going to be very beneficial to me when I have the time is the google reader. This is a great way to get instant updates on information that can be used to help you in the classroom or just for your own enjoyment!
Another feature that I have still yet to get more into but I think is going to be very beneficial to me when I have the time is the google reader. This is a great way to get instant updates on information that can be used to help you in the classroom or just for your own enjoyment!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Home for the Holiday's
After eating ramen noodles for three months, sleeping in freezing cold houses where you can hear your next door neighbors phone conversation with their boyfriend at 3:00 a.m., and having liquor bottles as your only decorations, college students are probably more excited for the holiday's than little kids. On one study done a few years ago, they found that college students are actually the first ones to start listening to Christmas music on the radio. Many students start listening to holiday music even before the holiday's begin.
Thanks to facebook, I actually found some radio stations that have already started playing Christmas tunes weeks before Thanksgiving. We get homesick for tasty home cooked food, heat, and peace and quiet. Now don't get me wrong, there is no other place that I would want to live right now other than East Lansing, but I think everyone can agree that sometimes you just need a break from the craziness that goes on here 24/7 and that is why we look so forward to going home for the holidays.
Thanks to facebook, I actually found some radio stations that have already started playing Christmas tunes weeks before Thanksgiving. We get homesick for tasty home cooked food, heat, and peace and quiet. Now don't get me wrong, there is no other place that I would want to live right now other than East Lansing, but I think everyone can agree that sometimes you just need a break from the craziness that goes on here 24/7 and that is why we look so forward to going home for the holidays.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Halloween
Halloween is always a very exciting time in East Lansing. Its not an appropriate holiday, its not something that i would ever bring my children around, and it is definitely something that I would not want parents or grandparents to see.
What happened to when we were children and we dressed as cute little pumpkins, princesses, or power rangers. Now if you see a pumpkin, its a girl who is wearing a orange sports bra (with no shirt on), and orange tights and orange underware. Don't forgot the jack o' lanterns mouth on her bare midriff. There is so much pressure on people to dress provocatively or funny or inappropriate.
Friday, October 8, 2010
To all the Random Nights.....
Last night I was on a boat. It was a Thursday night and I was on a boat with a random group of students. I am a student at Michigan State University and last night I was able to drive 2 hours to Muskegon with three other people that I have never met. We were all in the same Kinesology class, KIN 140, sailing the great lakes. Talk about being open to experiences.
When we arrived, we were greeted by our captain and professor, Captain Joe. He was itching to set sail, so right away we hoped out of the car and onto the sailboat, Catalina 34 was her name, and this was going to be our home for the night. We learned to sail all in a matter of about 15 minutes because according to Captain Joe that's all it takes. To sail you need to get the boat out of the dock (according to Jo its the hardest most dangerous part of sailing), get the sails up and shaped, and when you run out of lake tact! Tacting is when you turn the boat around and that takes all of 2 minutes to do at max. Once you have accomplished all of this (which literally takes about 10 minutes) you do nothing.
I wish I had a notebook with me on this trip because the things Captain Joe were telling us where incredible. This man has life figured out. He figured out how to be happy and make that his career and his life. He used to teach for years until one of his students committed suicide over a long break. It was then that he realized even though he is teaching all these kids, hes not helping them, hes not doing anything for them. So he quit. He walked away. He had no plans and no job lined up. He took a year off and thought about things, did odd jobs here and there, but in the end he said the only thing that could make him be free (which is the only way to be happy in his opinion) was to sail. He has sailed all over the country and to certain parts of the world.
Now here I am sitting on this boat with this man, and a few other students of various ages. We don't know each other, we really werent talking much, and we had no idea what to expect of our little adventure. After we sailed we went out to dinner together at some little local joint and had burgers and beers. We later found a random Mexican restaurant Los Amigos and all bonded over some chips and salsa and margarittas. I was with this random group of people in a random city that I have never been and everything seemed just right. It wasn't until later on that night when we all started receiving texts from our friends "where are you"? "are you going out tonight"? and "let's meet up"! We were all cracking up about this because we simply replied with "I'm on a boat". Not typical for your Thursday night, sleeping on a sailboat with random people, growing to become a small family on Catalina 34. We knew there was going to be two more people joining us for the morning sail and we all said we wish they could have come the night before because now they couldn't be apart of our family.
After this experience it made me want to do more random things, meet more random people, and see more random things. Life is too short and too precious to sweat the small stuff. Having the wind blowing in your hair, laying out in the sun with your shades on, and laughing. This is what life should be about.
This is another reason why I love being a Spartan. We are One.
When we arrived, we were greeted by our captain and professor, Captain Joe. He was itching to set sail, so right away we hoped out of the car and onto the sailboat, Catalina 34 was her name, and this was going to be our home for the night. We learned to sail all in a matter of about 15 minutes because according to Captain Joe that's all it takes. To sail you need to get the boat out of the dock (according to Jo its the hardest most dangerous part of sailing), get the sails up and shaped, and when you run out of lake tact! Tacting is when you turn the boat around and that takes all of 2 minutes to do at max. Once you have accomplished all of this (which literally takes about 10 minutes) you do nothing.
I wish I had a notebook with me on this trip because the things Captain Joe were telling us where incredible. This man has life figured out. He figured out how to be happy and make that his career and his life. He used to teach for years until one of his students committed suicide over a long break. It was then that he realized even though he is teaching all these kids, hes not helping them, hes not doing anything for them. So he quit. He walked away. He had no plans and no job lined up. He took a year off and thought about things, did odd jobs here and there, but in the end he said the only thing that could make him be free (which is the only way to be happy in his opinion) was to sail. He has sailed all over the country and to certain parts of the world.
Now here I am sitting on this boat with this man, and a few other students of various ages. We don't know each other, we really werent talking much, and we had no idea what to expect of our little adventure. After we sailed we went out to dinner together at some little local joint and had burgers and beers. We later found a random Mexican restaurant Los Amigos and all bonded over some chips and salsa and margarittas. I was with this random group of people in a random city that I have never been and everything seemed just right. It wasn't until later on that night when we all started receiving texts from our friends "where are you"? "are you going out tonight"? and "let's meet up"! We were all cracking up about this because we simply replied with "I'm on a boat". Not typical for your Thursday night, sleeping on a sailboat with random people, growing to become a small family on Catalina 34. We knew there was going to be two more people joining us for the morning sail and we all said we wish they could have come the night before because now they couldn't be apart of our family.
After this experience it made me want to do more random things, meet more random people, and see more random things. Life is too short and too precious to sweat the small stuff. Having the wind blowing in your hair, laying out in the sun with your shades on, and laughing. This is what life should be about.
This is another reason why I love being a Spartan. We are One.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Digital Books
Taking a class based on technology in the classroom has really opened my eyes to a whole new world all while causing me a great amount of stress. How am I supposed to use these excellent tools in the classroom when I can't stand them myself? How am I supposed to encourage my students to use these tools in the classroom when I think they cause more of a headache then they are a help?
This weeks topic was digital books. We were assigned to articles, both of which I found very dry and not helpful in understanding what exactly we were supposed to get out of using digital books in our classroom. To me they covered just as many faults with these tools as they did positive attributes of this new technology available to us. After reading these two articles I still feel lost and confused about the reason why we would use these in our classroom when we can't always depend on technology.
I feel that in two years, when I am actually running the show in my own classroom, there will be completely different technology, even better technology available that will help my students.
This weeks topic was digital books. We were assigned to articles, both of which I found very dry and not helpful in understanding what exactly we were supposed to get out of using digital books in our classroom. To me they covered just as many faults with these tools as they did positive attributes of this new technology available to us. After reading these two articles I still feel lost and confused about the reason why we would use these in our classroom when we can't always depend on technology.
I feel that in two years, when I am actually running the show in my own classroom, there will be completely different technology, even better technology available that will help my students.
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