Merry Christmas!!!

I had a great Christmas at my youngest sister's house in Northern Illinois. Her boys got a Wii for Christmas and it was fun to play with but I personally would not wast to own one because I wouldn't do anything but play with the Wii. We had a great dinner and I was lucky enough to be able to take some left-overs home with me. We watched "A Christmas Story" again. I love the narration of the movie the narrator makes everything sound so intense when he speaks. I tried to watch "Miracle on 34th Street" but got interrupted and never got back to it, I guess that with be added to my Netflix queue.

Onward and Upward

Now that the Fall semester is over I need to find a job for the Spring semester. I only have four hours left to graduate and that is not enough hours to be a student worker. I am sure that something will turn up, it always does I guess I am just lucky that way. I watched an interesting movie the other night called Little Voice it wasn't a great movie but the lead in the movie did all of the different voices during the songs. The movie was about a girl whose father has passed away and how she was very quiet all the time. (Hence the name little voice) One night when her promiscuous mother had a semi-famous local promoter over he heard LV upstairs singing and was blown away by her talent. The movie goes on with numerous twists and turns until the big night comes. LV is going to sing for a big record producer, when she doesn't show up things start to go downhill in a very funny way. I won't give away the ending but I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes quirky well acted movies. Micheal Caine is in the movie and he does a good turn as the mothers erstwhile lover, she thinks he wants to marry her when in fact he wants to make LV a star, and make himself rich in the meantime.

Some Thursday Night Excitement

After I got home from work Thursday night I was getting ready to head to the computer lab when my phone rang...it was my friend Dave who is currently the greens keeper at a Canton golf course. He asked if I could give him a ride to West Point Iowa to pick up the car that he had a friend repair for him. Because he had dropped everything and came and picked my Aunt Nancy and I up on the other side of Beardstown a couple of summers ago I of course said, NO WAY!! Just kidding, I said give me a few minutes to get ready and we can take off. We had no more made it to Blandinsville Il. when the snow started to fall,and fall, and fall some more. By the time we got to Fort Madison the snow was getting deep. Dave was cool enough to fill my car with fuel give me a dollar for the toll back across the river and five bucks for a sandwich in case I got hungry. On the way back over the toll bridge several of us had to wait for someone in a small pick up truck who didn't seem to know how to drive, I could see snow shooting up from the rapidly spinning tires every time I got a glimpse around the truck in front of me. After making it safely to Macomb and going to K-Mart for some new Band-Aids (yes, the name brand variety) I was headed back home when I felt a strange rumbling in the rear of the car. By the time I realized what it was, I was to County Market and pulled in with a flat tire on the passenger rear. I started to change the tire with no gloves in the dark, thinking that I was lucky that it hadn't happened out on the road somewhere, midway through the tire change a snowplow came by and spewed slushy snow all over my back. YEEHAA!! I think that all in all I had a good trip I had a full tank of gas, and I helped out a friend.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good. -- Seneca

The search is on...again

I have to say that I am lucky that I went to see Dr. West. I had some questions about the annotated bibliography so I went to see him. After I asked my question he explained that I was doing it ALL wrong and needed to redo some of my citations. He was also kind enough to give me until Tuesday to to turn in my paper. I might be the luckiest guy on the face of the planet, so now I need to go back and start over, wish me luck! -Kris

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed. -- Herman Melville

Tuesday November 6

I had a busy week-end, on Saturday I went to the Emmit- Chalmers pancake and sausage breakfast, then for lunch I went to Good Hope for the United Methodist Women's chicken and biscuit lunch. Then in the afternoon I went to watch the Leathernecks play ISU, they lost in a heart breaker but it was a good game. I want to thank the people who replied to my questions about formatting and adding pictures...I am not sure why I didn't see that from the very beginning but such is life. On Sunday after church, I watched 'my' Redskins win in a nail biter over the Jets. I wanted the Colts to win, but not having Marvin Harrison hurt their chances and they lost to the Patriots in another close game. Then Sunday night I went to a friends house for supper and to watch the Simpsons, we don't always have supper but we ALWAYS watch the Simpsons when they are on. I'm sorry "Family Guy" fans but the Simpsons has your show whipped.

I was just 'elected' president of the Prairieland Barbershop Chorus, that is not really what happened I was VP last year and now it is my turn to be the president. I don't get a scepter or anything. We are practicing songs for our annual 'Singsperation' at the Presbyterian church on Dudly street. The entry fee is one non-perishable food item. There are refreshments afterwards and the show is very good, if I do say so myself. Bring a friend and have a good time. The show is December 9th at 2 P.M.
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. -Anatole France

Progress made

I have already found several articles for my final project. One of the articles is called, "Comparing Web-Based and Classroom-Based Learning: A Quantitative Study" from the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, I retrieved it from the ERIC database using the Education via EBSCO. Unless otherwise stated all of my articles will come from that database. Another is "A Comparison of Student Achievement and Satisfaction in an Online Versus a Traditional Face-to-Face Statistics Class" this was retrieved from Innovative Higher Education.. The last one, so far, is called, "The Role of Students Cognitive Engagement in Online Learning from The American Journal of Distance Education. My search fields are, distance education and either student acprohievement or motivation.It could pro bably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress. Mark Twain

October 30th 8:45 PM

I just sent out the new address of my blog to all of the students in IDT 516. I want to once again thank Larry and Joe for their help, Mariann sent an email also. I guess that Dr. West has O.K.ed my research question/project so I guess I will get going on that. My question was, "What effect does distance learning have on the motivation and achievement of learners." I hope I can find enough articles to use for my liturature review, or maybe I should say the annotations of the articles. I hope everyone else is progressing with this assignment, I know that I am looking forward to digging in to the material and finding out that answer to my question.
"Always do sober what you said you would do drunk, that will teach you to keep your mouth shut." Ernest Hemingway

initial post from first blog

Grreeting one and all! This is also my first Blog, I have read many blogs, some I liked and some I wanted to reach through the screen and choke the writer. But now it is my turn. My final project is to be a database seach using ERIC. I believe that this has been my most difficult semester yet, BUT, I am learning things that I would never have guessed that I would know. I hope that the rest of the class is enjoying this class as much as I am. That is all for my for today. I leave you with this quote. A fool speaks because he has to say something, a wise man speaks because he has someting to say. Plato

Well I have had to start over. I was having trouble posting after I created my blog. I would like to thank Larry Tingley and Joseph Nobling for trying to help me figure out what was wrong. I finally decided to start all over again. Let's see if I can do better this time. The two greatest things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity, and there seems to be more stupidity. Frank Zappa