Mark's Blog

• Baseball/Basketball – You could tell that I am very into sports.  I especially like those 2 sports.
• Many Broken Computers – You could see that someone in my family fixes peoples’ computers.  And that they have a lot of knowledge about electronics.
• A ton of Tools in our Garage -  We are handy and can fix many different things.
• Spices and Common Cooking Ingredients -  We know how to cook many sophisticated foods.  We could whip almost anything up.
• Cluttered Kitchen Table – You could tell we sometimes don’t keep the house as sparkly clean as we should and sometimes we overlook it.

Perfectionist

Every time I try something new I always try to perfect it to the best of my ability.

• Friends
• Family
• Sports/Exercise

Without sports I would never be who I am today.  I play baseball and basketball.  Baseball is my favorite and most definitely best sport.  I play baseball in fall, spring, summer, and play basketball in the winter.  Sometimes my life could just be: eat, sleep, play sports.  Another big part of my life is a workout program called Crossfit.  On the website there is a new workout everyday that combines using different muscles in your body.  There are workouts for 3 days in a row then 1 rest day.  This is because when your use your muscles, you are actually tearing your muscle tissue but then more grows back.  So that rest day gives your muscles the time to grow back.  Crossfit builds everything from strength to endurance to stamina.

          For the last month our class has been using iPads and an app called Idea Flight that is a presentation app.  We made a presentation through Google Docs and put it as an iPad presentation in Idea Flight.  Personally I used Idea Flight for presenting 2 presentations.  The first presentation was on the Bill of Rights and then we split into groups and did one on James Madison.    We took 4 iPads and everyone was an iPad presenter and each had one fourth of a picture.  We combined the iPads to make one whole picture. 

          Our teacher used it for presentations, too.  The major one he did was about a 50 slide presentation about the REAL history of Thanksgiving. 

          It was good how when you are the pilot you control the presentation and lock everyone into the spot you are at in the presentation.  I know the original thought for Idea Flight was designed to just display a presentation.  But Conde Nast should incorporate a way to make your presentations right on Idea Flight.  Also, I don’t believe you can put videos on the slides so a way to do that would be great.  I don’t know if this has something to do with the iPad itself or the wireless connection or Idea Flight but one of our ideas as a group was to basically make a flip book.  We would line up all of the pictures and swipe through the presentation so it looks like a movie or Stop Action Animation.  But with many slides quickly swiping would cause the presentation to have a delay, lag, or just skip slides completely. Again I don’t know what causes that but I figured I would add it anyway.  I think overall, the Idea Flight App is a great presentation tool for teachers and students alike and schools and businesses will continue to buy and use it.

                                                                                             -Mark

                         #ifmoran12

There is a website called oneword.com It gives you a word and you have sixty seconds to write about a word that pops up. My word was slouch. I wrote: “It was the last day of school. The teacher was just droning on and on about nothing. I slouched in my chair daydreaming and waiting for 2:30 to come. I couldn’t wait run out of this prison and for the paradise of summer to begin. Ding ding ding!!!! Schools out!!!!”

       During the Civil War in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln was in office, he declared the fourth Thursday of November Thanksgiving.  But he was not the one who actually came up with the tradition.  George Washington actually proposed the idea of the feast.  Then Lincoln made it an official holiday and to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November.  Every president after Lincoln also declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.  Some people didn’t like the idea at all, though.  Thomas Jefferson said Thanksgiving was ”the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”  President Roosevelt wanted Thanksgiving to be on the 3rd Thursday so people could have more time to shop.  Nobody liked this so in 1941 Congress officially set it at the 4th Thursday.

Recently our social studies class used iPads to research something about the constitution. I researched about the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments that give rights to the people and limit the power of the government. The iPads were great but had a couple flaws.  One thing that absolutely influenced the side I choose is the fact that it is an iPad.  I mean when was the last time you got to use something like that in school.  Normally we would use a laptops to research and it would take forever to load our personal account and with the iPads we didn’t need to sign in at all. I’m not normally one of those typers that use 2 fingers to type, I use all of my fingers. When the iPad is held upright there is no room for both my hands. So I turned it sideways and the keyboard is still slightly too small for both my hands so it is very cramped.  They are a lot lighter than the laptops we have and smaller.  The screen on the iPads is bigger, too.  Surfing the web is just as easy on either device.  I would prefer having the iPads over our netbooks.

Our class used an app called idea flight.  Basically it is a presentation app.  It has a pilot that controls the presentation.  Normally we would all look up at the whiteboard where the teacher has a projected presentation going on.  The teacher sometimes will block peoples’ view or kids will not pay attention and just keep using their laptops.  In idea flight it puts the presentation on all of the iPads and locks it so everyone is forced to listen to and watch the presentation.

Graffiti can be bad or good.  Most people use graffiti to express themselves as an art form.  Graffiti is illegal.  Artist could legally do graffiti as art but they probably need to buy the part of the wall from whoever owns the building or get a permit.  If anyone does graffiti illegally they will get arrested.  So if you want to do graffiti make it legal.  It is a great and definitely creative art.  I did graffiti on paper in 6th grade and I loved it.  I think it is the best kind of art.

       Life is only about 25 years.  If it was 25 years I guess no one would realize it is shorter since we would only know life as 25 years.  My life, that I would be living about 80 years would be compressed into just 25.  People would be going to school only for 2 years and they will be getting married at 14.  Everyone will age faster so when you are 20 you will be old and wrinkly.  Now for me personally.  I would probably go with the flow and do what everyone else was doing.  I would take every opportunity that ever comes toward me.  I would try to get a job at 12 that would get me rich quick.  Then I would live my life the best I could.  Working my way up the ladder of baseball I would play and master the game of baseball and eventually play for the Yankees  for the rest of my life.  For the last 5 years I would marry someone and make a family.  My parents would already be dead and my brother and sister will be nearing 25.  I will be in my midlife crisis right now.

There is this person and incredible artist named Julian Beever.  He is very creative in so many ways.  He does something called Sidewalk Art.  Basically it is a chalk drawing on the sidewalk that looks 3 dimensional but is 100% flat.      The drawing only looks 3D from one angle.  If you look at it from a different angle you will be able to tell it is not “popping out”.  He spends hours and hours completing his masterpiece just to take a picture and let it get erased by rain.  If I were to do anything close to what he does I would probably cry when it gets erased.  I would brag about it and be very protective of the drawing.  Beever is creative because he comes up with so many ideas to draw about.  If I were him I would quickly run out of ideas.

Click Here and Here to see examples of Julian Beever’s art.                                             ***CAUTION!!*** Pictures in links might cause denial or yelling from lack of believing the drawings are actually flat.       I promise, all of them are.

http://www.julianbeever.net/pave.htm

On October 28, 2061 the U.S.A. will be very behind compared to many other countries.  When oil runs dry we will be very behind.  Other countries today are probably working harder than us to think and establish an alternative resource.  Oil will run out in about 2040.  I think the US will use the oil to the very end even when the prices are like $20 a gallon.  Then we will rush to figure out an alternative resource like a kid that rushes to finish his project the day before it is due.  When we are working on that, China will be taking over the world.

In my town kids will still be preparing for Halloween.  They’ll be buying their costumes and decorating their houses.  There will be no cars on the road but rather people walking everywhere and using their old bike and skateboards.  My town is filled with small businesses now so in 2061 all of those will be shut down and run down.  Only the major corporations will be around like Stop & Shop and Walmart.  But they will be struggling.

I will be about 63 years old.  I will have kids and grand kids.  I will be working to find an alternative resource to run everything.  And lastly I will find the resource and become a trillionaire until the day I die at 106.

My teacher will be still teaching at the same school at the same classroom.  He will still be doing Social Studies the way he only can.