Marina's posterous

FAST FOOD X RSS

Check out some people's fast food definitions.

 

  • It is a quick, easy, meal to just drive through whenever you are hungry and don't have time   to cook.

 

  • It is one of the world's fastest growing food types.

 

  • People buy fast food because it's cheap, quick, and heavily promoted.

 

  • It is believed to be faster and easier than any other option that this millennium has come up with. So people keep eating them.

 

  • In 2006, the global fast food market grew by 4.8% and reached a value of 102.4 billion and a volume of 80.3 billion transactions. In India alone the fast food industry is growing by 40% a year.

 

  • Fast foods are plentiful and easily obtained. They are usually inexpensive with 99-cent meals being widely available.

Still thinking?

"Before RSS, there were basically two ways of keeping in touch with the latest updates being made on a website: either you added a website to your Favorite (in Internet Explorer) or Bookmark (in Mozilla Firefox), or you subscribed to the newsletters of these websites. So, in order to be in touch with your favorite websites in an efficient and time-saving manner, the best option so far is using tools such as Google reader. RSS (Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Subscribing) is a simple and efficient way to keep in touch with a website without actually visiting it. To use the Google reader, which is one of the RSS tools, you only need a free Google account to use their reader. Just go to Google.com/reader, login into your account and add your favorite feeds. After adding the RSS feed, you will be able to read them in the reader easily. They will be listed in the form of a list just like emails in your inbox".

That's it. Fast food and RSS are both delicious, practical, fast and time-saving.

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Hey.. What does it have to do with us?

Blind Melon
Change

I don't feel the sun's comin' out today
It's staying in, it's gonna find another way.
As I sit here in this misery,
I don't think I'll ever, no lord, see the sun from here.
And oh as I fade away,
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say,
"Hey look at him, I'll never live that way."
But that's okay, they're just afraid to change.
And when you feel your life ain't worth living
You've got to stand up and take a look around you
Then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
Keep on dreaming, boy, 'cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.
And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
Some ways we'll work and other ways we'll play.
But I know we can't all stay here forever,
So I want to write my words on the face of today
...And then they'll paint it
And oh as I fade away,
They'll all look at me and say, they'll say,
"Hey look at him and where he is these days."
When life is hard, you have to change.
When life is hard, you have to change.

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WEB TOOLS USAGE VIDEO REVIEW WEEK 1

WEB TOOLS USAGE VIDEO REVIEW

 

After watching the youtube videos and going on our WEB2.0 Safari, I had this nostalgic feeling. They are really touching and got me thinking about the need to improve myself. Although the words wiki, net, web2.0, blogs and some others are not discussed in our old Psychology of Education and Methodology books, they can be considered cultural tools in use nowadays. According to Vygotsky, cultural tools play very important roles in cognitive development. As we can see, these real tools can help students advance their own development. I strongly believe that motivation is the key in the learning process because this is what makes our students want to come back and be eager to learn.

 

From what I have seen, I could say that 90% of our students either have iPods, iPhones, cell phones, orkut, or blogs. They are always hanging around with their earbuds in, listening to music, watching videos and playing games. Unfortunately, I got really upset when I was asked "How much tech-richness does your curriculum provide?" My answer is: almost none. And I say that because although I may seem to have a little knowledge about some web aspects, I just don't know HOW to apply them. Where do I begin? What is the limit? What can I do? What shouldn't I do? Also, I didn't know there are so many tools that can be used. Finally, I felt oldfashioned. Now, I can understand my mom's frustation when she asked me to create an e-mail account for her. I couldn't understand why she wasn't able to do it. It seemed so obvious! In a way, I'm like her at that time. I get confused and I can't even say what a wiki is for sure.

 

Thus, I really feel that we can do much more than going to the MALL and asking our students to do all those ordinary exercises. Podcast is an example of a tool that can increase motivation due to the fact that it allows people to post messages, photos, real conversations, or songs! As teachers, not only do we need to keep up with technology and its advantages now, but we should always do it.

 

However, we also need to learn or to be guided in a way so that we don't spoil the milk. Whereas technology is a way to increase motivation and influence the learning process, we need to be attentive to its limits. People need to learn how to use their tech tools in a polite and respectful way. How do you feel when you have to ask your students to turn off their cell phones, iPods, gameboys, etc a million times? How do you feel when you ask someone to do a task, but s/he is not even listening to you?  So, besides having to learn and adapt to the world tech race, the do's and don'ts would be the  main guidelines to incorporating technology in my classroom.

 

 Marina Brazil Bonani