Favorite Subject

Social Networking

I have used social networking sites for about two years now.  I am an avid 4-H'er, and I have attended State 4-H Camp for four or five year.  I first made my Facebook page to keep in touch with some of my friends from around West Virginia.  I live in Preston County, and the only way for me to keep in touch with some of my friends from the southern end of West Virginia is to use social networking.

School Creativity

According to Sir Ken Robinson, schools kill creativity by not putting as much emphasis on the arts as on other subjects.  He quoted Picasso "Every child is born an artist."  We do not say that that child has succeeded only because he/she is a very good artist, they must excel in the core subjects to say that they succeeded.  The educational system is built to provide workers for the industrial age; that age has passed and we need to adjust.  Schools can help promote creativity by getting students more interested in the arts and increasing the portion of the schedule dedicated to the arts.  I wish that teachers knew that I don't learn very well by writing; I can learn by reading fairly well.  My most useful learning style is kinesthetic.  I usually combine my visual/auditory with my kinesthetic style.  If I see or hear something, I try it to see if it works.

Learning Styles

I have many different learning styles at my disposal.  The survey that I took only confirmed my belief.  I have a multimodal learning style encompassing, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  My most efficient method of learning is kinesthetic, followed by visual, and then auditory.  I wish teachers would use more diversity in their teaching methods to help me learn.  Some things I learn very well visually, while some thing I need to hear to learn.  More diversity in teaching style will also help many kids to learn because you encompass all the styles with the teaching.

Philosophy of Education

Edmodo, and What We Did

I think that the students like using Edmodo, because they had other people to bounce ideas off of.  They also had someone to pushe them in a direction for their writing.  Their writing is still their own, because they had the choice of which prompt to take.  Many of the students like the collaborative writing because it was a new way to look at writing methods.  I enjoyed the Edmodo project, because it exposed me to an atmosphere that I may not have seen otherwise.  I also enjoyed reading the other students' stories and seeing what level that they wrote on.  In future classes, I may use a tool similar to this to give a class a challenge problem.  That way, they can work together to get the problem finished.

President Obama: Cool under Pressure?

In these pictures, President Obama is portrayed after the Gulf Oil Disaster.  Each picture tells something different about his personality and his composure.
In this picture, Mr. Obama seems concerned, but still collective of his abilities.  His facial expression visualizes his concern.  The tense upper lip, and the lowered eyebrows are the best visualization of concern.  The camera also helps with the visualization of concern, the camera being above his eyeline emphasizes the facial expression with particular emphasis on his forehead and eyebrows.

In this picture, Mr. Obama seems more relaxed than in the other picture.  The relaxed look comes from his facial expression.  He is smiling, and his posture also looks relaxed.  He appears to be having a conversation with some friends in this photo.  The surrounding people in the foreground help the relaxed look, because many of them are smiling as well.  The background portrays a different picture, however, the people in the background have binoculars and one person in on the phone.  The background gives more of a concerning look.
The top picture shows that Mr. Obama has true concern, and the bottom shows that he can keep himself calm and collected under pressure.