Week 13 - Applications

I feel like I learn something new every day in this class!
Fun stuff...

Sabermetric Document

Phixr

Week 12

Click here to access my website!

Week 11 - Concept Mapping

Below is brainstorming behind what I feel is a lost art in coaching the game of basketball. This would be something an educator could use in the classroom to share ideas among teams and individuals no matter what the subject. This specific map could end up being massive, but I decided to cut a lot of the decision making out to get the general concept across.

Week 8 - Road Trip Lesson Plan

When looking at a map, I always think about traveling. It may be related to me traveling as a child when my father was in the military. My family lived in 7 different places until I was in the 5^th grade, so using a map was very common while traveling. We did not have the GPS back in the 80s and 90s. My lesson plan could be used in many different types of classrooms. The classes that could use this lesson plan would be a mathematics class, geography class, accounting class, or even a computer class just to name a few. I am coming from the mathematics class perspective. Below is a short description of the lesson plan.

Road Trip!

Each group will consist of 2 students that have been given 2 weeks off from school. This road trip will consist of the 2 person team ending up in one place, but within the two weeks, they must visit at least 3 different places. These destinations can include visits to family, site-seeing, or simply a place both people want to visit and spend time. The mathematical totals the group must come up with are hotel costs in specific cities they will spend the night in, gas prices based on minimum mileage, food expenses, and miscellaneous expenses that may arise. Each group will also be required to create an emergency fund in case something happens to their vehicle along the way. The first part of the lesson is for the group to estimate without looking up prices on the internet how much money they will need for everything. The second part of the lesson requires them to map out their journey. The third part of the lesson requires them to calculate their trip (one way) including everything except their emergency fund. The students will turn in their map with locations and distances between locations, calculations for their budget, and an excel spreadsheet on their estimated costs along with a summary of their trip and complications while calculating.

This lesson will be a tool for students to understand cost efficient ways to travel with a vehicle. They will be given per-determined gas prices ($3.00 per gallon) for the trip along with a consistent car with highway mileage rates (25 mpg).

You can find my map of my road trip by clicking here.

Week 7 - Podcasts

Never did I see myself creating my own podcast, but I did create an account and thought it was quite easy. Before diving into this lesson, I have heard of podcasts but never have I done research on exactly what the benefits are of a podcast. I listen to a lot of talk radio to and from work suggesting I listen to podcast (non-educational) and after searching for an educational podcast, I found a podcast the revolves around bullying. This is intended for educators more than students because it assists them in identifying who may be a bully or who may be a victim of bullying within their classrooms. This podcast explains how much bullying has an effect on children and I really enjoyed listening because I can understand where it comes from. Not only does it talk about the physical bullying, but even more so the effects it has on the psychological aspect of a child outside of the classroom through internet bullying also known as cyber-bullying. This podcast explains where bullying comes from and how it can be avoided within the classroom. Bullying is often very aggressive and carried out multiple times against a victim or a small group. The podcast gives profiles of both the bully and the victim of the bully which I found very useful. I started to connect these profiles to people I used to go to school with and they fit perfectly. Many teachers may have been one or the other, so they know about bullying and hopefully they stop it from happening, but this podcast is a very good educational tool for teachers to look deeper into their students lives and figure out if they can help. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.

Coaching Life Through Basketball

The thing I am most passionate about is being a leader of young men and women through a sport I adore, basketball. Although I am posting here to fulfill the assignment requirements, I hope to someday soon create a detailed website of my journey and linking videos and photos that I feel have been useful during my coaching career both on and off the court. The most important part of my coaching experience has been to teach life lessons through basketball, which I will emphasize through the video I posted and photos I share below.

John Wooden

This photo is of Coach John Wooden, former UCLA men's basketball coach who is known by many as a successful basketball coach. To me and others that have knowledge of his life and lessons he taught using basketball, I think of him as a positive role model to the highest of levels and one of the greatest leaders of men through the sport he loved dearly, basketball. For some excellent quotes, you can click here, you will not be disappointed.

Jimmy Valvano

Another excellent leader through the sport they loved is Coach Jim Valvano. He is known for what I consider the best speech of all time at the ESPY's a few months before cancer took his life. I still tear up when I hear it to this day. You can view this below.

College Basketball Hall of Fame

One place I have been wanting to visit is the National College Basketball Hall of Fame and College Basketball Experience. After talking with my wife, we are thinking about making a trip to Kansas City this summer to catch a Tigers game and visit the Hall of Fame. For some reason I have been working on this google map for the last hour and a half and it's not working for me. Below is a map and I am also attaching a link since neither will work.

College Basketball Hall of Fame Location

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Week 5 Reflection

What an amazing experiment it would be for teachers and students to be given laptops, curriculum manuals/materials, etc. Even if the equipment was below average, it couldn’t be any worse than learning what could be. In higher education, so much of what we use revolves around advanced technology. If the leaders were resistant of the equipment and the cost was high, it would be a very difficult transition. In order to have a successful transition from not having these materials to suddenly having these materials, proper training should be given to the teachers not only on how to use this equipment, but how to teach others about using it. Methods and instructions should be clarified prior to putting a lesson plan together on how to best use the technology.

I can see this project imploding for the simple fact that some teachers age difference, seniority, and simply not wanting to learn more about the technology they have been given. Many tenured educators at least that I know have a set way of teaching, many of which use limited technology if any at all. This experiment would be a difficult sell to those that are set in their ways and have no wiggle room. They feel their way of teaching has been successful over the years and they don’t need the assistance of technology nor are they interested in learning the pros of what technology can bring to the classroom and to their lesson plans.

In addition to the educators lack of wanting to learn about the technology and resisting the benefits, what back-up costs would this technology have? Would there be additional positions filled by technology specialists if it were to break down? That is another concern that must come up from this scenario/question. Technology is very expensive but unfortunately, backing up technology with constant support if needed can be even more expensive. To employ an individual as the lead IT person could cost more than the technology itself in most cases, it just depends on what credentials would be required to work within the school system. There are many pros and cons to this situation and I firmly believe the cons outweigh the positives that would come about implementing this system. I am all for technology, but it seems like this overhaul of technology would be too overwhelming for everybody to carry out effectively.

After reading this project, I started to think about an effective plan that could be carried out over time to ensure it would work. I strongly believe if this project was spread across a 3-5 year span, implementing one piece of technology at a time, it could be successful and not as overwhelming for the educators and students. Below is a plan I put together that I feel could be helpful for everyone involved to successfully carry out a 3-5 year plan.

Year 1

-Meeting to discuss goals of technological implementation within school system

-Identify target dates

-Hire IT staff to assist with implementation and training

-Train staff on stage one technology

-Implement stage one of four stages of technology

Year 2

-Follow up meeting to discuss goals and pros/cons of technology implementation within school system for year 1

-Additional meeting to discuss changes for stage 2 implementation and training

-Hire additional staff if needed

-Train staff on stage two technology

-Implement stage two of four stages of technology

Year 3-5 (Repeat year 2 with modifications)

Clearly there would be some revisions and more detail put into this plan to implement this technology, but I believe the best way to carry out implementing a lot of technology would be to set forth goals and carry out those in organized time increments.

As part of this assignment, we were asked to add photos using flickr or photobucket and this font want dark, therefore it blended into the background before. It's now white and you can view my photos on flickr by going clicking HERE.