Well, the economy is teetering off the cliff of depression. It's early Thursday morning and I cannot sleep. Reading mass media reports on the Presidential summit featuring Bush, Obama and McCain is actually refreshing - it's about time some of those archaic, party boundaries are dissolved, even if it is only temporary and in their best interest.
On today's class, there were some interesting topics discussed. I definitely was not impressed with eprintable.com just because I know I would never use it. Selfish, absolutely.
We talked about it in class, but veditor.net was certainly practical. However, it is a dangerous tool. It's along the same line as sparknotes.com in that it does all the work for you. There has to be some brain activity taking place, especially in the correction of papers. That is how mistakes are learned from.
I respectfully disagree with the notion that Microsoft Word is actually beneficial to the student as a speller. Personally, I feel as if I have become a worse speller since computers have become the norm for writing. Sometimes, I wish that typing on a computer was not so efficient.
Komando.com was a resource. And I really cannot hate her for wanting to make the most money and live the American dream. Her site offers the convenience of having a variety of tech tips even though you can no longer search the archives for free.
Email marketing was an aspect of technology I never even considered. I figured that whichever school I worked at would provide general services for students to get grade updates and school reminders. However, how applicable would this be at Central High School. I always return to my experience there because it is one that I will never forget. I cannot understand how a school can be that poorly run, that obsolete and that helpless.
I was not remotely impressed with Discovery Education United Streaming. Maybe that was because the internet was kinking out during class or there weren't enough servers or whatever it was. All I know is that the videos were on par with bad utube and the videos seemed outdated.
Anyway, as I stir in bed and wonder what the economy will yield tomorrow, I realize that I'm still a student. And I despise politics. A LOT.
A Game of Solitaire and the Toilet Seat:: Knowing When You're too Young to Grow Up.
“You see, Angeee,” my father said. “This is why I always say leave early. We would’ve beat this shit weather if you had got your ass in gear.”
I didn’t know whether to say sorry or fuck you, so I just sat quiet as my mother stroked my bowing head. A quick shoulders/back work out gave me a slight hunch that my mother might have confused for dejection.
“Italian leather is so soft, Dave. Have you ever felt Italian leather,” Grandma said to my father, who wasn’t going to respond, until my mother pinched him. Grandma really was tapped, I thought to myself.
“Dave, my mother just asked you a question,” my mother said with the authority of a wife who actually has sex with her husband.
"And I would have answered her if you gave me a friggin’ chance. My mind is on driving,” he stammered. Sucking wind like a smoker on the track, my father calmed himself down enough to answer grandma. “Liv, I used to haul furniture, come on. And we have one in the house, a sofa. You know, in the living room. You were sitting on it today.” My father was particularly agitated today and he had absolutely no time for grandma’s meanderings.
“Italian leather, Andrew, do you know how soft it is,” grandma said, as she looked straight ahead. Her face didn’t even move and I wondered if she was already dead and her voice merely a recording.
My father weaved in and out of lanes like aBoston
I was compelled to have the last word in my fruitless, running argument with my father. “This weather sucks,” I muttered under my breath as we pulled up to the check in. “I shouldn’t have even signed up for this fuckin’ trip, I swear. Sucks. Absolutely sucks.” The rain now splashed down on the car in waterfall increments I did not want to move.
“Ange, stop already!” my father’s voice began to rise. “Would you have rather been the person everyone was waiting for?”
“I would have rather been the person who called in to cancel his ticket,” I spitefully commented, knowing that this would surely get him steamed.
“Well next time, you pay for your own goddamn trip!” he growled, and before I could respond, he looked at me in his rearview and said, “Just get the fuck out of the car.” Our goodbyes would have to be said over the phone.
With a huff, I slid the van door open, grabbed my duffle bag and rejected my mother’s reaching eyes. Before the door even had time to click closed, my father skidded out and nearly side swiped a bus. And the rain remained persistent as I stood outside the terminal and tried to turn my head 360 degrees to capture every instance of life. Or maybe I wanted to break my own neck, I’m not sure.
I didn’t know whether to say sorry or fuck you, so I just sat quiet as my mother stroked my bowing head. A quick shoulders/back work out gave me a slight hunch that my mother might have confused for dejection.
“Italian leather is so soft, Dave. Have you ever felt Italian leather,” Grandma said to my father, who wasn’t going to respond, until my mother pinched him. Grandma really was tapped, I thought to myself.
“Dave, my mother just asked you a question,” my mother said with the authority of a wife who actually has sex with her husband.
"And I would have answered her if you gave me a friggin’ chance. My mind is on driving,” he stammered. Sucking wind like a smoker on the track, my father calmed himself down enough to answer grandma. “Liv, I used to haul furniture, come on. And we have one in the house, a sofa. You know, in the living room. You were sitting on it today.” My father was particularly agitated today and he had absolutely no time for grandma’s meanderings.
“Italian leather, Andrew, do you know how soft it is,” grandma said, as she looked straight ahead. Her face didn’t even move and I wondered if she was already dead and her voice merely a recording.
My father weaved in and out of lanes like a
I was compelled to have the last word in my fruitless, running argument with my father. “This weather sucks,” I muttered under my breath as we pulled up to the check in. “I shouldn’t have even signed up for this fuckin’ trip, I swear. Sucks. Absolutely sucks.” The rain now splashed down on the car in waterfall increments I did not want to move.
“Ange, stop already!” my father’s voice began to rise. “Would you have rather been the person everyone was waiting for?”
“I would have rather been the person who called in to cancel his ticket,” I spitefully commented, knowing that this would surely get him steamed.
“Well next time, you pay for your own goddamn trip!” he growled, and before I could respond, he looked at me in his rearview and said, “Just get the fuck out of the car.” Our goodbyes would have to be said over the phone.
With a huff, I slid the van door open, grabbed my duffle bag and rejected my mother’s reaching eyes. Before the door even had time to click closed, my father skidded out and nearly side swiped a bus. And the rain remained persistent as I stood outside the terminal and tried to turn my head 360 degrees to capture every instance of life. Or maybe I wanted to break my own neck, I’m not sure.
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4 comments:
Greetings! I'm the Online Community Manager for Discovery Educations teacher network and ran across your post. Sorry to hear that the site wasn't running as smooth as it should have been when it was demo'd for you in class and was wondering if I might lend a hand.
Most of our videos are encoded in low resolution for streaming live via the internet, and also in higher resolutions so if people want to download them they can blow them up to full screen without pixelation. If your professor was trying to stream out a higher resolution video live, it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that it came across as choppy. If you'd like to pass along my info on to your professor, I'd be happy to help make sure they have it set up right for their specific needs.
As to the 'freshness' of the videos, it really varies greatly depending on the topic. We do have some videos that are several years old, but they're only kept in the library if the content is still accurate and relevant. We also have videos that were on the Discovery Channel last weekend, and sometimes even have videos BEFORE they're released on TV! With a library of over 40,000 videos, you're going to find a pretty wide range of publication dates.
If you have any questions or would like to see another demo, feel free to let me know.
Take care!
Steve Dembo
Well, low and behold, Discovery Education's United Streaming picked up your blog with a keyword using Google's search program for businesses. As mentioned to you in class a few weeks ago, this product is available for all businesses for a fee so that they can keep track of both positive and negative aspects of their business. Unfortunately, here is the scenario:
1. As you know, we setup the entire system properly. My experience with video online and with this company has been well over 8 years.
2. Discovery Education flatly refused to give a presentation for our class and wanted to charge a fee. Five years ago, this was not the case. An online demo to the class would have been nice. I called 4 times requesting this, only getting a flat "NO."
3. Discovery Education is correct in saying that some videos are high and low resolution. As we found out during our class, we only saw poor quality and very slow downloading. When servers get overloaded, videos from their site get bottle necked. The company should definitely add more servers on both the west and east coasts to eliminate this problem.
3. Overall, there are many quality videos on Discovery Education. Also, many can be downloaded ahead of time for classrooms to prevent this problem. However, for the high cost of the product per year, there should not be as many problems as we witnessed during our class.
4. The correlations with the standards for each state is another great attribute.
5. Remember, there are other videos available online completely for free. Yet, Discovery Education has them all in one location, but for a price.
Oh well, the economy is grim. I wanted to bring this topic up in class because so many students are history majors. Perhaps, I may devote 5 minutes to this in our next class, just to get various viewpoints. Thanks to the Internet that we can get up to the minute reports on what is going on with this financial crisis.
I respect your opinions on the other products, too. Some are effective and others are not. It always depends on the person's needs.
I'm impressed that Steve Dembo showed an interest from Discovery Education. It's too bad that this concern was not shown with the company when I originally called. I made it very clear to them that this class consisted of future educators. Impressing future educators with their product would have shown the company's concern for education. Yet, I knew the product quite well to showcase the major highlights. As mentioned, I was one of the leading pioneers with the product from the original company and implemented many ideas for them. Discovery Education purchased it from them, including the lesson plan module.
Wow! Looks like I uncovered something here!
First of all, for the sake of posterity, it wasn't Google for Business. It's amazing what you can do with free search feeds, both from Google and Technorati.
Obviously I had no idea about your history with Discovery Educator or streaming, I was just responding to three sentences out of a students' blog post. And while I can't speak at all to your prior experiences with Discovery, I can do my best to address your current concerns. If you'd like to give me a call, drop me a line at (773) 366 8320 x 903.
Take care and thanks (both of you) for sharing your thoughts!
Here's the site I was referring to: www.googlealert.com. Check out the PDF - actually the prices are quite cheap for a business who wants to be abreast of the latest blog submissions and news items online.
In the meantime, I will call Steve. Thanks Steve for offering your support-I appreciate it. By the way, I actually wrote a major article for United Streaming just a few years back. I was a featured technical writer with my own column for Classroom Connect Connected Newsletter.
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