Blackboard 9 is up and Running

Blackboard 9 is up and running. I have to say it is easier to use and has better functions. One of the functions I found intriguing was under users and groups. The new blackboard system allows you to enroll others on the blackboard system into your course as Students, Teaching Assistant, Grader, or Course Developer.
This will give faculty the option of collaborating online to build or review one another online classes. I hope Virtual College keeps this function available.

What is Facebook

This weekend a friend of mine who works for Yahoo dropped down to SoCal.
He had one of those Blackberry phones and I asked to see it. I noticed he had a facebook icon on his blackberry.
We started talking about why would someone use facebook?
He told me that lots of people use facebook as a replacement for their email.
Facebook has an internal, closed network, email system. This closed system prevents spam by being a closed system. If someone spam
other members, they will lose access to facebook.
I have another facebook friend who seems to be communicating with her kids via facebook. In order to monitor her childrens friends she became their friend and is leaving message for them to do their chores. Her children are 10 and 12.

Of course there is the Narcissism and the Stalking features too which my visiting friend did not understand.

I got the above picture from Despair.com via facebook.

Food Around Rio

On Thursday, we the three musketeers or the three stooges (depending on your point of view), went out for dinner again. Our trip began with me suggesting that we drive down Workman Mill to Whittier Blvd. Mr Y. complained on the whole drive (approximately 5 minute). We turned on Whittier and again on Philadelphia. We parked in the free parking lot passed Greenleaf on Philadelphia. We saw a Mexican resturant with the sign "Cheese Enchilada $4.95 special". I took a picture of it but can not figure out how to download it to my computer. We walked in but Mr. Y. complained about the harsh chemical smell. He was correct about the smell but yet the call of enchilada was strong. Kevin or I suggested going to some other Mexican place on Greenleaf.
As we were walking down (or up) Greenleaf Mr. Y. complained about the distance. Kevin and I kept pretending that we could see the Mexican place when in fact we did not. As we were having fun with Mr. Y. we saw an Italian restaurant named Ristorante Barilla. We agreed to eat at this place.
The food was good. Colin ordered Manicotti or as I would spell it Man-in-a-cot-ee. He liked it very much. I looked over to his plate and saw that it was basically an Italian Enchilada.
Kevin ordered Pollo e Panchetta which he liked. I ordered Ravioli but I asked that they cover it with Alfredo sauce instead of meat sauce. The Ravioli was excellent but I felt the Alfredo sauce was too salty.
Kevin paid with his card so he can get miles. I still owe him $10. I hope he will use his miles to fly to Italy and compare his Pollo e Panchetta in Whittier to the Italian version. The atmosphere was nice and there were other customers.
Overall not bad, we may go there again! However, next time we (Mr. Y and I) will pick on Kevin.

Social Science Get-Together Wednesday October 17

The following is posted on behalf of Adam:
Hello everyone,

I just wanted to remind you that we are having a Social Sciences get-together on Wednesday at 4:00. Katie O'___ informed me that since we will be discussing issues related to the college and to teaching, all those attending can receive Flex credit. I will have a sign-in sheet so all you need to do is show up.

Adam

We Should Drink To Raise Our Income

I need a raise. I need a drink. Adam has proposed Thursday April 26th at 4:00pm. If you want the written report click on the title of this post.

Skill To Focus and Summarize

Yesterday during the workshop they introduced various games to play and cooperative learning activities to conduct with the students. In one of the activities we were given 7 questions regarding globalization. Next we were divided into 7 groups. Each group was to become an expert on a question. After 20 minutes we were asked to mingle and find experts to answer each of these questions. It was an interesting experiment and I may use this technique with some topics to get my classes moving. After one teacher asked "what is the objective of this exercise?'
Our facilitator Dr. Chiara Gratton Lavoie an economist replied to this question with "They get the skill to focus and summarize".
She did not talk about the economics of the exercise but about students needing the skill to focus and summarize. She complained about students who write 2 or 3 pages of nothing and expecting a good grade.
She likes short precise answers. Later talking to her at lunch I learned that her speciality is in Microeconomics.
This is something that I knew instinctively but had not verbalized it. This is an important skill for our students.

You Are Fired

The following is from my old blog. I have not played this game yet!
I have been watching lots of T.V. lately. I should say too much T.V.! There are many Reality T.V. shows on the air. There is the Apprentice with Don Trump (don’t get me started on that loser), Big Brother 9999, Survivor (somewhere new but same old show), I want to be a Hilton and The Law Firm. All of these show have wannabe famous contestants with a mediocre intellect with high opinion of their own intellect.
Another common theme is in these contests and the topic of this post is: they all do things that the Co-operative learning literature talks about. The teams, tribes and inmates are put or form their own groups, and compete to complete a task. After completing the task they themselves or Donald grades them. This is similar to how group activities work in the classroom. I know there are some students who hate cooperative learning and group work, but I think now I can sell this cooperative learning (group activities) more easily to such students. I would make a T.V. show called the Economist where two groups the Dismalist and the Marginalist compete for _____ and I can tell one student each week “You have failed!”