Posted by Rob on October 31, 2009 – 12:30 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as 2010, election day, fairytale fights, gamefly, PlayStation 3, PS3, raw, release date, ship, smackdown, svr, wwe
So Gamefly has been successful in perplexing me once again. I had an open queue, and I decided to wait and snag Fairytale Fight, which had a release date of 10/27 on Gamefly. So I waited, and the day came and went and I got no message telling me it shipped. So I looked on the site, and the release date had changed to 10/29. So I said “ok, fine I’ll wait til then.” Then on Thursday the date changed to 10/30, then yesterday the release date changed again to 10/31. Then this morning I went on there, and the current release date is 11/3.
As I was constantly waiting for this game to ship, I received an email informing me that WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 (which had an availability of very low) shipped. Im pretty happy…Ive been dying to get my hands on the new SvR game and see how it is. So I’ll be getting that in next. Im hoping it gets here by Monday so that I can spend all Tuesday playing since I’ll be home from school thanks to Election Day. We shall see.
Morale of the story…Gamefly is a very confusing and frustrating system, yet I love it!!!
Posted by Rob on October 31, 2009 – 12:24 pm
I beat the game on normal difficulty this morning. The game in general was a blast. Not only is the gameplay great, but the story that goes along with it is awesome. The thing I love about the Uncharted series is how well both the gameplay and storytelling mesh together to create one wonder work of art.
I was going to write a review of the game, but theres no point. All I have to say about it is just buy it, and I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. Its one of the best gaming experinces I have had in a long time, and I cant wait to play through it again to get the next trophy.
Posted by Rob on October 31, 2009 – 12:20 pm
Per. 2
I sat back again and let my teacher finish up his lesson from yesterday with them. I wanted to see how much detail he covered and whatnot. The thing that is confusing is that while the AP students are taught chronologically (as things happen historically), the 11-3 classes are taught in chunks of themes. Thus, I have to get used to covering things that don’t happen yet time-wise at different times. It sounds confusing, and it is.
So I was able to get a sense of what to cover, so I have a general idea of how to teach to the big picture rather than a timeline. Now I know what to do with Per. 5, and I will have a good plan set up for Monday.
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Posted by Rob on October 29, 2009 – 6:54 pm
Per. 2
My teacher took over for today to introduce the next unit. Its amazing how well he works with the students. He can get and maintain their attention for a majority of the time. I could track how he used his voice to keep control, and he had varying tones that projected his mood. I learned a lot from watching him in action, and I hope that I can be as good as him some day. I guess he is the teacher I aspire to be.
I will basically follow his lesson and try to replicate it with Per. 5 today. I don’t know if it will work or not, but Im sure as heck gonna try and see how it goes.
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Posted by Rob on October 29, 2009 – 6:16 am
Per. 2
Class went well enough today. They had their test, and Im hoping they did good. I think I made my test maybe a little too easy, but that’s just me. I will see how it is when I actually sit down and grade them.
The last person finished with about fifteen minutes left in class, so I just let them hang out for a bit. I also gave them back their essays, which I was generally pleased with. Now that I returned the first essays, I have to take a seat and grade the second essays…I hate grading essays…
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Posted by Rob on October 27, 2009 – 5:38 pm
Per. 2
The class had the essay portion of their test today. It was a pretty rough going. Basically two students were not writing a thing. One complained that he wrote it at home on his computer and the student refused to write anything because she doesn’t like history and doesn’t know anything.
The first kid I sat down with and eventually got him to start writing. It took constant pushing and prodding, but at least he is not going to have a 0. The other kid was even worse. She refused to write anything at all, claiming she didn’t know anything. I took her out in the hall to see what was up, and she just finds history boring. I think this boringness leads to her not paying attention, which leads to her not learning anything. She also works a heck of a lot of hours after school, so Im sure that that contributes a bit to it as well. From now on Im going to try and stay on her during class and try to keep her engaged more, so hopefully she will learn something and understand the material.
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Posted by Rob on October 26, 2009 – 10:14 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as 2010, arkham asylum, batman, beatles, borderlands, gamefly, marvel ultimate alliance, mua, PlayStation 3, PS3, rock band, svr, uncharted, wwe
I really enjoyed Borderlands, and was sad to send it back. But in the end, I made the right decision.
For the few hours I put into it, I knew it was a game I would love to own eventually. Having just purchased Uncharted 2 I was in no position to purchase a new game, so I decided to return it to Gamefly and get something else. Plus, Uncharted 2 and MUA2 are just begging for attention.
I did this so that I would be able to really enjoy the game when I did finally obtain it. If I played through a lot of it now, I would not be as excited to get back into it in the future. So my character is only level 13, and has not really gotten too far in the game yet. I look forward to snagging the game and playing a lot more in the future.
Im hoping to get either Beatles Rock Band or Batman: Arkham Asylum. Both games are listed as medium availability right now on Gamefly. I have been dying to snag Batman for a long time, especially after hearing so many good things about it. Also, I think Shell and I would have a good time playing through Beatles Rock Band for a bit. So yeah, Im hoping for either game. I also have the new WWE game SvR2010 on my list, but I don’t expect to be snagging that anytime soon since its still a new release. We shall see whats next.
Posted by Rob on October 26, 2009 – 10:12 pm
Per. 2
I came into school today having no clue as to what I was going to do with them. I wanted to review for the test, but I couldn’t come up with a good review activity. I didn’t really want to play a game because I remembered how badly it went last time. I was hoping my teacher would have some insight, and he did.
I broke the class up into small groups, and gave them all large sheets of paper and markers. I then proceeded to ask them questions that would appear on their test, and they would have an x amount of time to write an answer on the paper. I had three groups, and I ranked each group’s answer into first, second, and third places, and then gave that group either three, two, or one point(s). Later on I shifted to more precise questions, and I had it so that the groups had to race to write down the answer first, and assigned points based on the order they presented their answer.
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Posted by Rob on October 26, 2009 – 10:11 pm
Per. 2
I let today be a pretty relaxed class, and it ended up being pretty fun. They have a test on Tuesday, and there was only one last thing I wanted to go over with them. So I started out class by pretty much telling them that I just needed fifteen minutes of their time to go over this last thing, and that the rest of the class would be pretty laid back, and we would just work on the create an amendment worksheet.
This plan worked out pretty well. They were pretty attentive, and I was able to rock through the material I wanted to cover pretty quickly. I then let them work on their amendment, and went around the room and checked and chatted with each one of them individually. It was a really good class. I hadn’t taken this kind of approach with them before and I feel like I learned a lot about them individually by doing this. Its definitely something I wouldn’t do again anytime soon simply because of how it’s a waste of time to a degree, but it was a good way to end a Friday class.
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Posted by Rob on October 23, 2009 – 6:24 am
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as borderlands, co-op, Fallout 3, FPS, gamefly, mua2, PlayStation 3, PS3, ps3 review, RPG, Uncharted 2
I got home from my college class at around 7:45. After wolfing down dinner and finishing up some school work, it was a little after 9:00pm, and I was ready to pop Borderlands in and try it out. I wont be around Friday or Saturday, and I have a bunch of school work to do Sunday, so I wanted to use the opportunity to get to see what Borderlands was all about.
Its pretty great.
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Posted by Rob on October 23, 2009 – 6:15 am
Per. 2
The class went pretty good today. I started off by having them work in pairs to complete a worksheet about the Bill of Rights. Most of the groups were working pretty hard, and one group the special education teacher and I had to keep pushing. Once they were all done we went over it together and made sure everyone had to correct answers.
After this, I spoke briefly on how and why the Constitution is amended. I then gave them a worksheet which guided them through the process of making their own amendments. Basically I had them think about a law they wanted to change or a social problem they wanted to fix, and then had them write an amendment to the Constitution that addressed that problem. I think it’s a fun activity that got them engaged creatively. Tomorrow I will finish talking about the Constitution, and then let them finish their amendments.
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Posted by Rob on October 23, 2009 – 6:15 am
Per. 2
Period 2 went pretty good today. I didn’t accomplish all that I wanted, but I think I spent enough time on the material that I am confident they caught on. The first thing I did was collect their essays. Four students did not do their essays, and I gave them until the end of today to do it. If they don’t hand it in by today, I will start giving them late penalties.
I then started discussing the Bill of Rights. I had a sheet with all ten listed on there, and after an introduction to them we started going over them. The Bill of Rights stimulated a lot of good discussion, and its something that they are interested in, which is good. I told a couple of stupid stories and made some ridiculous examples with their names in it, and I think it went pretty good. I had intended to get into a worksheet to reinforce the Bill of Rights, but by the time I got to the last amendment the class was over. Im still pleased though because I feel they got a good grasp of the Bill of Rights.
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Posted by Rob on October 21, 2009 – 6:29 am
Ive been looking forward to the game for awhile. Its was being marketed as a FPS/RPG hybrid, which automatically made me think of Fallout 3. Throw in the setting of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and I was even more sold on the fact that it was going to bring back wonderful memories of Fallout 3. One of the biggest differences is that Borderlands will offer four player online co-op, while Fallout was just a single-player game.
So needless to say, I was mighty pleased when Gamefly e-mailed me yesterday informing me that Borderlands is on the way. I am very curious to play it for myself and see if it really is as awesome as it sounds. But now the only problem is actually finding time to play it…
Posted by Rob on October 20, 2009 – 5:34 pm
Per. 2
Class went pretty well today. I was surprised to find that mostly everyone (except one) did their homework, which was very good. We went over the homework to ensure that everyone had the correct answers, and then went about structuring the essay.
The special education teacher was once again very helpful with this class. Together we showed the students how to organize their thoughts for an outline for their essay. I think it went pretty well. However, we spent so much time organizing that they had no time to actually start writing the essay, which is something they will have to do at home on their own tonight, since its due tomorrow.
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Posted by Rob on October 19, 2009 – 7:58 pm
Yeah, I know my blog has been kinda boring lately, in that I am spending most of my blogging time talking about school. Its just been so ridiculous and a lot of work lately. I am currently in the midst of writing up a review for Uncharted 2, though I can save you some reading and just let you know now that it freakin rocks and is a must-have for all Ps3 owners.
Moral of the story is that I am pretty busy with school and other stuff, so I have a lot less time to sit in front of the computer and map out a blog. However, I have been tweeting a bit more as of late, since with the use of tweetdeck it is pretty fast and convenient. So the next month or so may be a bit slow around here, but once Thanksgiving hits and my student teaching stint is done, I will be back to posting regularly about more interesting things.
Posted by Rob on October 19, 2009 – 7:05 pm
Per. 2
Class was a bit rough today. I started by giving them back their quizzes from Friday, and since many did poorly on it, I decided to go over it. I probably spent about ten minutes going over it, and in the end I don’t think it accomplished much. I told them to write down the correct answers but no one did, and many were not even paying attention. I don’t think there is a point to going over the quiz in class, and next time I will just say “let me know if you have any questions” so that the people who are really concerned can still ask their particular question.
I then got into how to write a DBQ with them. Luckily the special education teacher was there to help, because the kids were just totally dragging and out of it today. I couldn’t get anything out of them, but luckily the special education teacher was able to motivate them a little more.
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Posted by Rob on October 16, 2009 – 8:24 pm
Per. 2
Class went pretty well. They had a quiz today on the three branches of government. What I did was I had the branches listed on the board, and then gave them about four minutes to come up with as much information as they could on the branches. I wrote the answers they had correct on the board in the area they belonged. Then I gave them the quiz, and allowed them to use the information they came up with on the board as a “cheat sheet.”
After the quiz, I spent the next half of the class talking about their DBQ assignments. We spent most of the time going over the “Do’s and Don’ts” of DBQs. I had a few minutes at the end to quickly look at the documents and the questions, so they could get a sense of what the general theme was.
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Posted by Rob on October 16, 2009 – 6:19 am
Im pretty drained right now. Yesterday I had my college class after student teaching. So I leave for school at 7am, and then Im there until 2. Then I have to head over to the college for a 4:00 class. Our apartment is so far away from both schools that it is totally pointless for me to drive all the way home, and then come back out to go to the college like 1/2 hour later. Plus the professor for this class (its a methods class that connects to the student teaching) prefers that we come to class dressed as we do for student teaching.
So anywho, Im there until about 6:50 when he lets us out, so I dont get home until after 7. By the time I get settled and eat dinner its 8, and I still need to do research and write out notes for Friday’s (today’s) lecture to the AP classes. So I sit down at my computer for a good 15 minutes and accomplish nothing. I was so drained last night that I couldnt bring myself to do anything.
So instead I wake up at 5am this morning to get all my last-minute work done. I am totally looking forward to the weekend. Sure, it will be a little hectic with the family coming up tomorrow, but I should be able to get some extra sleep and relax. However, I have a crud-load of work to accomplish on Sunday…
Posted by Rob on October 16, 2009 – 6:12 am
Per. 2
Today went pretty well. I started off by quickly having them tell me different ways the three branches check each other. I then had them get into groups and read some articles based on checks and balances. I try to find more current articles and articles they would be interested in. I found one about Obama’s idea of enhancing education by making the school year longer (something they kept asking me about for days), one with G.W. Bush pardoning a rapper for some drug and tax evasion crimes, and one with Obama appointing Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The group work goes well, especially in Period 2 when I have the special education teacher to help float around to all the groups. When there are two teachers it is easier to ensure that all the groups stay on track and whatnot. I think it went pretty well.
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Posted by Rob on October 14, 2009 – 6:28 pm
I was shocked when I opened my mailbox today and found Uncharted 2 waiting for me. Gamefly usually takes between 3-5 days to ship a game to me from their nearest shipping center in Pittsburgh. Thats why I was so amazed to receive the game today. They e-mailed me telling me it shipped Monday, which didnt actually happen since the post offices were closed for Columbus Day. That means the post office got hold of the game yesterday and then got it here by today. Im not complaining…Im just amazed.
Thanks Gamefly! Keep this up. Its my only criticism of you…
