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Showing posts from August, 2013

Rolling four square balls on tile porches

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Delinda and Allston on the line Once again I returned to using the tiled porch of the FSM-China Friendship Sports center for laboratory 022. This worked well last January and performed superbly again this fall. This is the place to do this laboratory. Dwayne bowling, Berry at one second, Delinda at second second, Allston on third. That may be Bryan Tonga, fifth second, in gray, Megan Helgenberger working the sixth second. In the afternoon Tulpe-Louisa Asher called times, JB Palik bowled, Plomina worked the first second. MaryRose Benjamin was catcher, Tilson in brown, Almihner, Lilly-Ann, Plomina, JB, and Tulpe-Louisa

Monilophyte Lycophyte Hike

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This term the monilophyte and lycophyte hike was pushed back to the third day of class. The new term start worked well, placing the course solidly on an experiential footing from day one. Note that this also pushed cyanobacteria and mosses into this hike. Parkey on the left has a look at the Lycopodiella cernua and the Dicranopteris linearis  Vanessa Ewarmai on the left.  Jesse and Leonard head downslope in the forest.  Asplenium laserpitifolium.  Jeffrey Peniknos on the left, Chelsea in red at the center. Near the Angiopteris evecta

Edmodo Beginnings

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Over the past few years I have know about grading packages with on line log in capabilities for students. Most of these required up front purchase of desktop grade book software. In 2012 a colleague introduced me to JupiterGrades. I experimented with the package briefly but found that I hit pay walls when I wanted to do something beyond maintain a personal grade book. I could not generate student log ins with purchasing an annual subscription. I was also not all that impressed with the interface which felt almost DOS like at times.  Spring 2013 I discovered Engrade - a market leader that is free and very capable. I was so impressed I moved all five sections of three different courses into Engrade. I also offered an Engrade session during staff development day and a number of faculty adopted the package.  Late in the term another instructor introduced me to CourseSites , a very powerful learning management system platform. I am using CourseSites this term with the 30 student

RipStik Linear

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This term I started from the LRC and headed east. I measured each column using a tape measure. Zero was the first gray post just barely visible on the left.   time (s) distance (cm) v (cm/s) a (cm/s²) 0 0 157 0 1.94 304 157 0 3.63 610 181 14.42 5.28 930 194 7.80 6.98 1232 178 -9.58 8.60 1535 187 5.80 10.16 1842 197 6.26 11.72 2147 196 -0.82 13.66 2454 158 -19.21 There is a slight downslope at the start of the run, which gave me a very slight boost in velocity. The gain is only clearly visible in the data table. On a graph the data plots linear with a correlation coefficient r of 0.9997. Plotting only the velocity and acceleration reveals the slight shifts in velocity. The changes in velocity are small enough that they are difficult to discern in the time versus distance velocity chart. At other locations I

CourseSites

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This term I am experimenting with using CourseSites in my SC 130 Physical Science course. As I worked with the students in the computer laboratory on accessing and using CourseSites, I snapped rather random photos in no particular order of features as I discovered them. I am indebted to one student who showed me some shortcuts available to the students to navigate, and to another for actually completing and submitting their laboratory report within a single three hour period. A few of us attended a workshop at term start on CourseSites, that workshop helped get me started.  The following is a rambling discourse on my experience today and is not meant to teach anyone anything in particular, just to share some of my experiences. My only intent and hope is that this will help provide further information to those who are looking at using CourseSites. I would note that I continue to use Engrade for my statistics and ethnobotany courses, Engrade fits better to my needs in those two cour