How I Spent Time While PSN Was Down, part 2

continued from yesterday
How I Spent Time While PSN Was Down, part 2


6. Clean out many closets. It's amazing how much stuff we accumulate when in college. I thought people were just being very generous to me but realize they just wanted to get rid of a lot of clutter in their house. I'm also eager to get rid of clutter! The more stuff we own, the more it starts owning us. I think Tyler Durden said that. Or Thoreau.

7. Sell the stuff I cleaned out of the closets. I don't care how much I get for it, but if I can make a little spare change, then that's okay too. I took a trunk load of CDs and Games to a local video game shop and was offer $100 in cash or $200 in store credit. I took the store credit! The rest I'll probably give away to Goodwill, unless you want it. Make an offer! 

8. Use the money from selling that stuff I found in closets to buy Portal 2. After recently completing Portal due to the down-time, it was only natural to pick-up the recently released sequel! The co-op mode gave me a great idea for a romantic evening!

9. Had a date night playing co-op Portal 2 and Nazi Zombies on Black Ops. I met my fiancée on the frozen battle field known as Sidewinder. We often play games together and because of her Harvard background, it just made sense that she'd love an intelligent-shooter like Portal 2. Unfortunately, I found out she hates the PS3 controller and prefers sniper rifles and shotguns to portal guns. Reluctantly, she played Nazi Zombies with me but longed for the X-Box 360 controller. We ended up playing more Halo: Reach. So much for romance.

10. Started writing more often on this blog. With my impending thesis research project on the horizon, I've needed to start training and flexing my scribing skills. What better way to do so than blog my way through the research practice? I started out with some basic writing exercises to jump-start my creativity and had been diligent in keeping up with my writing schedule... but that was before PSN came back online.

I'm not an addict! I can find balance between Black Ops and reality. Going cold turkey was detrimental to those around me. In the office I'd take note of ideal spots for a motion sensor or tactical insertion. On dog walks, I'd immediately reach for my M72 Law mistaking every distant plane for an enemy spy plane. The random dolphin dives were painful and Ice Cube narrated my every thought.

I did enjoy randomly yelling out achievements while being productive.

FRESH COFFEE MAKER PRO!
PROMOTED! LEVEL - 46!

TAKE OUT THE KITCHEN TRASH PRO!
PROMOTED! LEVEL - 47!

How I Spent Time While PSN Was Down, part 1

How I Spent Time While PSN Was Down, part 1

It's unbelievable how productive we must have become once the PSN went down. Going cold turkey wasn't kind, but every other aspect in my life benefited. I wasn't addicted like most PSN members. I could quit anytime I wanted. I had everything totally under control. No, I wasn't addicted like most. I was actually being very productive and focused on earning Pro-level achievements in COD: Black Ops and trying creative load outs like this one: The Disruptor Class.

Nonetheless, I'm happy to have PSN back to a functional-enough state. Despite the setbacks on my Pro-level statuses, I've caught up and now work towards those same goals a third time but under the respected guise of Prestige level 3!

1. Spent more time on my school work effectively raising my grade. I had a report to complete and my typical writing process involved a mixture of Black Ops sessions. Don't judge! It helps to ignite the creative process! I'd very productively reserve time, usually a Sunday, to spend working on school research - one hour of staring at the blinking cursor on a computer screen and one hour of Black Ops and then another hour back to staring. With PSN gone, I really had only the hour of staring. I finished a semester's amount of work in a weekend. The headaches began and I needed an alternative to ween me away from Black Ops.
2. Completed Portal. I've never finished the first Portal game. It's a shame. During the down-time I stacked my favorite FPSs and tried to finish them like any avid reader would finish a stack of books. The only story that could hold my attention was Portal. Now I understand all the inside jokes about cake.
3. Plan a wedding. I thought my job was over once I bought the ring and put it on her finger. Apparently I'm supposed to be supportive and stuff, too. No one told me! I think there's a lot of hidden rules in wedding planning. Whenever my opinion is asked or I make a decision, it always, always turns out to be wrong! I wasn't aware it was possible to be wrong in hypothetical situations. Our website has been updated and I've attended multiple wedding showers. 
4. Lose ten pounds.With more time to exercise, I've also been focused on my Four Hour Body diet plan. I've written about it in this blog before and I still have maintained a normal BMI! I've never maintained a normal BMI! My ground work in MMA has felt the biggest improvement from the weight loss.
5. Toilet train cats. I'm not calling it a success just yet, but I have helped. In my mind, I do the most important part of toilet training cats - cleaning. I've hated every moment of the process but remain optimistic at the results. I have learned to not leave toilet paper out, because the cats will use it (see picture below).

Cats don't need toilet paper.

...to be continued with accomplishments 6-10 tomorrow.

Documentaries in the Classroom - Brainstorming My Thesis

Brainstorming My Thesis
Documentaries in the Classroom


Here's a thought: let's improve student research writing and assessment using authentic pedagogical strategies and incorporating multimedia models in the form of professional documentaries.


The basis of this idea stems primarily from the minimal attention span in high school students. Now don't pretend you were always the perfect studious high schooler, even if you're a teacher. I have a theory that the best teachers are/were the worst students, but that's for another blog and time. In my experiences working with teachers and students, research season is never met with enthusiastic high-fives and cheering. When collaborating with my cohort teachers about their upcoming projects, none have yet to reply:

"Research projects! Huzzah! Pomp and circumspect!"

A more common response from teachers and students alike would be:

"...Research...ugh...papers. So much grading..."

This is the secondary motivator for continuing my thesis in this direction; teachers and students find research projects a "challenge". Nonetheless, research is a vital skill for life! Not just an academically driven life, but the ability to seek and filter knowledge, building upon previously learned skills, then successfully implementing new knowledge is necessary for survival!

Changing that flat tire on your Ford F-150, installing a new hard drive in your Dell XPS M1330 laptop or getting your X-Box 360 resurrected from the RED RING OF DEATH are all examples with OTC* connections (*Outside the Classroom). Which brings me to my first proposed requirement for a great research project.

If students (and teachers) are going to stay motivated or awake during a research project, the project must research something with an authentic OTC connection.

Some say students are lazier and lazier each year - you know the ones, they're always in the teachers lounge. This isn't true. Students are as curious as ever but can only maintain so much curiosity in historical figureheads and book reports. It's been done and looses it's significance by secondary school. Let's agree, there's more interesting topics to delve into than this. Likewise, the methods of research evolved with our students.

This evolution comes in two ways:

1. Our students have evolved as hip, technology savvy digital natives, which is a very generous way of saying their attention span has significantly decreased.
2. Our students have more research tools available to them than 3x5 index cards and a card catalog.

Which leads to the second requirement for developing a new method of teaching research:

Technology must be recognized as an integral component of the research process.

Just as Pre-writing is an integral component of the five-step writing process, our students need to be familiar with the technology available and how to properly navigate it to stay out of trouble. At a professional development with Alan November as the headliner, he showed us a website providing plenty of biographical information about Martin Luther King, Jr. Further filtering revealed that the site was owned by the Ku Klux Klan. Students need to know just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean it's true. On the other hand, the amount of Web 2.0 resources are also classroom worthy. Twitter has been considered the top tool for learning three years in a row! Seriously! Go take a look -> Top 100 Tools for Learning. Anyone on the #edchat Twitter channel would probably agree.

I'd love to delve into each of these points further and even cite the research I've already gathered to support my ideas, but I should stop and emphasize how professional documentaries fit into the grand plan... next time. One of my favorite rules for writing stems from Hemingway - always leave things unfinished so you'll have something to write about tomorrow.

Summary

The purpose of rewriting research curriculum in the classroom includes:

1. Students are evolving with shorter attention spans
2. Teachers and Students dread standard classroom research projects
3. Research is a vital life skill

Requirements for a new research curriculum should include:

1. OTC (Outside the Classroom) connections
2. Recognize technology as an integral part of the research process