When we arrived in Kaputian, it was getting late and we didn’t have dinner yet. We first looked for a place to stay and the locals said that there was a town park that had overnight rentals. So we headed there and found that the the town park had small overnight rentals and one of the rentals was a tree house. As you can see from the video, the tree house is right on the beach and cost 300 pesos. My butt was getting sore from riding on the motor all day and I was looking forward to some quiet time, snorkeling and a good night’s sleep.

During the night, however, I was awakened from the green curtains blowing across the room from the wind. I was in a deep sleep and did not want to wake up. Next came the rain, lightning and a huge bang of thunder and I was wide awake. I took out my mini pen light to look around as it was pitch black. It was a heck of a storm and the tree house was swaying back and forth and the rain was pouring down. I was concerned the tree house might blow over. The normally quiet sea outside my door had turned into a raging sea and I thought the water might flood the beach. The waves were 1-2 feet and I could hear them crashing. The beach and entire area was completely dark except when the lightning struck and I could see the blowing rain and waves through the eerie blue light. I think the storm passed directly over our tree house. Within an hour, the storm had passed and I eventually fell back to sleep.

I got up early in the morning as I could hear what sounded like thousands of birds in the trees. I took my camera and walked down to the water to take a little video and walk along the beach.

The flash drive will only hold a few megabytes of data so have another flash drive handy. Here area few pictures I took today, my first day with the EyeClops. I hope to explore more this week and have an updated post by this weekend.

Here is a piece of bread at 100x. All of these pictures were imported into iPhoto and given a quick edit using the enhance magic wand.

The second picture is an onion skin at 200x.

The third picture is the same onion skin at 100x. The fourth picture is a closeup of a pineapple at 100x. The last is a small video of a state map.

After I took these pictures, it was easy to hook the EyeClops into the VCR using the S-video and project it onto the Smartboard for the whole class to see. I bought mine for $24.99 at Amazon and it is worth the price, even if you just play around with it. We had a fun day in science class today.

“How do we be sure we are not quietly heading toward burnout and completely inappropriate behaviors? Reflection.”

Yes, reflection. Reflect often and not only on what did I do and how could I do it better, but on how could I have done that will less stress. I always try to figure a way to do an activity with less stress. Usually, this is done by being very organized and visualizing in my mind what I will do before I start the class.

Elaine gives threes steps to help prevent burnout: take a break, change your thinking, and to never stop reflecting. These steps are a good way to help reduce the stress and to become a better teacher. Reflecting and thinking of what to do differently will help any teacher to reverse the trickle of negative behaviors.

One thing I would like to add that has helped me to become a better teacher is to reduce the amount of time when changing activities. I thought about this one day a long time ago when I was reflecting on what I could do to reduce the noise level when switching between activities and reduce the stress of changing gears during the day. What I do is on the first day of school, I give just one rule to know for the day. The rule is when I raise my hand the class should 1) stop talking and 2) raise your hand. This one rule has helped me every day to keep my stress levels low by being able to transition between activities during class. Now when the class is working, and we need to move on, I just raise my hand and instant quiet.

The first week of class, someone might test the water and see what happens if they don’t raise their hand. I usually add on a second mini rule so that the last person to raise their hand is the last one out of the classroom. Just keep it lighthearted and try not to be so serious. Give this a try and reduce your stress level.

The first challenge is to make an elevator pitch. What is an elevator pitch?

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).”  Wikipedia

This pitch is like a mission statement as it gives direction on where the site is heading. All decisions reflect back to this elevator pitch and and this gives the site purpose and direction. It is also short and to the point. I like that. Keep it simple.

This is a difficult challenge for me as I am not sure where to go with this site. I am interested in many subjects like math, science, gemelogy and teaching. But I am also interested in selling information and some of my artistic creations. I have some ideas now, but what I will do is sleep on it and first thing tomorrow morning I’ll post on my elevator pitch, aka mission statement.

update:  Since my goal is to teach and/or tutor math, science and ESL from the Philippines using science as a base, my elevator pitch should reflect this. I like teaching and learning technology for an improved life. I’ll keep thinking.

update II: I thought about this during the day and I’ve feel good about this new update.

Science and Math For Life. I’m looking to incorporate and extend science and technology by using web communities to communicate with and to build and develop friendships.

The class did a density lab where they change the density of water by adding different amounts of salt. The hard part is to decant the solution so the different densities don’t mix. We used food coloring to show each different density layer. The bottom layer has 2.5 teaspoons of salt. The middle layer has 1 teaspoon of salt, and the top layer has no salt, just yellow food coloring. We used 100ml of water for each layer. Put a piece of cardboard on top of the red layer to decant. The class did a great job.

When I was in Mindanao, Philippines this past summer, I took ten lessons with Bebe. We usually met at the coffee shop or at Bob Martin’s house. That’s the best way to learn: one on one. Since we are very far away now, I think the best way to learn is to use the online classroom at Wiziq. My goal is still to become fluent in the Bisaya language. I’ll scan in the next few lessons so we’re ready to go. Time now to review my vocabulary.

To do this, measure 25 ml of half and half and pour into a perti dish. Put one or two drops of four different colors of food coloring into the half and half. Then put a match into a drop of Joy Ultra dish detergent and then put into the middle of the colors. The colors will move to the outside and then start to blend together. You can adapt this to almost any grade level.