Blaender

Blender is a program in which you can create a virtual world all on your own.  It is a software that allows you to create your own games and place them on the internet for the world to play and or watch.  Special effetcs are a good majority of what movie making is today and is the home for cartoon creating.  The T.V. cartoons that you watch are the ones you watch when you are at home on Saturday mornings.  Art is essentially what is created.  

ROTC Programs

The ROTC programs are becoming one of the most sought after positions in the country for high school graduates and older.  The ROTC is in all branches of the US military.  The biggest one is the army and it is one of the safer, though not the easier, one.  I thought about joining, but knew that it was not for me.

Unlike during the Vietnam era, the military now is gaining new respect. That is one reason attributed to the ROTC's comeback. And since Congress rescinded the law that banned homosexuals from the military, such programs have returned to Stanford, Harvard, and other elite schools.

"There is a growing respect for the military in the wake of 9/11; this generation is well aware of that," notes Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness . "And so you see a response in the decisions made over the kitchen table."

Even though she agrees this is a good sign for the nation's military, Donnelly points out there is also a downside to the surge in ROTC participation. "It's also a sign of a poor economy, because obviously, students look at their career options and their expenses; the cost of education has gone extremely high," she explains.

The program has grown 27 percent over the last four years, and now boasts the participation of nearly 57,000 young men and women. - See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/education/2011/06/03/pros-and-cons-of-rotc-comeback#.Uq815fRDuSo

http://onenewsnow.com/education/2011/06/03/pros-and-cons-of-rotc-comeback#.Uq815fRDuSo

DGBL
Digital Game Based Learning
Pros and Cons
A few pros:
- the teacher can customize a learning environment to meet specific needs of the students. 
- the learning environment can be designed to underline a very specific part of a lesson eg. Neurotransmitters.
- an existing world can be adapted to fit the teachers’ own didactic design - regarding content, method and time spent.
- the build tools are intuitive and its easy to create content quickly, if you have an idea for a design.

Cons:
- designing content is time consuming, but what takes most time is actually designing the learning experience, not the placing of blocks. Once a world is built it can be shared, reused and developed.
- a challenge can be for the teacher to maintain a focus on the element of play. Some didactic designs simply utilize the game environment to create a learning experience without any actual gameplay. 

These are just a few of the good's, the bad's, and the ugly's that I have found and I must say that both are very good and show the various ways the program can be used and taught.
The website below is the site where I found this list of pro's and con's.  
http://gamebased.tumblr.com/post/29333883407/pros-and-cons-of-teachers-creating-content-in

I apologize for the inconvenience that my post on
Technology: Security & Privacy.
I had no idea that the publishing of the post was not even legible and blocked by the blogger site.  If you go to the website at the bottom of that post you will see what was going to be on the blog and understand what I was trying to present.  

Matrix

Red Pill

The Red Pill will take me home.  It will take me to my real reality.  I want to know how I can free others from this per-ell that we face.  Freedom is what we as a species desires and seeks to have and possess for all eternity.

  

Education on tech security and privacy

Technology:
Security & Privacy

Digital Safety | Computer Rules Prevent Problems

With computers and other digital devices becoming a part of nearly every classroom, it's important to have clear rules for your students.

Student computer use often involves situations not covered by regular classroom rules -- and the rules those situations require might not occur to you ahead of time. They've occurred to the Education World Tech Team, however. Today, our experts share their rules with you!

Most likely, one of the first things you do at the beginning of each school year is post a list of class rules. Whether your rules are as general as "respect yourself and others" or as specific as "no talking after the bell rings," you know that rules help provide order and structure and create an optimal learning environment.

No matter how effective your class rules are, however, they seldom cover every classroom situation. Student computer use, in particular, often necessitates additional rules -- rules that can optimize your students' computer experiences. Those rules might not occur to you until unexpected situations arise.

They have already occurred to members of Education World's Tech Team, though!

Today, to make sure that your technology lessons are as orderly -- and as valuable -- as all your other classroom activities, our experts share their rules with you.

THE EXPERTS SPEAK

"One of my [most important] rules concerns printing from the Internet," Pat Bihon, a technology specialist at Lincoln Roosevelt School, in Succasunna, New Jersey, told Education World. "I have a rule that students must clear any Internet printing with me before they send material to the printer. Students must know how many pages an article contains and whether they need the entire article or just part of it. There's nothing worse than printing ten pages when only the first two pages contain necessary information. I also encourage students to copy and paste the information they need into a text document or WordPad. That way, they have only the information they need and they create a note page for later reference.

"A second rule," Bihon continued, "is that students record the URLs for the Web sites they use. Again, I encourage them to copy and paste the URLs into a text document and record the Web sites for a bibliography. That also helps them realize that yahoo.com, for example, is not the site the information came from; it's just the search engine they used. This concept is difficult for many students to grasp.

"I also have rules forbidding fooling around with the computer's C drive, removing the mouse ball, and changing icons and wallpaper on the desktop," said Bihon. "I tell students that they are in my living room and shouldn't change things around, any more than I would go into their living rooms and rearrange the furniture. Moving icons in particular drives me crazy. If the icons are left in place, I can easily direct students to the correct column and row for opening a program. If the icons have been moved, it wastes my time and the students' time."

"I post station numbers on disk boxes by each computer," said Libby Adams, a computer resource teacher at Troost Academy, in Kansas City, Missouri. "On the first lab day, each student is assigned a station. After that, the rules are pretty simple."

• Remain standing at your station until you're invited to sit down.
• Sit quietly until you know what's expected of you.
• Turn your station box over if you have a problem.
• Never touch another student's computer.
• When class is over, close all windows, stand when asked, and push your chair into your lab station.

"Students also know," Adams told Education World, "that sometimes we work solo, often wecollaborate, and occasionally we cross-pollinate. This lets them know the permissible noise level."

"The beginning of the school year is a good time to think about rules," said Betty Kistler, computer technology coordinator at Tuckahoe Common School District, in Southampton, New York. "Here are my Big Five!"

• Keep your hands off the keyboard and mouse until you know what we're doing. When kids start messing around as soon as they sit down, they invariably end up somewhere other than where they need to be, and they probably aren't listening to instructions.
• Work quietly and stay on task. Make every effort to do your best.
• Spell-check and proofread before printing. Print to a color printer only when color is needed.
• Get permission if you want to use the Internet for anything other than the day's assignment. (I have a brightly colored card to give students who have permission.)
• Leave your workspace the way you'd like to find it. This means exit all applications, close the server connection, and put any removable media where it belongs.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech044.shtml