My wife has been having pain in her jaw for the last week or so, and the only way I could convince her to go see the doctor is if I came home from work and went with her. She scheduled an appointment for a day that I don't want to miss from work. So, I decided that I would take advantage of the Document Camera that we have and have a little fun at the same time. I recorded myself teaching the students about persuasive writing while I taught it in the morning classes. That way, when I left, the substitute could just press play and I would be able to sleep at night knowing that my students got the information I need them to. This video is just the beginning part. The rest of the videos will be posted online soon enough. I am actually pretty excited because it will be fun to be able to use this again next year for a refresher course for me. The students responded very well to it. I almost want to do this every day. I could just record my direct instruction, and then I wouldn't have to repeat myself so much every day. Also, it ensures that all my students get the same message. Even though I may be sick of hearing myself over and over again at the end of the day, it will be new to my students each period, and I won't have to do anything different to keep myself from getting bored. This is one thing that I want all my students to understand completely, and it is really good for them all to hear the exact same thing and see it done the exact same way. Have a Good Life.

I really like the show "24" and being a geek, I always notice the geeky things that are cool in that show. One of the things that I want is to be able to say to someone, "Send the file to my computer" and have them able to actually do it. That would be awesome. Well, I found out how to do that. It is a little program called Dropcopy. Below is a video I made showing how it works.  On my MacBook Pro, I only have one account, and on the iMac, I have two accounts, one for me and one for my wife. To get it to transfer to the iMac properly, I had to manually set up both accounts, which wasn't that hard because I just had to put in the IP addresses for the iMac (same IP addresses, obviously) and give the different accounts nicknames, which isn't actually necessary. From my iMac to the MacBook Pro, it worked flawlessly, and saw the computer without any additional setup. It seems to transfer faster than using Finder to transfer files (though I don't think it is any faster), and certainly faster than a thumb drive. Also, it is super easy. Just drag and drop a file. The Preferences pane does give some additional options, which I think are useful and pretty self-explanatory, so I will just show some screenshots. If you have any questions, just leave a comment. Another neat feature is that you can send short text messages to the other computers. I imagine that in a school setting, this would be pretty neat.That is much faster than finding my hall passes, or a piece of paper, and writing out the same note. And, it is much less of a disruption when the kid comes into class. But, imagine if you use it to collaborate with your teachers. The department chair has a curriculum that she needs everyone to have, but she forgot to send it out. In no time, the other teachers would have the file sent to them, and they would be able to access it. It would be faster and easier than email. I use Apple Remote Desktop all the time, and this little program would make it very easy to send files for people to install. For example, trying to download Smart Technologies software (for Smartboards and our Clickers) is a total pain. With this, I can easily send files to people so that they can install the updates, instead of going through the ridiculous sign-in process via the SmartTech Website.Have a Good Life.

I just finished putting the finishing touches on my presentation page for the UCET 2009 conference. Friday and Saturday, I will be presenting about the iPod Touch in the Language Arts 7 classroom. I hope the presentation goes over well. The plan is to let people experiment with the iPods and ask questions. I hope that it works out well and people are not bored to tears. That would stink! Take a look at the page and feel free to tell me what you think. Have a Good Life.

One of my teachers had a problem with her computer. She complained to me in a creative way, which I don't mind. Here it is:This is from Xtranormal.com, where the tagline is "If you can type, you can make movies."Have a Good Life.

The end of the year is fast approaching. I think it is good to reflect on what I have done so far, and what I want to do next year.Some things I did this year:Students made moviesStudents made clicker quizzesRecorded video of lessons for students to watchWhat I want to do next year:Record more videosUse the computers on a more consistent basisUse the clickers as formative assessmentMaking movies wasn't really new to me this year, and it was pretty simple, since I feel comfortable doing it. Clicker quizzes were not new either, as I started doing that last year. It was new for me to create the videos of my lessons. It was really beneficial to try that because it was difficult to figure out to do that best. I still haven't figured it so, it is a work in progress. For next year, I want to spend more time working on that. It is not there, yet, and I think that I can make those videos more interesting and more focused on learning things, and not just focused on recording that class period.Next year I want to use the computers as more than just word processing. I want to incorporate Google Forms and give the students surveys and have them respond to things in that format.Perhaps the biggest thing is I want to do next year is use the clickers as a formative assessment, instead of just summative, end-of-unit assessments. I will still use them for Rise and Stretch like I do now, but adding the extra element would be good because we would use a lot more batteries. Essentially, the clickers would be on all day long. As I teach a concept, the students would respond to questions that I ask that are embedded in the lesson. They would be able to show me right away whether they got the concept I was teaching or not.The problem with this is that I don't teach a lot of concepts in Language Arts. Much of it is stuff they already know, but just need to refine. It would be difficult and time consuming to come up with all this stuff. But, since we do Rise and Stretch and have a different concept they need to know for each week, it would be beneficial to have a "New Concept Day" or something like that, so that they could learn a concept. These are the lessons that I would want kids to make up. Then, they could use that to help them when they need a review.Atomiclearning.com has taught me a lot this year also. I think the most important thing it has taught me is that I need to make screencasts for students and teachers that are more exciting. I have started doing that already, and I really enjoy making screencasts.Have a Good Life.

I have been lucky enough to be able to teach many other teachers and students on a variety of topics. A friend and I were recently talking about how people from different generations learn. He mentioned that younger people (like our students) want to dive in and figure things out. Older people (like teachers) want to be told step-by-step how to do things.When I teach adults and students alike, I adapt my teaching method to whatever seems most comfortable for them. When I teach students, I usually let them play with things and only show or demonstrate when they get stuck. So far, my students have enjoyed this.Last year, when I did TechnoThursdays, I usually had to go more step-by-step with the adults who came and needed help, which is why I used the wikispace to help them see the step-by-step directions. TechnoThursdays were the ideal setup. I would create a wiki with directions of what we were going to do. Then I would talk to the teachers and walk those who needed it through that web page.Technology makes that possible. It allows everyone to be on their own page when it comes to learning. They can go slow or they can go fast. This year, I have made many screencasts that show how to do different things with our transition to Google Apps for Education email accounts. The screencasts allow the teachers to view the needed material, often without any audio, and as many times as they personally need. Some people just need to know that a certain functionality exists, and they will do the rest on their own. I am not doing TechnoThursdays this year because I do that in one technology-themed faculty meeting each month. Allowing everyone to go at a speed that is comfortable to them has made those meetings much more effective. It gives people permission to go above and beyond what I am teaching.The Aloha Team at my school went one step beyond my lesson about blogging on our school web site. They made their own wiki and their own blogs and those blogs are linked on this wiki. Their next step is to create an RSS feed that feeds right on to that page (a challenge for next year). That is something that could not have happened if I did not let them go at their own pace--a vital key to any learning situation.I think about when I teach in other settings where technology is not available, the learners have no opportunity to go at their own speed. The instructor determines the speed, and they must conform to it. There is no other choice.Understanding the ways that my students and other adults learn has helped me figure out how I learn the best. I like a mixture of what I give my students and what I give adults. I like the structure of an actual class, but I like being able to go at my own pace. Since I have finished my Masters degree, I have been able to focus more on what I want to learn, when I want to learn it. Using Twitter has also helped me gain more information than I could ever imagine.

These thoughts are in response to Darren Draper's post at the Tech and Learning Blog. I served a mission for my church in Russia for two years. Before I got there I studied the language for at least 8 hours each day for seven weeks. You can imagine how well I thought I spoke when I left for Russia. When I got there, I realzed that I spoke horribly. However, after about six months in the mothellrland, speaking russian as much as possible, I could take care of myself pretty well. After finishing my two years, I arrived. I could tell jokes in Russian. I could make plays on words. I was able to do this because I spoke the language. I learned by doing something.In schools many teachers expect students to learn by sitting and getting.There is one place that can and should be a place at schools that students can learn by doing: the library.The library could be renamed the learning by doing lab. If students want to learn about something, they should be able to do it in the library.The media specialists who work in the library would be leaders of controlled chaos. They are there to help the students learn by doing. When they do that, the students will be in charge of their learning and the media specialists would be their guides. Perhaps the best thing about the library is that they don't have a class or a curriculum that they must follow like teachers do. They can reach out to every curriculum and every class at the school. They can provide the tools for those curriculums to help the students learn by doing. The media specialist should have a working knowledge of all the curriculums in the school so she can be a resource to help teachers. Have a Good Life.

What is the focus of our schools? What do we talk about most in our schools? Who do we think about the most in our schools? According to "The Equity Project" the focus is clearly on teachers and their salary:The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School believes that teacher quality is the most important factor in achieving educational equity for low income students. Spurred by this belief, TEP reallocates its public funds by making an unprecedented investment in attracting and retaining great teachers. Plus an annual bonus of up to $25,000.They further explain that they have refined what will make them a great school:"These redefined expectations are unified by one principle: student achievement is maximized when teachers have the time and support to constantly improve their craft."Don't get me wrong. I am all for teachers getting paid more, and I fully support giving them the time they need to "improve their craft". But TEP is going focusing on the wrong thing. This is something I have believed for a long time. The focus of every school should be on the learning of students in the building. Anything else is a waste of time. Schools do not exist to provide adults with a job, a career, or a calling. Schools exist so that kids can learn. If kids don't learn, it doesn't matter how much money teachers make. If kids don't learn, it doesn't matter how much professional development the teachers receive, or how much they observe their peers. How can you make sure students learn?By focusing on student learning!TEP says that student achievement is important, and they better show that the low-income students they service do indeed get higher scores if they want all $6 million donated for a school building. The problem is that you don't focus on student learning by focusing nearly completely on your teachers.Here are my questions for The Equity Project:1. What do you want your students to learn?2. How are you going to know if they learned it?3. What are you going to do (in a systematic, timely way) when they don't learn it?Without the answers to these questions, we don't know how this or any school will do, regardless of how much other stuff they may claim will "save" education.As it so often happens, while I was writing this, I saw this BLOGPOST from Harvard Education Publishing, which sums it up much more eloquently than I do. Have a Good Life.

This last week we had a retreat that filled our brains to capacity. Kelly Dumont did most of the work, and he did a great job. As far as training like this goes, we had a ton of information to process. We spent a lot of time learning about tools we need to be using for the school year. That was the information overload. We could have continued the retreat into this week with all the stuff we needed to do, but I think one week was enough. There is still a lot to get done before the school year starts. To break things up, we invited some expert voices to Skype in and talk to us about educational technology, libraries, and branding. This was, in my opinion, the best part about the retreat. It was really neat to hear from those who have been doing this for a while, and many of their words sparked a discussion that we probably would not have had. I think that I have a great team. They are going to be wonderful. All four of us (hopefully soon to be five of us) have strong opinions, but we are able to disagree without holding a grudge (or at least, that is my perception, and I hope it is right). During the week, we did "About Me" presentations which I think helped us get to know each other. The time was also very loose, so we could do what we wanted to and spend some time seeing what we were really like. I think both those things contributed to our great discussions.One of the biggest challenges we face in education is giving teachers time to think. We don't do that nearly often enough, and it is a vital key to their continual learning. We had time this week to think, discuss, and learn. That is what made the week a success.There were many topics that were left unvisited and incomplete. We still need to figure out a Responsible Use Policy for students and employees. We still need to take a stance on copyright. We still need to figure how we will support social media. We also need to prepare our presentation for New Teacher Orientation. And I am sure there are other things we still need to do. The good news is that I think we can do this now. I think that we have worked together enough to have our ideas mostly in sync. What I mean is, one or two or three of us can write some of these policies and make tentative decisions knowing where the others are going to have problems. One person wants facebook completely blocked, while another wants to use it as a tool in the classroom. I think this retreat was great. We are all heading the same general direction, and I think that is important.Have a Good Life.

I'm no doctor, but life experience has taught me this much, at least:1. Spend the night outside when it is cold.2. Make sure it is rainy, too.3. Sleep poorly.4. Get in line with 44,999 of your closest friends (many of whom also spent the night outside).5. Huddle in a small enclosed space with live flu strains floating around."People started arriving as early as Friday night to get into line -- bringing food, blankets and umbrellas. Some arrived around 6 a.m. -- an hour before the clinics opened -- only to learn they were too late."Story from KSL: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8430943

Right now I am listening to the director of IT in my district, Scot McCombs, talk about the issues we are dealing with by being a new school district, implementing a new grade book, dealing with new positions and ways of doing things. Needless to say, there are some growing pains. There is nothing wrong with that.Scot has told these people that they can come and talk to him, and he is serious about that. I have felt that way since day 1, and I have talked to him as much as I have felt I needed to. My philosophy is "What's the worst thing he can do? Say, 'No.'" Oh, scary!One of my favorite things about my job is that I can disagree with my supervisors without fear that I will be reprimanded or shunned for disagreeing.As far as culture goes, this is why I am happy at my job. I feel that my opinion is important and that I will be listened to. I think that most people in the district would agree.

Sending this post to Blogger from Reader for the first time. Hopefully, it works out OK.This article on The Apple Blog (below) caught my attention today. New way of checking out books to students in libraries? New way of taking attendance? New way of paying for lunch? Throw an RFID chip on a student ID card and there are a lot of applications. Kids could complete most transactions at school through their ID card. Put the chip on library books, hardware, PE clothes, and you are in business. I wonder how much the chips would cost....Have a Good Life.iCarte Turns the iPhone Into an RFID Reader: "Earlier, we reported that the next generation of iPhone might have an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) reader built in, if rumors prove true. Well, there’s no need to wait that long, if near-field communications (NFC) is what you’ve got a hankerin’ for. Wireless Dynamics has announced a device called the iCarte that will add both RFID and NFC capabilities to the iPhone.The device adds functionality to the iPhone via the dock connector, to which it connects without adding too much bulk or without being too much of an eyesore. In fact, it looks like the iCarte’s designers went out of their way to make sure the add-on looks like it’s a natural extension of the iPhone itself, rather than an apparent third-party accessory. A chip embedded in the iCarte turns your iPhone into a portable electronic wallet, able to process contactless payments. It can also transmit any information it receives directly to enterprise databases using Wi-Fi or 3G network connections, so that orders and purchases can be automatically input into your company’s home server. Of course, in order to use the iCarte, you’ll need to be using iPhone OS 3.0, since only the latest major software update supports dock accessory connectivity.The iCarte also has a mini-USB port to allow for pass-through charging and syncing, so you won’t have to constantly remove and replace the device, and it comes in both black and white in case fashion is a concern of yours. To be clear, while Wireless Dynamics does talk about business applications, it looks like the iCarte’s functionality is aimed primarily at people on the consumer end of the retail equation:iCarte has an embedded smart-chip that can be configured as debit, credit, pre-paid and loyalty cards, for secure contactless transactions. iCarte can also read NFC Smart Posters, download or upload electronic coupons, tickets or receipts. iCarte is ideal for iPhone users who want to use their iPhones for fast and secure contactless payments, transit payments, loyalty rewards, checking balances, top-up, discovering new services from smart posters or kiosks and exchanging information with other NFC phones.The official website for the iCarte is suspiciously devoid of information regarding an official release date or pricing for the receiver, although it does offer contact info if you’re interested in finding out more about the tech. Presumably a companion iPhone application would be required for programming in payment card information, checking balances, etc. but as of yet no such app is available via the iTunes store. "

Click image for source from B&N.comI am extremely fascinated by eBook readers, and if money were not an issue, I would own every brand just to have the best one.Since so much of my impression of the new reader from Barnes & Noble is based on the actual experience using it, I have to say up front that it is mind-numbingly slow! The video below shows how much it lags and it is ridiculous. I recorded it with my iPhone so excuse the awkward aspect ratio and unsteady hand.The nook does have some great features that I do really like.First, the touchscreen down below is pretty nice. It adds an extra dimension for navigation and is more intuitive than the Kindle navigation. It makes sense to have that as the navigation. The problem you run into is that the touchscreen makes you think that the reading screen should be touchscreen, too, but it is not. Again, however, the innovative controls are nearly ruined by the laggy software (at least, I assume it is a software issue). You can see in the video when I look up a word that it is very difficult to navigate to the correct word.Second, I really like that you can have wi-fi and 3G. From the demo unit, it looked like the nook takes whatever is available. Which means that I could not find a way to turn off the the 3G, but the wi-fi was on the whole time. It will be interesting to see how Barnes & Nobles' plan of allowing full-book previews in the store on B&N's wi-fi network. The real benefit to that is people will be seen reading nooks out in public, which is typically good for business.One of the small annoyances that jumped out to me was opening a book. When I open a book, I expect to be able to start reading it. That is not the case. Opening a book takes you to an overview of the book. You need one more "click" to get through to the actual content. The overview page appears to be where you would lend the book, but I can't verify that since the demo unit didn't have that option, which I was really looking forward to using, as it is probably the most compelling reason to get a nook.As far as for education, I think that this will be a pretty good device. Sharing books is good. I just hope that the lag goes away with some future updates. I can handle some lag in the beginning, but it has to be cleared up soon.Any questions I didn't answer? What do you still want to know?Have a Good Life.

I saw this weekend that the American Association of School Librarians voted to make the official title of "The people who work in the part of the school that checks out books, equipment; who strive to be instructional leaders; who do things that aren't in their job description but do them because they are asked; who are information specialists; who are teachers; and who are program administrators" to "School Librarians". Here's the link to the ALA press release.In the Library Media Listserv provided by the Utah Education Network, there were many differing viewpoints on what this really meant. "'Disappointed' doesn't begin to express how I feel about the AASL leadership...AASL hasn't done any favor for the profession by taking a step backwards," said one prominent professional. Another replied, "I would like to say I feel most proud when I tell someone I am a librarian."Someone else said, "I detest the term media specialist."Another shared a story of calling a school and asking for the Media Specialist, then, after a moment of silence on the other end of the line, said the magic word, "Librarian," after which the call was immediately transferred. Obviously, this is a point about which "School Librarians" feel very strongly. Thankfully, the idea that a title is not the fight anyone should be fighting was brought up. One person suggested the title doesn't matter if there isn't money to fund the program. Another person emphasized that the title doesn't matter if people still don't know what they do. Since I have taken this position in our new school district, I have learned A LOT about what librarians do and don't do. How did I learn that? I went to the libraries and saw what they were doing. And therein lies the problem. Let me put it this way: It makes sense for me to know what a director does by seeing the film he created. It makes sense for me to know what a coach does by seeing his team play on the field. However, I don't want to have to go to the Oval Office every day to see what the president is doing. I want him to tell me what he is doing. In the same way, I want the librarian to tell me what she is doing. There are too many people that have incorrect perceptions of what the librarian does. It doesn't matter what the title is, it only matters what people think the title means. Librarians, get your message out there. Have a Good Life.

There are a lot of posts and articles about the iPad, which is understandable. However, I feel that all of the stories have overlooked one important trend: total cost of ownership.Let me set this up.When the Apple Remote was introduced, it was Apple's first app available through the App Store. It set a precedent in the minds of everyone who would visit the Store from that point on: If Apple is giving an app away, why should I pay for other apps? Obviously, things changed, and many people have purchased apps, but the trend for almost all apps has been a downward spiral, getting very close to, if not hitting "Free".Apple tried to counteract this downward trend by introducing other apps that cost money, though they could have just as easily been free. For example, they released the Keynote Remote at $0.99 to show developers that they could stand firm on pricing. While they didn't market it that way, that was the distinct impression that I had. Many others have written about this, so I'll leave the setup and talk about the iPad. Apple has again set the standard and the developers will follow suit. They have priced the iWork apps at $9.99. I expect that most apps that are designed for the iPad are going to cost at least $9.99. There will of course be free apps, and there will be cheaper apps, but Apple is telling developers and consumers that developing a quality app is expensive, and they are setting the bar. I am predicting that based on Apple's iWork suite selling for $9.99 each, the average cost of apps on the iPad store will be higher than the current ~$2.50. I predict it will close to double that amount.By the way, there is an app that says that I have spent around $255 on apps. That is pretty reasonable. I have found some great deals on apps using this web site.Have a Good Life.

Twitter Version: Create an automator workflow that gets files from Finder and combines them to a single PDF.I got this hint from the comments on MacOSxhints.com while trying to merge PDFs for a class I am teaching. I scanned in a few pages from a book, and the scanner created separate PDF files. For my students, I knew it would be easier if they were one PDF, so I wanted to merge them. According to this article, you can do that in Preview, which is fine, except that there is no way to save them as one file. So, I read this in one of the comments: The simplest (and least expensive) way is to create a 2-step Automator application that containds the following automator steps:1: Ask for Finder Items (allow multiple selection) - to select the images/pdf files2. New PDF From Images or2: Combine PDF PagesThis will save a single file with all your desired scanned images into one file.---D. BrownstoneSo, I did that, and it worked perfectly. Here is my revised workflow:You'll see that I added a couple steps:Name Single Item in Finder Item NamesAdd Date or Time to Finder Item NamesMove Finder ItemsThese three actions will rename the new combined file to a name I chose ("Combined PDF" in this case), append a date and time to the beginning of the filename, and move it to my desktop: "2010-o4-29 Combined PDF.pdf"Alternatively, if you don't want it to always be named "Combined PDF" you can check the box "Show this action when the workflow runs" (in Options on the "Name Single Item in Finder Item Names" action) and it will prompt you for a new name every time you run this workflow. If you have Snow Leopard and you want to make this even cooler, you can create a new Service in Automator instead of a workflow, and then at the top of the service workflow, choose service receives selected "PDF files" in "any application" and the rest will be the same. (Although, don't tell the services workflow to show the action when the workflow runs because it won't.) Now, you can just create a shortcut that combines selected PDFs. Have a Good Life.

This idea is upsetting a lot of people. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and California State Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss want to release teacher scores on value-added assessments that evaluate their effectiveness as teachers. Duncan asks, "What's there to hide?" Personally, I think it is a great idea to publish teacher scores, with a few restrictions:If the public knows who the best teachers are, every kid that doesn't need the best teacher will have a parent on the phone trying to get that teacher. The kids who are behind grade level probably will not be that involved with the scheduling process, and will get dumped in the classes that will be awful for them. Let's not force it on the parents. Put it on a web site, but don't post it at the school. Make it known to parents that students will be placed in effective teacher's classes based on need. If a student really needs to catch up, they will get the best teachers. If a student is above grade level, or will learn the material regardless, they will get the teachers that need improvement. Teachers will improve or leave. They should be given time to improve and perfect their craft. If they are awful, and refuse to improve, we wouldn't want them in the schools anyway. They probably don't enjoy it much, either. "In the 6,000 teachers you studied, you have a minimum of 1,000 amazing teachers that are beating the odds every single day." So says Duncan. If you have 83% of your teachers that are at risk, you have a major problem on your hands. That is a lot of teachers that you will need to find to replace all the bad ones. That is a monumental task! So, instead, focus on the lowest 17%. They are as far away from helping students as the 1,000 amazing teachers are going above and beyond to help students. Create a way for the teachers who are in the middle 60% to improve themselves. Be it scheduling observation time, paying effective teachers more to train the others, whatever. Do something to provide support to make the top 17% grow into the top 80%. With great power comes great responsibility, and stress. Those effective teachers are going to feel immense amounts of stress and anxiety trying to live up to their potential. They will need support in maintaining their current level as well. This is certainly a complicated problem. There is no easy solution. From the article: Researchers have consistently found that within a school, teacher effectiveness is the single most important factor in a child's ability to learn.If that is the case, that means that we need to focus more on teacher effectiveness. We need to know WAY before the state test whether or not the students are learning. Thoughts? Have a Good Life.

  Weekly Summary for Week of Mon, Jan 17th for Jethro.jones Daily Summary Budget Food Exercise Net +/- Weight (lbs) 1/17/11 500 0 0 0 -500 241.2 1/18/11 500 0 0 0 -500 241.2 1/19/11 500 0 0 0 -500 241.2 1/20/11 500 0 0 0 -500 241.2 1/21/11 500 0 0 0 -500 241.2 1/22/11 500 5,087 250 4,837 4,337 241.2 1/23/11 505 3,676 0 3,676 3,172 242 7,509 calories over budget for the week Gained 0.8 pounds this week Nutrient Summary % Calories Fat 393g 41.2%    Saturated Fat 124g Cholesterol 878mg Sodium 12,582mg Carbohydrates 928g 43.3%    Fiber 56g    Sugars 320g Protein 333g 15.5% Exercise Summary Calories Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred 30 Min 250 Total 250 Report generated by Lose It!. For more information or to sign up for your free Lose It! account, please visit http://www.loseit.com

When I was about 11, my dad told me I was Jethro-centric. I didn't know what that meant, so he told me to look up Heliocentric. That self-centeredness has grown into self-confidence. I don't believe there is anything that I cannot do. I believe that I can do anything I want to do. In my religion, we believe that we existed before we came to earth and that we will exist after this life as well. One main outcome of that belief is we believe that our minds are more powerful than our bodies. That is a long introduction the point of this post. I didn't cheat on this diet. Not once. Part of the reason why I didn't cheat is because I wanted to prove to myself that my mind is the one in control, not my body. It is especially important for me to note that for a long time, my body was in control. My appetites ruled me, and I gave in, repeatedly. There are many reasons why the weight gain happened, but they don't really, matter, because they all lead to the same thing: my body ruled my spirit and my mind. That is backward. My mind and spirit should always rule. Tomorrow morning I will have my new maintenance weight. I am excited for the weigh in. I was hoping it would 30 pounds less than when I started, but I am pretty sure it will be about 28 pounds. And that is a lot of weight to lose in just a few short weeks. I am really excited about this, and excited to keep my mind and spirit in control from now on.

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  Weekly Summary for Week of Mon, Feb 14th for Jethro Jones Daily Summary Budget Food Exercise Net +/- Weight (lbs) 2/14/11 512 508 0 508 -4 217.2 2/15/11 512 498 0 498 -14 217.2 2/16/11 504 538 0 538 34 216 2/17/11 496 521 0 521 25 214.8 2/18/11 496 564 0 564 68 214.8 2/19/11 489 511 0 511 22 213.8 2/20/11 484 513 0 513 29 213 159 calories over budget for the week Lost 4.8 pounds this week Nutrient Summary % Calories Fat 77g 17.9%    Saturated Fat 17g Cholesterol 826mg Sodium 4,554mg Carbohydrates 458g 46.9%    Fiber 93g    Sugars 220g Protein 344g 35.2% Exercise Summary Calories Total 0 Report generated by Lose It!. For more information or to sign up for your free Lose It! account, please visit http://www.loseit.com

I've got a free trial code for educator.com if you are interested. I am a member of Bzzagent.com, which is a site that gives you products to review. For the last couple years, I haven't been very engaged in it, but this educator.com offer caught my eyes.  For the last year or so, I have been trying to teach myself how to code, which has been difficult at best. I am not very good at teaching myself stuff. I need someone to direct me and guide me. I like to have someone talking to me. So, what educator.com does is allow me to watch actual professors giving lectures. I think this is better than iTunesU in that it doesn't just put a camera up in their lecture hall and call it good. They actually get the professors into a room with a touchscreen monitor and a pen. So, you have three views in the videos, as shown in the pic below.  There is the computer monitor, which is an annotated slideshow, and then there is a camera on the professor. Finally there is a navigation window that allows you to skip forward in the presentation to different parts.  Overall, I think this is a pretty good way to learn. In schools, it would be a good supplement if a student didn't get something. For a non-student student, it is a really great way to learn on your own. Allegedly, you can even make comments on the videos and have them answered by professors so that actual help is provided. I am not sure yet how that works in real life, but that is one of their plugs.  Here is the best part: A school can have this in their labs for free. It costs $35/month or $240/year for home use. I really like the idea that this is free for schools. It is actually a pretty good marketing strategy because kids will never have enough time to watch all the videos in all the courses at school, and if it helps them, it would be a good way to get some help at home, at a much lower cost than a personal tutor.  Courses are available in Math (from MathMagic to Basic Math all the way up to Calculus and AP Stats), Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science (HTML Training, CSS Intro, Java, JavaScript, Introduction to PHP, Wordpress Training). They also have many AP courses available. All the courses are focused on Science and Math.  So, if you want to give it a shot, follow these steps:  Go to http://www.educator.com and click on "Create Account" or "Subscribe" Make sure "Basic Plan" is selected. (Code Will Not Work Otherwise) Enter your account information. Disregard "Payment Type", you will not be asked to pay. Below the "Continue" button, check "Special Billing" and enter EDUCBMF30 Press "Continue" and you are done. <img src="http://img.bzzagent.com/image/educator.jpg?Type=activity&Activity=6241636359&Campaign=3072098672&Uid=103020&token=13223cc80ca092dff4c0a3f8832bfab1" alt=""/>

So, it looks like 214.6 is my stabilized weight. I was at 213.0 on Monday morning, and then by Wednesday, I was at 214.6, where I have stayed every day since. With my weight being 214.6, I have lost 27.0 pounds on this round of HCG. I would like to get down to 180, so I still have 34 more pounds to go. If I can do that, I will no longer fit my insurance company's definition of overweight. I didn't do any exercising this week because I wanted to stabilize my weight by watching my caloric intake. I have felt the best when taking 1300 calories. I haven't been hungry and I have felt like I have more energy when I keep the calories that low. I feel like I have gorged myself whenever I get close to 1800 or 2000. This week I hope to do some exercising and see if I can sneak off a couple more pounds before I start HCG again.