The modern classroom

Guest post by Susan Schumaker

Computer Based Training is increasing in popularity in the work place and in the classroom. The Information Age has made many changes to the way people are approaching education. As a college student, there are many classes I took that included taking labs in the computer lab at school. In the workplace, several of the places that I have worked focused their training sessions in an office full of computers.

Many professions now require the passing of state certification exams, and the preparation courses for these exams are available over the Internet. The exams themselves are done on computers in modern, secure testing facilities. The Information Age has truly transformed the way that business and education are done in the United States.

In Maine, the public education system gives the students their own personal laptop computers to take home with them, and to continue using the same laptop through out their high school years. This kind of forward-thinking is something that I think every state should get involved in. The world is shrinking, and becoming more competitive every day. We need to give our students every competitive edge we can.

Milky Way Discoveries

As a kid, we had a lot of U.S. and Russian space program events. There were launches of satellites, rockets, shuttles and the space station. There were kids in my classes who had a parent that worked for NASA. They would bring things into “Show and Tell” like space food, photographs of them at the Kennedy Space Center or standing by an astronaut. And I was fascinated by all of it.

My parents supported my interest in the space program by taking me to museums, a tour of the Kennedy Space Center one spring when we were in Florida for spring Break, and they sent me to Space Camp in Huntsville when I was 12 years old. They bought a microscope for me when I was 15 and several of my friends had microscopes, too. We were a band of geeks, in a way.

So now that we are all adults, we still stay in touch and talk about the space program. We are devastated that the space program has been shut down. Not that we want to be astronauts, but because we believe in space exploration. Some of us still have our childhood microscopes and keep them repaired with microscope parts that we order over the internet. In fact, I hope to pass along my microscope to my son some day.

Urban legend

I have loved Disney World ever since it opened. I was young teenager when it first opened. If I recall correctly my parents took the entire family down to Florida for Christmas vacation first year that it did open. That was my first experience with a large theme amusement park and I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

For that particular vacation I think my parents made a mistake by taking us to Disney World first because they also took us to other places such as Sea World, Cypress Gardens, and Busch Gardens during the same vacation.

I don’t know how it ever became an urban legend that Walt Disney’s body had been frozen using cryogenic equipment and was being stored on one of the Disney properties, but it was something I truly believed was correct! I was quite surprised and to be perfectly honest, but this appointment when I learned earlier today that story was simply an urban legend. Walt Disney was in fact cremated and the first known case of anyone being cryogenically preserved was a couple of months after Walt Disney’s remains were cremated.

To be perfectly honest I was rather disappointed when I learned that was an urban legend.  I rather thought it was a romantic notion that the night in some future decade been brought back to life somehow!

Medical advances

I was always a big fan of the television show The Six Million Dollar Man. The progress that the medical field has made in respect to replacing damaged/missing body parts always amazes me. This video shows a demonstration of a young man who recently received a bionic hand. I can imagine that he is thrilled to have it!

Newest Bad Word

There have always been a handful of words and phrases that become popular and get overused each year, especially by the younger people. Some of the words I hear way too much include, “Are you serious?” and “I don’t know, right?” which drive me crazy.

So, with all of the tragedy in Japan and the still unresolved threat of a nuclear meltdown in Japan, the newest bad word that I’ve heard used a lot these past couple of days is “radioactive.” It is an adjective used to describe someone or something as extrememely bad.