Sunday, October 3, 2010

The Monster in Blue Knows Best


Yes he most certainly does! After eating cookies all day every day, Cookie Monster certainly knows what makes a good cookie. While I may not be as qualified or experienced as he, I do have some particular criteria of my own.

Criteria
Number of Chocolate Chips: Unlike many of my peers in the class, I do not prefer to have an overabundance of chocolate chips in a cookie. Too many makes the cookie heavy in taste and tends to make me feel like it is “sitting in the bottom of my stomach” for the rest of the day. Too few make it nothing but dough with some sweetness but that which fails to meet my expectations for a chocolate chip cookie. For the standard size cookie, one that fits in the palm of my hand though is not the size of it, 5-7 chocolate chips is preferred, for anything above or below that range is too few and too many respectively. I also prefer the chocolate to be soft and gooey rather than hard and crunchy.

Dough: When eating a chocolate chip cookie the dough must compliment the gooeyness of the chocolate. It must be chewy, not hard. However, it cannot be gooey like the chocolate, but must have some sort of firmness about it. I actually prefer that the dough gets stuck in my teeth after eating it, so it must therefore have some sticky quality to it. Again, for this to happen there must be some balance between rigidity and softness. It also must be sweet and golden brown.

Scent: As long as it has a sweet smell I am happy. This is a very simple standard that is easily made by any cookie.

Freshness: Again, this is an easy quality to judge. The cookie is either fresh or old, and when you eat it you can certainly tell the difference. The old cookie will have a stale taste and will probably be harder than what it should be. A fresh cookie will have a strong scent, a perfect combination between softness and hardness, and a taste free of “staleness.” All in all, the cookie is either fresh or not.

Warmth: Does the cookie have the sense of having been taken right out of the oven or has it obviously been out long enough for it to cool down? This is probably the most stringent criteria I have. The best cookies are those that are kept warm and typically you can only find a cookie in such a state if it has just come out of the oven. Generally, these standards are met when the cookie is homemade, which, when made correctly, always tastes better than store-bought. However, some restaurants do warm their cookies as they are displayed to the customer. This is either a pass or fail criteria, and one that can lead to its overall success or failure.

Evaluation
While I was at Schnucks grocery shopping this past weekend I decided to stop by the bakery and grab a cookie so I could evaluate it with my given criteria and then report on whether it lived up to my standards or not.

Number of Chocolate Chips: This cookie was perfectly sized as it fit just within the palm of my hand. It also had seven chocolate chips which is enough to satisfy me with a cookie of that size. It was a perfect balance of dough and chocolate which is a quality that cannot be overlooked. I was very happy. Because the cookie fit within my range of chocolate chips and also met my size restriction, it was a perfect combination that did not leave me with a heavy feeling in my stomach or feeling groggy. The cookie gets an A+ for this criterion.

Dough: The appearance of the cookie was lacking a bit in that the cookie was a little too white and gray rather than golden brown. As a result, the cookie was a little too soft and did not have the firmness that provides for the “sticky” quality I desire. Simply put, there was not enough rigidity to the cookie. However, the cookie was not gooey either and was closer to what I would like rather that what I did not want in a cookie. It was also especially sweet. The cookie gets a B- for this criterion.

Scent: The cookie had a very sweet and fresh scent to it. It did not smell as if it had been sitting on the display shelf all day, but that it had been newly baked. The cookie gets an A for this criterion.

Freshness: Because the cookie had a fresh aroma, I assumed that it had been freshly made, which it had. Upon eating the cookie I immediately noticed that it was not stale by any means. It did not have the stale taste, and as I had already noted when examining my previous criteria, did not have a stale smell. The cookie also was softer than I would have liked which supports the idea that the cookie is fresher than it is stale. I even asked the clerk behind the counter when this last batch had been made and she told me that it had come out of the oven three hours ago. This was relatively new in my opinion. The cookie gets an A- for this criterion.

Warmth: This cookie, because it had been sitting out of the oven for three hours, it had lost its warmth. At the Schnucks bakery they do not warm their baked goods. This was less than optimal. However, because the cookies are kept in isolated shelving, they were above room temperature. Nonetheless, the cookie gets a C- for this criterion.

Overall, I was very pleased with this cookie and would give it a B grade. It excelled in size and number of chocolate chips as well as its fresh taste and sweet smell, but failed in the warmth criterion which is very difficult to meet. With all that considered, I would recommend this cookie only with the general warning that it will be neither warm nor chewy, but overall is satisfactory.

Would Cookie Monster be pleased? I think so.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Testing box.net



Please bear with me as I test box.net and my ability to share documents.

Monday, September 20, 2010

21st Century Illiteracy

I have realized that much of what we find on the Internet through search engines does not constitute as an academic site worthy of being used as a source in scientific research papers. All of my searches on http://www.bing.com/ and http://www.iboogie.tv/ were dismissed for not being academic in nature, and these were the top returning websites! Students in lower grades will not see the harm in using these sites that appear to be credible, but for some reason or another fail to meet the criteria of a legitimate website. I, surprisingly, would have probably used one or two of the sites I found in the course of this module, even though many of them should not be used. This has been a eye-opening experience to the amount of time and effort that searching for sources requires. Never before have I sat down and searched for the credentials of an author, verified them with another legitimate website, and looked for the littlest clues, like the domain name or other hints in the URL address, to assess whether or not I could use the site's material. I remember writing papers in high school and using sources like Wikipedia and others that I now know are not acceptable for any educational assignment.

Furthermore, I have learned the many things to look for in determining if a website is a hoax or a scam, or if it is just one site that I should not use for educational purposes. In "The Internet Detective" portion of the module, I saw the pages that are known to be hoaxes, like the World Trade Organization website for example, and had I not been trained to look for the smallest details, I may not have seen them as fake. A student of much younger age probably would not have recognized it as such.

I am confident in saying that once was, but no longer am, a 21st Century Illiterate. I too hope to help those discover the 3 Rs, Cultural, Visual, Media, and Computer Literacy that makes informational literacy and fluency possible.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

"The Love of Learning"

Check this out guys. While not as cool as Jason's "The Magical Classroom," this video by Smart Technologies is awesome nonetheless. It's entitled "The Love of Learning." This kind of stuff really excites me and I hope it does you too. Take a look:

Add a Pinch of Yang, Stir, and Let Simmer

The issues that the students in the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University present are telling and compelling, for their video “A Vision of Students Today” highlights how the college student perceives his or her higher education. A university or college represents the place where students should encounter their greatest life experiences, learn how to make the world a little better every day, be able to reach out to those less fortunate, and acquire skills so that he or she will use to stand above the rest at career fairs and job interviews. These are just a few of the numerous benefits of higher education, yet the questions raised here are: “Do students learn these things? Are they prepared? At what cost?” After watching the video “A Vision of Students Today,” I find a need for balancing the tools used to teach students these lessons, for while technology is an essential part of education in this generation, unrestricted and improper use poses just as great a threat as not utilizing it at all. Essentially, I feel that there is an imbalance between traditional and technological lecture, too much yin and not enough yang, and that correcting it produces the most thorough and beneficial education for the student.

The first point I highlight begins with the insightful question: “If students learn what they do, what are they doing sitting here?” I myself have often wondered the same thing: “Am I forming a deep understanding of the material or am I just memorizing it? After semester’s end, will I still remember it or will it fade to the deep recesses of my mind as a result of simple yet ineffective memorization?” Typically I find that while I may memorize, I am not actually actively learning. How does the information relate to me and my life? If I can answer this question I surely understand its significance. If I am engaged in the material I understand and learn. For example, if I am learning of St. Ignatius and his dedication to service, it means little to my life, so the question lies in how his call to service can be made important in to me. How can I come to know the significance of service and how it played such a vital role for St. Ignatius? One way might be to complete service and reflection as a part of the class in which I am learning. Words oftentimes mean little to a student in the classroom, while actions play a much more important part.

The second critical element I have pulled from the video lies in class size, where 115 is the average. For institutions of higher education, one might think that class sizes are actually smaller than most public schools, allowing for deep discussion as well as intellectual and stimulating thought. Many criticize the public education system for having too many children in a class at one time when the class enrollment is around 30. This is 85 fewer students than a typical college course, so my question then is why it is acceptable for classes to be so large in higher education if it is unacceptable for public education. When put this way one realizes that this situation is unacceptable at any school level. One problem that arises with courses of that size lie in the fact that there is a greater chance that students will not grasp the material, but will resort to memorization. Furthermore, they lack the relationship with professors that is so pertinent to successful education, for oftentimes with smaller classes comes increasingly rigorous curriculum, deeper understanding, and a respect for the course that contributes learning. When only 18 percent of teachers know a student’s name, there is inhibited academic performance, for one may not feel obligated to complete readings and other assignments or take them seriously. Of those students who participated in the study only 46 percent of readings are completed and only 26 percent of those readings are relevant to the student which, as has already been noted, is unacceptable.

Finally, my third point reflecting on the film relates most to the class in which I am completing this assignment. The growing presence of technology in the classroom reflects the age in which we are living. Just as the invention of the chalkboard was revolutionary to education in the 1800s, Smart Technology is revolutionary in the 2000s. As classrooms become equipped with this tool it provides an opportunity for new success on a large scale yet seen in our educational system. Technologies like the Smartboard provide new ways of learning by combining the methods of understanding, whether students are visual, aural, kinesthetic, multimodal learners, or prefer to view material in a read-and-write format. However, as is highlighted in “A Vision of Students Today,” technology provides room for distraction. If not used properly, it may not serve any extraordinary purpose as is designed. If the professor only lectures from PowerPoint slides, the technology does little to offer anything more than a written outline of what is being said. I then wonder how it is any different than a traditional lecture. The technology offers so much more. Students may also be distracted by their own hands, for computers serve a prominent role in the classroom, whether they be for taking notes or recording the professor’s material. However, they also provide access to the Internet where sites such as Facebook are open for social purposes rather than a Microsoft Word document to assist learning. Furthermore, when students are focused on these sites, they are not participating in class discussion, and neither are their distracted neighbors. Whether professors decide to limit the technology to their own during class and revert to a more traditional class setting is their decision, but we must recognize the fact that these situations arise daily and that technology does provide a better education. A healthy balance between the two, to be established by the professor, is essential.

Technology is designed to promote greater understanding and active discussion, not disengagement. There must then be a balance between technology and traditional lecture, beginning in Kindergarten progressing through College. Schools of this century should be proactive in providing students with the best possible education, engaging them in meaningful work, forming relationships with the professor to ensure they are being provided the most thorough education, and preparing for a future that might not yet exist through an active engagement with the newest technology. This is the role of the school.