What In Tarnation?!?!?

Well actually there is no snow yet but there is ice.

Enough to cancel school.

At the last minute.

Grrrr.

But the snow is coming…

Class dismissed!

…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT THROUGH 12 PM CST FRIDAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SPRINGFIELD CONTINUES THE WINTER STORM WARNING THROUGH 12 PM CST FRIDAY.

FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT OVER SOUTHEAST KANSAS AND WILL SPREAD EAST INTO WESTERN MISSOURI SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT. GROUND TEMPERATURES REMAIN WARM…SO ICE ACCUMULATIONS ON THE GROUND WILL BE SLOWER TO OCCUR. HOWEVER ELEVATED SURFACES…SUCH AS POWER LINES…TREE BRANCHES AND BRIDGES WILL BE SUSCEPTIBLE TO SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS…AND EVENTUALLY THE ICE ACCUMULATIONS WILL OCCUR ON THE GROUND. TOTAL ICE ACCUMULATIONS BETWEEN ONE QUARTER AND ONE HALF INCH ARE EXPECTED. THIS WILL LIKELY RESULT IN DOWNED POWER LINES AND POWER OUTAGES.

THE FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET WILL TURN COMPLETELY TO SNOW BY THURSDAY MORNING…WITH TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES THOUGH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED NORTHWEST OF INTERSTATE 44. STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS GUSTING TO 35 MPH WILL COMBINE WITH THE FREEZING RAIN AND SNOW TO MAKE DRIVING HAZARDOUS.

SHARPLY COLDER TEMPERATURES WILL ACCOMPANY THIS STORM WITH WIND CHILL VALUES IN THE SINGLE DIGITS THURSDAY.

RESIDENTS OF EXTREME SOUTHEAST KANSAS AND THE MISSOURI OZARKS…INCLUDING THE SPRINGFIELD AREA…ARE URGED TO TAKE THIS WEATHER SITUATION SERIOUSLY. BEGIN PREPARING FOR THIS WINTER STORM NOW. AGAIN…BEGINNING TONIGHT…ROAD CONDITIONS WILL QUICKLY DETERIORATE AND ICE ACCUMULATIONS ARE LIKELY BY THE MORNING COMMUTE. ADDITIONALLY… SNOW WILL ACCUMULATE ON TOP OF THE ICE THROUGH TOMORROW.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW… SLEET… AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL HAZARDOUS.

Tomorrow could be fun! Snow talk in the teacher’s lounge has reached a fevered (teehee) pitch today. Will it or not? Now excitement over a snow day among the teacher isn’t unusual but this time it is even more crazy. Why? Simple, we haven’t actually had a snow day in over two years! That is really abnormal for this area. The rain has started here in Rolla but I am betting we go to school tomorrow. All bets are off on whether we stay the whole day.

Want to help with the whole snow situation? Click the picture, print and start cutting.

In other blog news, I am making it a goal to blog something everyday for the month of December. I don’t promise that it will be quality posting but I will get something up.

Class dismissed!

Despite the fact that I made my fellow third grade teacher to swear after the Candy-Date Election project that we wouldn’t do any more “projects” until after Christmas I have embarked on two different projects.

Yes I am insane.

First, I am reading the classic children’s book Charlotte’s Web to my class. Like I did last year with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I wanted to use the excitement of the the new Charlotte’s Web movie to increase interest in the book. While searching around on my favorite little movie production company’s website when I noticed that they were organizing an attempt to break a world’s record and they were inviting people to become involved with their effort. The record they are trying to break is for the most people reading aloud simultaneously in multiple locations. I though that would be cool to be involved in breaking a world record. I began to investigate the requirements for participating groups. I quickly discovered that it was a lot more work than just getting a bunch of kids together to read the same passage at the same time. You have to get witnesses, media wavers, lead readers, etc. Despite the extra work, I think I am going to try it.

The second project was a little more complicated to get together. This summer I took an online class about using technology in the elementary classroom. One week of the class was spent on researching the use of real-life data in the classroom. Several industrious teachers around the world have organized these projects. We have finally gotten to our data unit in math so I decided to do one of these projects with my math classes. I searched around the Internet and found about collecting data on the color of M&M’s. This peaked me interest. So I clicked the link to take me to this project and I was promptly greeted with a 404 Not Found page. Shoot. I continued to search. More of the same. I did finally find a project that was still online but it was no longer active. Of course none of the active projects was really what I was looking for. So I was faced with the choice to either forget the project or recreate the M&M’s project. Naturally I went to GoDaddy and bought the domain name mmdatasurvey.com. I set about installing WordPress to manage the website and I also installed PHPSurveyor to take user submitted data. After I installed PHPSurveyor I had to figure out the thing worked. After playing around with that and getting the questions that I wanted in the survey, I found a WordPress template that I liked, designed a graphic to go along with it and the result is M&M Data Survey.

Anyone can participate. It is easy. Promise. Next time you have a bag of M&M’s you should help my class out and submit your data. Instruction on what to do can be found over there.

Your thoughts are always appreciated in the comments.

Class dismissed!

Avast ye, there matey! Perhaps I have taken the title to this entry a little too literally. There are of course many types of piracy. There is the act of stealing at sea without the commission of a sovereign nation (I guess with a commission it is alright), patent infringement, trademark infringement, there is even biopiracy! I however am referring to copyright infringement.

The bane of the music and movie/TV industries right now. Copyright infringement is defined as unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law and it can also refer to unauthorized reproduction and distribution of electronic and audio-visual media. (Definitions and the cute little Pirate Guy obtained through Wikipedia.)

During the heyday of Napster and other file sharing programs, copyright infringement was pretty common among those who where educated about such things. I found several songs that I took from other computers via Napster. I never downloaded whole albums, just a few songs here and there. After the fall of the centralized Napster, other decentralized file sharing clients popped up. Today you can download a free BitTorrent client and start downloading movies and TV shows (an activity that I have also dabbled in and suggested to others via the Cranium Leakage Podcast, I believe in Episode 8.)

So what is a Christian to do? Is copyright infringement (CRI) stealing? Evidently there are some Christians who justify CRI by saying they are somehow spreading the Christianity. This is an idea explored in a recent article in the Los Angles Times called Pirating Songs of Priase.

Surveys show that born-again Christian teens are just as active in stealing and swapping music as their secular peers who pinch the latest Eminem rap hit or Kelly Clarkson power ballad.

It comes down to a show-off between “Spread the Word and Thou shalt not steal” for some Christians.

“What we’re seeing is young people and youth pastors are bringing this moral perspective that, well, it’s not exactly right to download the music, but from their point of view they’re doing it for greater good, and in their minds that offsets it to some degree,” said David Kinnaman, vice president of Barna Group.

From my perspective, it isn’t just Christian youth who are having an issue with this. As a member of my church’s media team, we are often asked for recording of sermons which we are more than happy to give away, we even podcast them on our church website. Then there are those requests for a music performance. Those can be difficult.

It normally goes something like this:

Church-type Person (CTP): Yes, I just loved that song that so and so sang last week. It was just lovely.

Me: Yes, it was very nice.

CTP: It just blessed me so much.

Me: I’m glad you enjoyed it.

CTP: I was wondering… Would it be possible to get a copy of it?

Me: I’m sorry, that is against copyright law, the track that was used can only be used for performances only. We don’t record the special music, unless it is in the Public Domain or it is an original song and we have been given permission to record it.

CTP: (Totally ignoring the fact that I just said we didn’t record it, or it is worse if they ask before a performance.) Oh, well, it would just be for me, no one else.

Me: I’m sorry, we can’t do that.

CTP: I’ll even take a tape, it doesn’t have to be on CD (as if the tape is more legal).

Me: It’s not about the CD or the tape, it is just illegal. I’m sorry.

CTP: Oh I just loved that song so much…

Me: Maybe I could find out who recorded it for you and you could purchase the album?

CTP: It just wouldn’t be the same without so and so singing it…

Me: I’m very sorry.

CTP: Well thank you anyway.

People can kind of get mean about cantatas and such.

This is an issue that I deal with from time to time still. For example, for the last two years I have given students in my class a DVD with a video that I made. It has music that is protected but I give it out anyway.

One thing I do know is that copyright needs to be revisited and changes should be made. If things keep going like they are, there will be no more new public domain works, not if Disney has anything to say about it.

Class dismissed!

In our youth program, we sometimes use a video curriculum from BlueFishTV called Revolution 2. The Bible studies feature Doug Fields sharing his thoughts on the stories from real life kids’ stories. BlueFishTV also creates small video clips for discussion, sermon illustrations, and just for fun. They have some wickedly funny parodies. BlueFishTV recently launched a new website with a new video download service. The cool thing is that they offer free previews of the video clips so you can decide if the $1.99 download is worth it.

Here are a few of my favorite video clips:

First, a parody of a Citibank commercial. This was featured in the last video we watched. Prayer - Live Richly. “I think you said, ‘magically delicious’.”

Second, a new one for me, Sports Sunday: The Big Show. “Look at Maggie Jensen. Famous overly loud singer.”

The Scottish Guy is always funny no matter which clip you watch.

Let’s not forget the super funny parody of 24 called 24/7. There are two parts. “My daughter has been kidknapped again? That’s the fourth time today!”

If you find some funny ones, let me know in the comments.

Class dismissed!

Our newest third grade teacher came to the rest of the third grade team with an idea that she had done at her previous school. A Candy-Date project. The Candy-Date project most simply described is a mock election. We wanted to take the idea to the next level and integrate other subject areas in the project.

Each third class, or political party, held a primary to choose a candy bar to represent them in the election that would occur along with midterm elections. My class chose one of my favorite candy bars, Crunch. Our opponents included Hershey’s Bar, Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and Snickers.

Students researched nutritional value, history, price, etc. for each of the five Candy-Dates. Students used that information to start crafting a campaign that would be displayed all around the school building. Third graders went on to write persuasive essays/speeches for their Candy-Date. We invited second through fourth grade to help us by coming to our “debate” where two students from each class read their essays. Then those grades voted today.

All the classes really got into the project, some times more than we wanted, taking the election and campaign very seriously.

We has one class that took a particularly negative slant to their campaign. The students in my class took it very personally and couldn’t seem to understand why I wasn’t getting upset. I explained that I wanted to be very positive and wanted to use surprise rather than mean words to convince voters to choose Crunch. It even became a little personal between teachers, especially when I sprung a few of my little surprises.

My first surprise was to have a student read a “public announcement” over the intercom after the morning announcements, but I did it late enough in the week so no one else could do the same. That really got the other classes goat. I also had the kids intentionally focus on the staff and faculty who would also be voting. This morning we left an “election day treat” for each teacher in the form of a bite size Crunch bar. One of our final surprises was a little political advertisement video seen here as a 2.7 MB Quicktime .mov file.

We held the election today. We tried to make the experience as close to the real experience of casting a vote in an election in the states. We had Voter ID cards, sign-in sheets, election judges, and even I Voted stickers.

The project has been fun and quite tiring. We did vote today and we tried to recreate the voting experience as closely as we could. We had election judges checking Voter ID cards, signing in, and a ballot box with an I Voted sticker for making it through the experience.Unfortunately, my beloved Crunch lost. We tied for third place. I have sent my lawyers in to keep the results caught up in the courts. A WITty point for whoever can be the first to identify the candy that did win in the comments.

Class dismissed!