Voice chat with England

Last Tuesday in class, we had a voice chat with Jamie, someone who works at a museum that focuses on the mill industry in England in the 19th century. To prepare for this, we did some research of our own on topics such as the food they had, accidents that could occur, and other stuff. We looked at a website containing some cases that actually were reported from the mills. We also watched a video sent to us by the museum, describing some of the machines that were used, which we then looked up on Google to figure out what each one of them was.






During the video, we were shown a few of the machines and some pictures depicting them in use or how they could have injured people. I learned that until later, all these machines were not independently powered, and thus could only be turned off at one point and often took a while to be turned off, and thus if someone was caught in the machines, they would often be either maimed or killed by the machines. They were also extraordinarily loud, often resulting in people going deaf quite quickly. The revolution was quite a double edged sword. People would have more clothes food, and soon home amenities such as electricity, However, the conditions some of these people would have to go through to make these happen is downright disgusting. Also, one thing I didn't quite realize before this talk was how much research has to be put into museums. Jamie had said that he had to put tons of hours of research into this to make things happen.

I think that overall I did learn quite a bit from this, however a lot of it was information I already knew and was being repeated. However, it does help to reinforce information that I might has been shaky on. I would definitely like to do something like this with more experts, as hearing something directly from them helps keep information straight in my head.

Running the Revolution

In class recently, we were given 5  or 6 sources to analyze to research a common theme. My groups them for example was how the Industrial Revolution impacted nature and people.

Picture of my group's poster. Apologies about the quality, it had to be

scaled down to be able to fit the given space.

Zoom in to read

After putting this together, I realized that curating a museum is much easier and harder than I thought. While actually putting something like this together is relatively easy, it can be hard to remember to include roughly only what people would find interesting. If you give detailed descriptions then you will lose people's attention, but if you cut things too short then you won't be able to include everything you have to.

Some of the other groups topics were also rather interesting. One gave a rather detailed explanation on how a steam powered transportation worked. This was complete with how steam engine works to a diagram of where resources were in comparison to transportation. The second went into more in depth detail on how people's lives were made worse. One focus was on the age of people working and how much they would be working at a time. The third poster was about spinning mills. More specifically, it was about how conditions in them turned very similar to slavery soon after they began work. The last exhibit was slightly related to the last. It was about how the demand for  cloth began to rise as populations would, needing more and more cloth to be able keep the population warm.

How to bake an industrial cake

The industrial revolution is one of the biggest events in history ever. With advances in all mechanical fields, life was more advanced and more materialistic than ever.

In class, each group would research one of the aspects of the Industrial Revolution. For example, my group researched transportation, while others did people, technology or resources. All of these fields are those that had major improvement.


Resources were now easier than ever to get. In mines, they would use pumps to get water out, and use the coal that they could now reach to power a steam engine with that water which would power those pumps and other electronics, creating a vicious cycle. Beyond that, moving these resources was easier with steam powered boats and trains.


People lives were also better than ever. Advances in agriculture and clothing made society able to support more people than ever, resulting in huge population growths. While people would not necessarily have cleaner places due to large amounts of pollution from engines and power generation, more people overall lead to more people that have the potential to survive


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine#mediaviewer/File:Stott_Park_Bobbin_Mill_Steam_Engine.jpg, March 6, 2008

How to Google correctly

How many times do you use Google in a day? If you are anything like me, at least too many times a day. The problem is, there is quite a bit of crap on Google. Some recent class activities showed how to get actual information from Google, a nice example of this being 'A Google a Day' activity. Wikipedia is nice, but if you need a reliable source then they fall short. But Wikipedia is not even close to the only offender. But we will get back to that.

agoogleaday.com

A Google a Day is a part of all the websites Google owns. The website gives you three questions a day and your job is to find the answer by finding key words in the statements. Actually beating it is quite invigorating, and a lot of fine, using a product to find answers that the product gives you. However, this being technology, there are flaws. If you are one letter off, and sometimes capital letters matter too, then it is considered wrong. However, that is the only flaw I find in their system. They even use a custom version of Google to remove anything that blatantly gives you the answer, however the questions are usually harder then those that give you one word answers. 

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

There are 3 major areas one must look to find a good source: Accuracy, authenticity and reliability. Accuracy is how close the information given is to fact, authenticity is how genuine the information and whether or not the author is a reliable source, and reliability is how easy it is to trust the source.

That website refers back to the question of reliable sources. This is a relatively serious looking website. However, do a little digging and you will find out a lot more about the website. The author of this article and its subsections is Lyle Zapato. This site is not associated with any school or educational organization, other than the Kelvinic University branch of the Wild Haggis Conservation Society. Not to be confused with the Pacific Northwest Octopus Tree.    That is a direct quote from the website, found at the bottom of the page. They out right say they have almost no educational ties, and Lyle Zapatao has little to no real information on him. The website, or source, has dedicated itself to report on 'conspiracies and other diversions'. The information on the page, while at first glance seems reliable, any cross checking on the information will lead you to websites talking about the fact that this is a hoax. If you don't fact check, you should be at least a little curious to the part where it talks of it's primary predator being the Sasquatch. This website is commonly used by teachers, such as my own, to see if students can figure out the source is a hoax. 

Citation:

Plpnetwork, http://plpnetwork.com/2012/03/29/building-web-search-skills-the-fun-way-with-a-google-a-day/

Good teachers are a life long gift

Hello!

I would like to start of this blog with a writing about teachers and education in general.

What makes a good teacher good? While this seems like a really simple question, it is much harder to answer then it seems. Teachers who are boring are the opposite of good, because if people are too bored to learn then that class is effectively useless to the students in it. Teachers who do the same thing over and over again fall victim to this. Teachers that are too nice, while it hurts me to say this, are also in general not good as in my experiences they struggle controlling their class. The mix of the two makes a good teacher, someone who is interesting enough, and while not always nice are usually nice. My favorite qualities of past teachers are those who are entertaining people but still visibly teach. If I don't feel like I am learning, but do well on tests that at the very least seem difficult, I like that class. Also, I personally do not learn well conventionally in class, meaning taking notes constantly and giving quizzes and tests on said notes etc. I learn best with technology, so teachers that either encourage that or at least let me prove that I will either do better with technology in the class or won't be distracted by it are also of my favorite teachers.

A recent event regarding education is a video by accomplished author and Youtuber John Green. He made a video describing why he supports public education despite the fact he does not have a kid in school. One of the things he says in the video is that he supports public education because he doesn't want to live in a country full of stupid people, and that this education is not free to the students, it is their job to benefit society as a price for their education. Personally, I could not agree with his statements more. I am a big fan of everything John Green does, and this is no exception. Public education is one of the most valuable things to human kind, even if the poeple receiving it do not value it that much, they should. I personally love school as I find little more invigorating then setting and breaking goals. I love music and computers all the same, and use those to better myself every day. While my school year is going to be hard (taking 2 math classes and 3 honors classes) I am already developing better study habits and better habits in general.

I will leave you with the video from John Green, and I hope to talk to you later.