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Another choose your own......

So my sister had her second baby 3 weeks ago yesterday. She had a girl and now her family is complete because she has a son who is going to be 3 in July. So my first neice was born on 4/19 and one of my best friends became a mom for the first time on Sat 4/24. She also had a daughter. I would be lying if I said that these new additions to my life didn't make me want one of my own. Neither of these families are very well off financially yet they both just wanted to grow their families and now that they will find a way to make it happen because having kids is what they want. I know they are having a hard time and money is tight but they are so happy and I feel like that is what matters. It's not always about the money when it comes to happiness. The money just makes certain things easier. I guess it just makes it so that having a family can be more enjoyable because if you're not worried about the money then you can just enjoy the kids and do things with them that you want and not have to worry about it. I didn't think I wanted kids for a long time, basically all my life, until I met my current boyfriend. Once I met him I knew that wanted to have a family with him and I knew we would be together for the rest of our lives. Now knowing what I have in him and what I want in life it makes it very hard to watch other people get the things that I want. Even though I'm so happy for them it bums me out to watch from the outside looking in.

Catching up

Ok, so I haven't been participating in the blogging part of this class so I'm going to try to catch up now. So this one is a choose your own topic blog so here goes. I got engaged in February on a trip to Vegas. Our trip was amazing, we had such a good time, the engagement was just the cherry on the sundae. We love going to Vegas, I love everything about that city. Even though we weren't big partiers while we were there it was so much fun. So with that being said we have decided to have our wedding in Vegas. We're not going to do one of the little white chapels or have an Elvis impersonator. We're going to have it at Mandalay Bay at their Valley of the Falls location. We are SO excited about it. It's not happening until next year, 9/10/11 is the date. It's been a tough road getting to that final decision but it's the one we've made and we are happy with it. We are truly doing exactly what we want for our wedding day despite other people's opinions and I'm so happy about it.

Other Technologies, Resources & Education

I just found an article about how one school is incorporating technology, namely the iPod touch, into the classroom. Basically the school has decided to embrace the new technological advances available and being used by students rather than ban these things from the classroom. They are protecting the use by putting passwords and blocking certain internet content but they believe they will see a difference in reading and math test scores when the trial is all done.

Another article discussed how there was an app coming out this month available for the iPod, iPhone and iPad for text books used for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). That will be great in my opinion and it’s really where I see college and graduate education going. College students spend so much money on books and are always looking for ways to save money and yes you will have to pay for these textbook apps but I’m sure the cost would be significantly less than if you were purchasing books from the bookstore or even online.

Something else I found last semester when looking for my own textbooks was a website that allowed you rent your textbooks for the length of the semester. You had the option of different lengths of time you could rent the book. It was a great service, I wasn’t able to use the service because I procrastinated, as usual, and there wasn’t enough time before I needed my books.

The Internet, Social Networking and Education

So these days the internet is everywhere including in the schools. It doesn’t even have to be directly in the classroom to have an effect on the classroom. The fact that you can get the internet pretty much everywhere is something that I think is huge for education and making sure that we are constantly letting our educational system evolve. I have even seen on the news about how one school had decided not to ban cell phones because most kids had access to the internet on their phone so they decided to start letting them use their phones to access the internet and use them for in class exercises.
Colleges and Universities are the types of schools using the internet the most as part of education. Between using the internet as an actual classroom and just having the ability to use the internet to communicate with other students or the teacher. It’s normal now to go into a class and have the professor give you their email and say that is the best way to reach them. Also I can remember when in some classes we would share our phone numbers so that we could get help or share ideas and now it’s just automatic that you have an email and you communicate that way first and foremost.
As far as social networking and education aside from being able to connect with other students either in high school or college classes and so maybe you would be able to work together on things or get ideas or help. Aside from that kind of stuff though I don’t really think social networking sites have a great benefit to education.

Here is a link that has some research on education and the internet.

Acutal Last Post of the night

Ok, so now I really am writing my last post. I have signed in and out and now this is the last post I need to do for the night. Good night.

Last blog of the class

So I have just learned how to blog, how to add links to my blog, how to comment on other people's blog, how to add images to my blog and how to add documents to my blog. All in all I've learned a lot tonight and now I'm tired and ready to go home.