Posted by Rob on March 31, 2009 – 7:02 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Today was a pretty relaxing day. We had all three classes play a bowling game. We asked a question, and if they get the answer they get to roll a plastic bowling ball at some plastic pins. Its fun.
Tomorrow it is back to teaching. We will be doing the powerpoint tomorrow. Im also going to start each class with a KWL sheet (what you KNOW, what you WANT TO KNOW, and what you LEARNED). Basically the kids fill out the first two columns before a chapter, and then do the last column after the chapter is over.
It should be a blast.
Posted by Rob on March 30, 2009 – 3:08 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
As of today, my partner and I decided to team teach all the classes together. I think that period 4 (the inclusion class) is a heck of a lot of work, and is very frustrating, especially for us now in our first semester of student teaching. I think we will continue to team teach all classes for the remainder of our student teaching (3 weeks left).
Today we started a new chapter on the Industrial Revolution, so all the classes worked on study guides. Nothing too big. My partner and I put our heads together on how to approach this chapter. We will do a heavily visual power point on Wednesday for the Industrial Revolution, going over the new inventions and what not. On Thursday, we will use primary source documents to go over the working conditions in factories and stuff. And on Friday we will wrap it up by talking about immigration, urbanization, and the buildup of infastructure (roads and canals and stuff).
Should be a fun chapter.
Posted by Rob on March 30, 2009 – 5:08 am
Filed under Books
Tagged as bigbadbob
Well, I finished reading the Watchmen graphic novel yesterday, so I moved on to Brisingr, the third book in Christopher Paloni’s Inheritance series. The problem was that its been a couple of years since I read Eldest (second book), so I had forgotten a lot. Brisingr starts with a synopsis of the last two books, which was helpful. However, I was very shocked to find that I remembered very little of what happened.
Im just hoping I’ll be able to work through the book and be alright.
Posted by Rob on March 28, 2009 – 7:59 am
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as bigbadbob, PS3
So Resistance 2 released a patch the other day, which did quite a lot, especially for the online co-op mode. For starters, it introduces a new “super hard” difficulty. This lives up to its name. There are tons of Chimera swarming around now, and they come out of nowhere, so ambushes do happen. Also, in this difficulty there is no auto-revive…you have to sit there and wait for a teammate to make his way over to you and revive you. While this can suck at times (try being out for 15 minutes while the lone survivor attempts to rescue everyone else), it makes it a lot more fun, as people are forced to work as a team. On the normal difficulty, it is not uncommon for people to either not play their class right (ie- medics dont heal, spec ops dont give ammo), and people will often run in front and do other stupid things as a means of getting more XP or gray tech. This doesnt happen as much in the new difficulty, as people can no longer auto-regen, so if they go running into a crowd of Chimera, they have to wait for the rest of the team to take them out. You also get more XP and a hell of a lot more gray tech as a reward for playing this mode.
It also makes the auto-regen wait time a bit shorter on the normal difficulty, from 30 seconds to 20 seconds. This is cool, because you can get back into the fray faster now. Also, you and a buddy can each play as your own character from the same PS3. For example, if Steve and me were playing together at one of our houses, he could be CrazySteve and I could be BigBadBob. Before this, if he was at my house, I would be BigBadBob and he would be BigBadBob2. That was an awesome addition.
At the same time, they also released some new competitive maps and other goodies, but I never play the competitve mode. But this is a good thing, because if they are creating new competitive mode maps and games, hopefully its only a matter of time until they release some new co-op maps and missions. I think there are four or five maps right now…they need some new ones.
Resistance 2 is, hands down, the best FPS on the PS3, and is clearly the best game to play online co-op with. If you have a PS3 and dont have this game, theres something wrong with you (yeah, Im talking to you Steve).
Posted by Rob on March 27, 2009 – 6:55 am
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
There is a teacher conference at the school today, so there are no classes. The NUA (National Urban Alliance) is having a bunch of workshops for the teachers to go to, to help them learn new skills in teaching students in an urban setting. My teacher and the rest of his team (English, Science, and Math) are all calling out because they think its a load of bull. I dont mind…no school for me!!!
Posted by Rob on March 27, 2009 – 6:53 am
Filed under Cooking/ Food
Tagged as bigbadbob
When Shell said she wanted to go to Buffalo Wagon for dinner, I pictured some kind of like wing/burger place. It is not. Its just a really weird name for a Chinese/Japanese/Cantonese/Thai restaurant. Weird name, but great food.
We ordered an appetizer of spicy scallop rolls, which didnt come out until everything else did, which was kind of annoying. But the great tastes made up for it. I ordered a platter of roast duck, roast pig, and honey bbq pork strips. It was very tasty, but the duck and pig had a lot of bone and cartilage to eat around. Shell ordered a chicken curry. I had never had curry before, because in my mind it was this gross stuff like tofu or hummus. I had no idea it was just some spice. It was extremely tasty. It wasnt spicy hot like Mexican food, but a new, unique hot. I cant explain it. After, Shell wanted some more sushi, so we ordered some spicy tuna rolls. That was good too.
It was a very good restaurant. The service was good, the food was excellent, and the place itself was very nice. I hope to go back again sometime.
Posted by Rob on March 26, 2009 – 11:25 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Today was an easy day. All I did was show both classes a 40-minute video from my Presidents DVD collection, and gave them a quiz on it. It was sad to see that only half of them did it, so those kids got zeroes. I dont understand that. I covered John Q. Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren.
Van Buren’s house is actually the next exit up from my apartment. I should check it out sometime.
Posted by Rob on March 25, 2009 – 2:27 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Today was the same as the past two days. It is so much easier to teach the honors class than the regents class. I gave a presentation on the Trail of Tears, but ended up going more into Native American treatment as a whole. I guess I wanted the kids to leave with the information that Native Americans got their asses kicked, and Americans were not very nice about it.So I had a half-hour long power point with images and maps and all that, and I ended with having the class read several PSD’s from the time aloud to the rest of the class. They like to read out loud for some reason.
Team-teaching was cool. I spent twenty minutes giving a shortened version of my presentation, and then my partner had them read another set of documents and answer questions from them. It went very well, and they stayed pretty calm and good the entire time.
We did have one parent-teacher conference today which was one of the worst yet. Basically, it wasnt so much a parent-teacher as it was a grandmother/uncle-teacher conference. The child does not like them very much, and they did seem pretty mean, so I didnt blame him. As always, one of the things about being a teacher that I dont look forward to dealing with.
Posted by Rob on March 25, 2009 – 5:29 am
Filed under Sports
Tagged as bigbadbob
So as of this morning, the Rangers are tied for sixth place. They are only one point behind the fifth place team. Its a very close race. There are only eight games left in the season. Things are going to be tense the next couple of weeks.
Posted by Rob on March 24, 2009 – 3:52 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Today went as well as yesterday. The Power Point presentation is now a great way to go. Its a bit more engaging than just writing notes on the board, and I am also able to slip in maps, pictures of the people and events Im talking about, and political cartoons. I think its been going very well lately.
Team teaching was a bit out there. We had to take time to finish and go over the project from yesterday, so we were strapped for time. In the end, we just had them copy notes from the board in the idea of saving time. It could have been better.
Posted by Rob on March 24, 2009 – 3:48 pm
Filed under Cooking/ Food
Tagged as bigbadbob
So I was cleaning out my laptop carrying case today, and I found an open bag of Haribo Gummy Bears in it. I had purchased them when I was in Vegas, for the plane ride back to New York.
They are a bit hard now, but ever so tasty.
Posted by Rob on March 24, 2009 – 6:01 am
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Grrr…I wrote a really long post about it, and then when I went to post it, the site ended up dying out, so I lost it, and I dont feel like writing it all over again.
Basically, I used a power point, and this time it actually went well. It was colorful and engaging, and I was able to include maps, pictures of individuals, and political cartoons. Went over real well, and I think the kids enjoyed it. I am doing another one today as well.
Posted by Rob on March 21, 2009 – 6:16 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as bigbadbob
I got Shell to play a game with me tonight. We played Steets of Rage 2 off of the Ultimate Sonic Collection game. We had fun.
Now her thumbs hurt from punching baddies…
Posted by Rob on March 20, 2009 – 10:23 pm
Filed under School
Tagged as bigbadbob
Today was an easy day. We handed the kids back their tests and went over the answers.
The honors class had their National History Day presentations today, so we went down to the library where they were on display, and they walked around and assessed their peer’s projects. Some of the kids did really amazing work…some not so much.
Then for the other two periods, our teacher had the kids watch a video on Lewis & Clark. The kids HATED it, and I kinda felt for them. Its a pretty old, cheesy, out of date video. Most of the kids didnt even do the worksheet he gave them because it was so boring.
At the end of the day, he mentioned how on Wednesday he was going to show them the next part of it. I think thats nuts. They clearly hated it, and learned nothing from it. Also, Lewis & Clark is sooo last week…they shouldnt still be doing stuff with them over two weeks later. So I think Im going to suggest bringing in my Presidents DVD, and show them the videos on Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Jackson. I used the same series for Washington and Adams, and the kids all liked it enough where they didnt complain about it, so I think its better than the Lewis & Clark stuff.
Posted by Rob on March 20, 2009 – 7:29 pm
Filed under Randomness
Tagged as bigbadbob
So I checked out twitter today. Apparently it is all the rage today, and from what I hear, its hipper than myspace and facebook combined. So I figured I would give it a whirl.
Its kinda like facebook, but with nothing else but status updates. Basically you make friends, and you simply update your status, which ends up sending that message to all your friends. At first I thought it was weird, but as I played around, I found some interesting people. There are a lot of news agencies, so Im tweeting with CNN. Then I found a bunch of celebrities. Im tweeting with the likes of Kevin Smith, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker. I found out that Barker had surgery today (Im assuming from that plane crash he was in) and Hoppus gave me the good news that Blink is currently in the studio and planning a summer tour.
So I think I may actually like twitter. I’ll play around some more over the next couple of days and see how I feel about it.
By the way, my twitter username is BigBadBob113
Posted by Rob on March 20, 2009 – 5:03 pm
Ive been hyped for this game since it was announced. Its basically a collection of about 50 classic Sega games. And some of them are classics. For example, I love Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, the old Sonic games, Shining Force, Alien Storm, Comix Zone, and some others. There was some crud in there, like Alex Kid, Dynamite Heady, and some other filler I had never heard of.
Then of course there are the games I never heard of, which I wish I had back then. Gain Ground is a great game, and now one of my favorites. I dont know how to explain the gameplay, but its cool. Also, I liked Kidd Chamelion. That was pretty sweet.
There are trophies for the games, to make it worth your while to play through some of the crud games.
I only have one complaint…NO ONLINE CO-OP!!! I think its safe to say that over half these titles offer local co-op (same system, off-line). Its silly that they would spend the extra time and effort to put these things online. If they had, I guarantee they could have put a $60 price tag on it, and they would have sold more than they did now (the current MSRP is $29.99, which is quite a bargain for the collection.)
I dunno. Sega really dropped the ball on this one. They really should have put in the online play. It would have been sooo much more fun. But dont get me wrong. Its still an awesome game, and if you have a friend over, it will be a blast from the past.
Posted by Rob on March 20, 2009 – 12:18 pm
Well my current pair of glasses are old. Im not sure how old, but they are the ones I had in high school, which was eight years ago. Anywho, they are now super scratched on the lens, and the frame is starting to chip. I am due for a new pair, and probably a new prescription. We shall see.
Posted by Rob on March 20, 2009 – 12:17 pm
Filed under Site Updates
Tagged as bigbadbob
I have changed the text coloring for my website. The white text was impossible to edit, since the typing screen (on my end) is white, and I couldnt see the text as I wrote. So now its nice and bright and colorful.
Posted by Rob on March 18, 2009 – 5:48 pm
Filed under Cooking/ Food
Tagged as bigbadbob
So Shell made some delicious jambalaya tonight. For those who dont know what it is, its a cajun dish. Its primarily pieces of sausage and rice, mixed together with other goodies. Shell added in zucchini and tomatoes. Also, since its cajun, its pretty spicy. It was very, very good. I would recommend checking it out. It was pretty easy to make.
