Draconic Practices

For a long time I have been an advocate of technology in the classroom, and I have finally landed in a situation in which once again technology is seen as holding back and preventing students from learning rather than providing assistance. This instance of course has to do with Purude Universities policies regarding the use of calculators. You see in draconian wisdom they thought that it would be prudent to simply disallow the use the ever popular TI-83.

Now I would like to stress that I am well aware of the logic behind this decision, you see for all of us out there who simply can't stand the lack of full equation support on a one line calculator there is someone out there who will download a program to the calculator and use it to easy mode their way through courses. My problem with this is that college has never prevented stupid people from reaching the workplace before, and if you want proof of that all you need to do is look at a CS major, half of them don't know what a variable is, they just know who to talk to for homework and a good deal about copying.

Another perhaps more important section of this is that it is helping no one by forcing them to downgrade their mathematics skill, making us use a 1 line calculator won't help us to understand the concept any more than with a TI-83 or equivalent, all it serves to do is cause us to take our sweet time making sure we type in everything correctly the first time and praying that the massive equation we typed in wasn't wrong at some point. With a TI-83, we could look over said equation and simply place the cursor where need be to fix any problems. And if someone does program their calculator to do integration or the likes than all the more power to them, I would think that shows more skill and understanding of the math not less as math is the basic and fundamental point for all programming, so if they are programming the equations in they probably have the core theory down pat.

My point falls back to this draconian practice of eliminating technology for fear a student will not learn, and than forcing students to believe that by letting them suffer through intolerable basic math that they are keeping their wits sharp. All it does is serve to distract from any core curriculum that the class may have been trying to teach because while you are teaching the ideas of an infinite series your students are still trying to get the first 3 nonzero integers in that series to add together with the correct parentheses.

So there you have it, I haven't bitched in a month or two, but this has become an annoyance, and I just thought that I would bring it up

Collge Spirit

Alright, as some of you may or may not know, I recently went about attending a major university within the United States. This is after having come from a small community college that settled along the banks of the Tennessee river, so the change was somewhat dramatic in terms of exactly what it was that was going on. First off let me say that I am in know way attacking Purdue University, (har har, saving my own ass here) I am just commenting on the nature of school spirit when applied to large groups. I can easily say that much anything I am about to say can be applied to nearly any large University which features a sports team and has a committee to make the kids attending feel proud about the school.

But I have to admit, ever time I put my arm into the air, clap and say "Boiler Up" it feels just a bit like Hitler youth. Alright so maybe that is a very far off comparison, but the mob mentality, combined with the ideology that there is this much pride generated over a school or a sports team, enough to get 5000+ people to do it in Unison is admittedly creepy. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is a good reason for it in terms of the students mental health. For a lot of students they have left their homes for the next 4 years to live with people whom they have no clue about, so for them this something useful and fun to keep their minds off of their homesickness, in part to give them a new home to be proud of.

That doesn't not however change the fact that these chants and songs are just a bit fucking creepy for someone who has little experience in anything resembling school spirit. My High School was proud of itself, and it knew it was well off academically, but in terms of school spirit it was just kind of an inner pride that we all kept to ourselves, knowing damn well that we were the top preforming High School in the region, nearly hands down. So there was really no need, as this was a secret that everyone was in on, That and our sports teams were never in the American Football kind of thing, so we got stuck with those funny off sports.

And Community college was no different, no one was there because they were proud to be there, they were there because they had a goal to accomplish, and the community college was the means to that goal. I don't know maybe I feel the same way at Purdue, and that is why I am not quite as in the mood as others, I don't really feel proud to be up here, I had a feeling that I could easily get in with the right use of Charisma and applied intelligence, that I am using Purdue as a means to accomplish the goal of networking with major industries and large sections of the Government sector where I intend to eventually work,

But Yeah, just some thoughts, any of you out there find your school spirit to be just a bit creepy?

Homefront

So I've decided to save my news story for the video tomorrow. Oh by the way I have made up a schedule for my video's, so that the two people who actually care to watch it will be kept up with something semi interesting. In the mean time i think I'm just going to focus on myself, and be all blogfaggy and such. I'm not really sure why, other than the fact that I think I just need to vent and the best way to do that is to simply not pay attention to what's going on around me on the international front.

With regards to Purdue University. Everyone keeps telling me that I simply need to read the pounds of flyers / bullshit they have sent me in order to really understand what is going on. My thought is, if I wanted to learn by reading, than I wouldn't need to apply for any college on the planet, and I could sit down and read. Don't get me wrong, I like to read, but I don't like being told that I need to pile through 3 tons of bullshit only to get 1 - 2 useful facts out of the whole endeavor. That's why the whole verbal communication process exist. So that I can speak / converse in some manner with a real human being and get straight to the point of things. If I cared for the fluff I would read it on my own time, but with so few weeks until I pack up and head 9 hours away to a corn filled state, I would like to get key details out of the way such as but not limited to, where it is I am living, how it is I am paying for these things, etc.

It's just that I wish there were more active attempts at communication, for such a successful college I would think they would take more effort to send me useful non flyer based mail. I don't know its not really that big a deal I suppose, they have a great many students to take care of, it just feels so impersonal.

In other news I was able to get a hold of a new phone, I am hoping that it will get better reception / whatever so that I don't have calls just suddenly drop out on me. Also I think this is the most blog post that I have done in a row without some kind of distraction.

So yeah... anyway hopefully I should have a new video to you sometime in the near future.

Regards,

Backup Blogging

So, my site went down about a month ago. There was some mild attempt to save it made by a friend of mine, but due to some rather problematic DNS shortcomings and issues, it was made near impossible to put back on the web without going to some financial lengths. Long story short, I have very little faith that the site will be returning anytime in the near future. So for now, I think I am going to work out of a combination of Youtube, Proboards.com, and Blogger in order to stay in contact with the world.

My Youtube channel is something I am currently working on and can be found here:
http://youtube.com/user/fullphaser

The proboards forum that I am using can be found here:
http://fullphaser.proboards28.com/

And of course this blog which is conveniently located at:
http://fullphaser.blogspot.com/

Anyway, the point is that I will be using a combination of these tools in order to continue to communicate with the Internet. I think due to some life complications I will more than likely be dropping my affiliation with the Administrator Training Centre and My vForum, and refocus to simply me, That way I can take care of things that have been piling up in my life and need a great deal of attention, a refocus on reality if you will

I think I have been hiding in WoW for the past couple of months so I wouldn't have to deal with the financial / educational hole that I seem to have fallen into. I think finally getting a character in the game to 70 with 375 in all the secondary skills or whatever, and all the other small things that I finally feel like I've beaten it. I don't know I may keep up the account, it feels a waste to let it go on another month without playing. So I'll probably step back in from time to time, but I have to get out of it, or I'm going to go right out of mind.

In other news, I also need to get my stuff together for Purdue. I have spent the last 2 months just kind of putting it off, but the fact of the matter is that housing still has not contacted me, and I'm supposedly moving up there in only a matter of weeks. To put it simply, I'm a bit worried. So for the next couple of days I think I am going to concentrate on wrapping up anything they might need.

Past that, I will more than likely just split my time between this, My Youtube Channel, and That message board. Really it all makes me wish I had far more money at my disposal. Its so frustrating not to have money, and to know how very easy it is to get a hold of. An investment here, and savings bond there, and throw in a bit of manipulation and there you go, you have more money. Thoughts ran through my head of running scams, and more frighteningly I have this overwhelming want for the news to be nothing but horrible disasters, I suppose so that I don't have to deal with reality, because quite frankly it sucks.

They say I should be excited, that I should be happy about what is going on, but I'm just frustrated at this point, with myself, with my friends, with everything. Compound that with depression and more than likely a few physiological offsets along with a few family issues and you have the brew for a wonderful time.

It sounds odd, but I think what I really will need is just a vacation, and I'm sure I'll here hell not being employed at all for the past 2 years, rather spending my time as a student and getting my associates degree. But... yeah I could really go for just a month with no friends, no family, no house, no worries. But I leave in 4 weeks, it doesn't look like I'll be getting that for quite a while....

blargh!

Anyway, I should have a new youtube video up sometime tomorrow morning, I don't quite know what I'm going to talk about yet, but I'd like to do a second video. I don't really have anyone watching them, but It did 100+ views, which was what I was judging for weather or not I should do a second video. In addition to that, I got a friend from Portland to give me some real criticism so I can work on a better video next time.

In other news, I really wish Firefox's Spell checker worked with Google's systems. Gmail, Blogger, because of the Ajax combination the Spellcheck doesn't work in any of them. A real shame I say

Anyway, until Later;
Shawn Miller