Branson @ MindSay

Broadcasting live from Branson with special guest, Aaron Sidwell - 4 PM Central time

Greetings from Branson, Missouri!  Welcome to my blog site!  My name is Liz, aka "Mrs. T", and I am currently attending college at OTC in Springfield, Missouri.  I am carrying a full class load this semester and boy has it been a challenge so far!  One of the requirements for my Educational Technology class is to "build" a blog site.  Well here it is!   I'm taking the Edu class online  so I really don't "know" many of my fellow classmates.  We all were required to make a website this semester.  (Oh could I go into some rants and raves about THAT assignment!)  The website was a hard challenge for me but I plowed my way through it!  Anyway, going back to not knowing any classmates, I DID get to meet one the other day just because she posted her picture up on her website!  I saw a girl walking out of the ICE building and I thought boy she looks familiar!  I said "Charissa?"  Well low and behold it was one of my teammates from my Edu class!  Now that was exciting!  We had a nice little chat, as I was on my way home, but if she hadn't of put her picture up on the site I would have never have "met" her.  I had posted that was one of my complaints that not everyone put up a picture.  I am sure glad Charissa did, as I would have missed that opportunity.  Pretty neat huh? 

 

Now back to the Weblogs.  I thought I had better do a bit of research about blogs since I really didn't know much about the whole concept.  I saw some sloppy ones, blah ones, fancy ones, colorful ones and I realized that blogs are a way to communicate to others.  The personalities, likes and dislikes came through loud and clear! lol  I think the blogs I did see were very informal so I decided mine would be informal also.  No fancy "lingo" just good ole Liz and her thoughts and opinions.  What is the ole saying?  "Everyone has one?" lol  I always speak up which can be a downfall or a blessing depends what day it is!   A nice thing about a blog site is you can read it or hit the delete key and keep on going! lol  The assignment that went along with creating a blog site was to give our comments on how to incorporate Weblogs into our classrooms.  (Oh, did I say I might "grow up" and be a teacher someday?) I can only think of one use in a classroom.  I have to be honest it just doesn't thrill me at all to think about blogs being used in the classroom.  Personally, I would not allow my students to create or use one.  (Yep here's this "opinion thang" I spoke about earlier! lol)  Sooo here goes...the one thing I could justify the use would be to utilize it as a journal.  Now my son (I always talk about my son..lol..poor kid) in fourth grade, he had to write a journal.  He did not like it! lol  Well matter of fact he ended up in the principal's office because he did NOT want to get up in front of the class and read out of his journal.  Oh, boy talk about one mad mother!  Anyway, the journal was good for improving his writing skills and was "supposed" to incorporate presentation skills.  Now if students journaled online they would improve typing skills, you could not really see if they spelled things right (the wonders of spell check), and it would be hard for them to present the journal in front of the class to master public speaking skills.  Needless to say, this is all based on "my" own experiences with journaling used in the classroom.    I also do not like the idea of students being able to get on the blog and have the potential to "trash talk" about other students or hey even ME! lol  I haven't found a way to censor a blog site as the person creating it has all the controls.  I suppose the teacher could create each site, let the students add to it, but that seems like a lot of work to go through and "censor" a class assignment.  I believe there are better ways to serve a student computer time wise than a weblog.  Oh, this is kinda funny but just to prove my point. lol  Tonight I was playing around on the computer.  I just got cox.net cable modem so I am not very familiar or have it set up right.  I was instant messaging my teammate Charissa!  I went to check out her blog as I was still working on mine at the time.  Well I not only checked out hers but Emily and Bobbies as well!  (Hey ladies they looked great! lol)  BUT...I don't know if it was "my" internet connection or the blogsite itself...but when "I" viewed the sites there were key words highlighted for links.  All three of the sites that had the highlighted words took me all sorts of different places!  I ended up at a lawyer's website, a woman in a wheelchair that played music and an adult friend finder that was deft a XXX site!  I was rolling on the floor (ROTF) laughing it was so funny!  Ok so I have a warped sense of humor! lol  I knew none of my classmates would have linked to any of these sites!  (Oh, thanks you guys expand my horizons here..lol)  So..would something like this happen in my classroom?  Do I want Johnny's mom calling me at school or let alone home to tell her she did NOT appreciate the computer lesson for the day?  Heck no!  I told Charissa I have no clue why it happened if I opened the sites in Blackboard they weren't there but if I right click (which I always do so I don't loose my place) then wa-la there was a whole new world out there!  lol  Oh the wonders of the Internet!  Well I'm rambling again but I just had to share my experience tonight!   To wrap up my views about blog sites?  I think they are great as a creative outlet.  I've enjoyed telling you a few stories and events in my life.  You notice I didn't put anything "to" informative, as Weblogs are not private what so ever.  I would hate to think a student might get "comfortable" and there again is that "censor" thing.  I am always open to new ideas and suggestions though!  I loved the idea of a teacher home web page for the classroom.  I can vision that one and oh do I wish my son had that available to him.  One too many times I've heard "I forgot my homework handout"!  I have to thank Mr. Salley and my Edu class for pushing me into broadening my horizons with the website building lesson.  I learned so much!  The website assignment already has me planning to take a class next semester to expand on what I fumbled through! 

 

You know on a personal level a blog site might be fun!  I saw one girl had different topics for different days of the week.  The one that caught my eye was "Whiney Wednesdays" and she just whined about anything from her husband to the gas prices!  It was great!  I think a weblog might not only be a creative outlet but maybe a stress reliever also!  You could type it out, moan and groan and be done with it.  Just another one of "my" thoughts!  Signing off for now!

Liz aka Mrs. T  

PS... maybe next time I will tell you where the Mrs. T came from!    Oh..PSS....a friend sent this cute poem about first graders...it is rated PG-13 or maybe R you might not want to scroll down! lol

Subject: 1st graders

A college professor was doing a study testing the senses of first
graders, using a bowl of lifesavers.  He gave all the children the same kind of
lifesavers, one at a time, and asked them to identify them by color and flavor.
The children began to say:

"Red............cherry,
"Yellow.........lemon,"
"Green...........lime,"
"Orange.......orange."
Finally, the professor gave them all honey lifesavers. After eating them for a few moments, none of the children could identify the taste.  "Well," he said, "I'll give you all a clue; It's what your Mother may sometimes call your father."  One little girl looked up in horror, spit hers out and yelled: "Oh My Gosh!!!!

They're ass holes!"     ........he he he...... gotta love them kids!            liz :)

We celebrated the New Year in Branson, Mo. We are headed out to Salt Lake City and have plenty of time to get there so we drove into Branson and got a room. We have never been to Branson and expected things to be really booming this time of year. We live near Gatlinburg, TN and go there quite a bit. There is alot going on there right now but it turned out that this is the off season for Branson. Many of the theaters are closed down and many others have cut back on the shows.We were getting a little worried about finding a nice place to celebrate New Years Eve but we found an Outback which is one of our favorite restaurants and decided to have a nice supper then decide what to do. When we went inside we found out that the wait was an hour and a half and we were already hungry. They said that they had another place beside the main restaurant called The Outback Pub and it had a band so we decided to try it. The only table left in the place was right in front of where the band set up. We were a little concerned because the band was called "Deep Blue Funk" and we were worried they might not play our kind of music but we went ahead and ordered our food. The waitress (Jessie) was very nice and the food was great! Eddie had a Philly Steak sandwich and Tracy had a Chicken Pot Pie. When the band came in we saw that they were all about our age so that was a good sign. The first song they played was Gimme 3 Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd and that was a great sign. This band really rocked. They played everything from Steve Earl to  ZZ Top and they did a great job on the theme from Shrek. ("I'm a Believer".) They even played some country songs after Eddie told them that it was his favorite music. We also met a very nice couple from Arkansas named Tony and Jessica. Everyone there was nice. This one guy said he was 73 years old and he danced more than anybody. He was usually dancing with 2 girls at the same time. We had planned on leaving early and watching the New Years ball fall on TV but we ended up staying until after midnight. We hope to have some pictures of our New Years celebration  up on the www.countrydrive.com website soon.