Cheesecake Brownies!

I got a new brownie pan from a friend for Christmas and wanted to try it out. So I made this recipe! It turned out so great.

Dark Brownie Ingredients:
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Cheesecake Layer Ingredients:
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 8 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°F. To make the brownie layer, mix the sugar, cocoa, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. Gradually add flour and salt. Then blend in the butter. Add chopped nuts if desired. Set batter aside.

In a separate mixing bowl (medium to large) combine the cream cheese, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla. Mix until smooth.

Coat a 9x13 pan with butter and flour. Pour the cream cheese mixture in the bottom of the pan and then spread the brownie mixture on top. Unising a knife, swirl the top layer to create a marble effect. Bake at 325°F for 40-45 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 15 minutes.

These are best served warm.

First Full Semester of Graduate School!

I have made it through my first full semester of Graduate school...AND I have a 4.0! I would say that equals SUCCESS! Next semester may be a little more difficult as I venture in to writing my first three chapters and proposing before my commitee!

End of the semester is here and this is my final assignment for ETEC5213. We were asked to create a recorded message discussing the differences between downloadable audio files and podcasts. Audacity is a free recording software and very simple to use. There are also tutorials available for using many of the tools within the program. I simply recorded the message and then imported an mp3 music file to lay in behind my recording. I then exported the file into an mp3. When downloading Audacity you are prompted to also downloaded "LAME for Audacity" which allows you to change from the ".aud" to a ".mp3". The hardest part of this post was making sure the mp3 was available on my blog. Earlier int he semester we learned HTML coding which became very useful this week! A couple times, when i previewed my post the mp3 player was not present. FRUSTRATING!!!! But then I figured out that I was missing a forward slash and the file name was not capitalized! Simple things most of us would overlook! At least the problems were minor! While preparing this assignment I had an idea. Ag teachers are constantly training teams for contests. Creating recordings of oral reasons would be a great study tool for these students. Almost ALL students have an mp3 player and could learn to give reasons by simply listening to old sets. They could even take notes on the format and similarities and differences between the different files in order to create a format for them to follow. Also, if you added a visual component, you could recorded classes and create promotional videos for your FFA chapter! If you would like instructions on how I completed this assignment please leave a comment and I would be glad to share!

Instructional Website

School work is coming to a close. Recently for ETEc 5213 we were asked to create an instructional website and publish it to our UA Server. This website needed to have at least 3 instructional pages plus a homepage and an author page.

My website was a basic step by step approach to completing a promotional video for agriculture.

Dreaweaver is a great program for learning to build websites. It offers many troubleshooting tips as well as tutorials. The website I created was very basic and given more time and a little more experience could be altered to be very applicable in a classroom. the menu bar is created by using a Spry bar menu which was much easier than creating a "nice" menu by myself. It comes prepared to link to other pages and is esaily changed to other colors. The first time I used the menu the links did not work correctly but I deleted the menu and retried and the next one worked fine.

I would like to spend some time to create a photo album to add to the webpage for stick photos for students to access to use in their videos.

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

Oh Gosh....Its Christmas time! I still have so much to do. Decorate, FINISH CLASSES, Take Finals, and send out Christmas cards! Christmas cards are a great way to connect with family near and far. Its always better if those cards are personalized. This year, consider using Shutterfly.

Shutterfly in running a promotion to get 50 christmas cards free for promoting their site on your blog!

Simply visit shutterfly.com and fill out the form.

Until next time,
Have a great Thanksgiving and BLACK Friday!

Dreamweaver

Hello Blog World,
Class the past few weeks has been really busy and I am ready for the end of the semester. In Introduction to Education Media, we have been working with HTML and CSS for a while now, as I discussed in a previous post. Now, we have began working with Adobe Dreamweaver to create webpages. Compared to coding it all by hand, Dreamweaver is a God send! This software allows the creater to work from the design view. Being a visual/kinesthetic learner, I was able to pick this up much faster than before.
I had some trouble getting started but once I figured out a few tools, the rest was a breeze. Any trouble I had, I was able to watch tutorials and read step by step directions. This software is really easy to use and by having the basic knowledge of HTML coding it makes a lot of sense. I have said this numerous times and will probably say it again before the end of the semester...I AM NOT CREATIVE. I believe the point of a webpage is to catch a cutomer/person of interests eye and hold their attention. I am not creative enough to do that. I created a very basic webpage and really don't know what to do to "spice it up". Webpages are important and can be a great tool for managing extracurricular activities such as the ones in FFA. Maybe I will have really creative students that can help me out!

Until next time,
KMP

Photoshop

Moving on from HTML/CSS, we have started Photoshop. Photoshop has many features and offers the ability to change photos with ease. I am not a super creative person but can handle making some changes. In the photos below you will see a wedding pictures as it was taken. Then there is the photo that has been edited. I took the color out (turned it to black and white) then re added the color of my flowers.

I also used Photoshop to change the effect on an image. The change made in the after picture was achieved by implementing a painting filter. This added "brush strokes" to the image. I could make the brush strokes small or large. I choose to leave the brush strokes small, in order to not distort the image.

Since Photoshop is utilized by so many people, there are many tutorials available as well as forums explaining how to accomplish different effects. Like I said earlier in the post, I am not a super creative person but was able to utilize tools in the program to make minor changes to images. For this assignment I was required to use a picture of myself, so maybe it would have been more fun if I could have used someone/something else as the subject in the photos.

In teaching, especially Agricultural Education, we document many things through photographs (team achievements, banquets, chapter meetings, etc), Photoshop could be utilized to make those snapshots into great photos to display.

Until next time,

Kristin

Need Motivation

Week 7 of the semester is now half over. I can not get motivated this semester for the life of me. I need something to push me to do better and it is just not happening. Hoepfully it will get better. I really just want to be teaching. :(

HTML and CSS

The past couple of weeks, in Educational Media, we have been exploring HTML coding and cascading style sheets (CSS). Our assignment in HTML was to create a basic web page, although we did not actually launch it to a site. It needed to have an image, headings for different sections as well as a bulleted list. For CSS, we were given a webpage's coding and asked to make changes only to the style (font, font size, font color, background color, borders, image placements, etc).

For a moment, I would think I had it figured out and then start trying it out and nothing seems to work. UGH. There is a great website though that provides tutorials for almost anything imaginable. www.w3school.com It was a lifesaver.

Some things I have learned:

• Take your time! Even though it is hard you can do it.


• HTML really makes sense when you look at the end product.


• CSS is great for adding flare to your site (if you understand it)

HTML and CSS are definitely tasks that I need to know but will always need a cheat sheet to help me out. I am sure those that do it often commit all the coding to memory though. In agricultural education, it is nice to have a working website that students and parents can check for announcements and upcoming activities.

Introduction to Education Media

Hello Blog World!

I have not posted in a while due to a busy schedule at school and work!

This semester I am taking statistics, principles of technological change and introduction to education media. Statistics is mostly computerized and has not been too difficult thus far.

Principles of Tech Change is a ton of reading and writing. I am not learning a lot from it but trying to have a good attitude and maybe I will become interested in something about it!

Education Media is teaching me to use technology in the classroom. We have learned about Word and PowerPoint so far and are beginning HTML. Its odd to think that as a graduate student I am being taught how to use these seemingly simple programs.
In Microsoft Word we learned about accessibility options within these programs and how to set up documents for readers and students with disabilites. This can be as simple as using the true heading options and making sure that your photos have alt texts. I will post my word assignment soon. I did an instructional guide on downloading a screen capture program (SnagIt). It was hard to get use to doing things a little differently than normal and to think about future uses, not just utilizing this for the assignment.
In PowerPoint, I had a little bit tougher time making the connection to my content area. We designed a PowerPoint for something in out content area. I choose to teach on a Introduction to Plasma Arc Cutters. It was difficult to find internet based help links to enhance to the PowerPoint since the lab component of an ag classroom would normally be used. As ag teachers I think we depend heavily on what we have instead of what is available.
Reflecting back, it will be interesting to see how all of this can be incorporated in the classroom. Agricultural classrooms depend on problem based and experimental learning. With a new generation, we (ag teachers) have to be proactive in relating the experience to technologies students are comfortable with.

Where does money come from?!

This is my last week to just hang out before research and school and work start for the school year.
For those of you that know me, I am obsessed with Racheal Ray! I was watching her show this morning and ended up very disheartned by a segment. It was almost like a "Kids say the darndest things" segment. Racheal asked the question "Where does money come from?" On little boys answer was "The president has a machine and just makes more money!'
Is this what we want to teach children, that the government can make and spend money at the drop of a hat?

Simple Lunch

Nathan has been working out of town for almost a year! He is actually coming in for lunch today and then returning to work at the shop for the remainder of the afternoon. Do you know how exciting I am to actually prepare lunch for my husband. He always has to grab something or fix it himself while out of town. Today we are having turkey sandwhich's and chips, with sliced fresh tomatoes and cottage cheese. Although simple, it makes me feel so much better to be able to prepare his lunch so that he can have the energy to finish his day!

We are camping this weekend and canoeing Saturday! Hopefully the rain will stay away and we will have great weather!

Hope you have a great weekend too!
KP

What's New!!

Well I graduated in May with a B.S in Agricultural Education from the University of Arkansas. Since then I have been super busy!

I traveled to Canada and presented a paper at an international conference for ag ed. I stayed in Saskatoon. It was a neat little town (but very different from the "Canad" image I had in my head. There was nothing but miles and miles of cropland. I also got the chance to visit the University of Saskachewan and their farm. It was a neat experience and they are doing lots of great research.

Right after my trip to Canada, I jumped right into graduate school and work. My classes actually do not start for another week or so but I am staying very busy with research and creating lesson plans for a grant I am working on.

While excited about continuing my education, I am also a little sad that I am not going to be teaching for two more years. I know it will be worth the wait and that I will be a better teacher after my masters but I already miss being in the classroom. Student teaching was an great experience. I had a wonderful cooperating teacher and amazing students. I was probably spoiled by my experience. I can not wait to teach young people about agriculture. the industry has so much to offer.

Aside from work, Nathan and I have kept very busy. He is still working out of town and will be for the remainder of summer. I can not wait to have him home all the time. This past year has really grown our relationship and made us value every minute together. Our 2nd wedding anniversary was Monday. We went to Branson, Mo for the weekend and had a great time. He also took Monday off so that we could spend it together. God has really blessed us and continues to open up doors for our future.

I hope all of you have been well.

OOOOOOHHHHHH College!

Well, it is finally coming to an end. I am finished with my undergraduate degree in Agricultural and Extension Education. I am very proud of the work I have done and excited to teach...one day! I have elected to attend graduate school. I will focus on Ag Ed and Extension and my Thesis will focus on distance education (I think...it may change)
Anyways, it is time to move on to a new chapter and I am super ready.

Another Weekend Comes and Goes!

Here it is Sunday night. We are watching the Vikings vs. Saints game and trying to get ALL the laundry done before Nathan heads back to work tomorrow and another week of school starts for me. Here are some things I have been thinking about today!

If you noticed, the ALL in the previous sentence. It is meant to be exagerated. I can not believe how many clothes the two of us go through in a week. There are more outfits to wash than double the days in the week. Odd, I think! especially since Nathan washes all his work clothes on Thursday nights before he heads home on Friday.Where does it all come from. You know how some people keep a food diary, I think I am going to have to start tracking my outfit changes.

I am glad that American sports run all year long. There is always something to watch or go to. Football season ends in a few weeks with the Super Bowl (Saints vs. Colts) and then the following weekend begins the NASCAR racing season. In addition, college basketball season is jsut heating up and baseball season will start soon which will carry over into fall football! haha How lucky are we!

I hate the wall color in our house but am too afraid to ask our land lord if I can paint it. I really don't think that he would have a problem as long as there was no extreme color changes. I should really just make Nathan ask!

It seems like the weekends just fly by. No matter how hard we try, we just can not fit everything we need to into a weekend. It makes it harder I know with Nathan being out of town all week. This means that all family and friend visits have to be scrunched into two days. We haven't been balancing this well. For all of you that have noticed or been affected by this, I apologize. We are doing the best we can while also trying to spend time as a couple. Hopefully when this job in Atkins is finished Nathan will get a job assignment at home, but the reality is that we just do not know.

We went to the casino this weekend, I always think I am going to have fun and get excited to go, but then we get there and I remember that I really don't like it. The amount of cigarette smoke in the air takes your breath away immediately, I never win, and there is always really creepy people around that you can not seem to get away from. I need to figure out a way to remember these things so that I just don't go!

Well I need to get some homework done! Hope you all had a wondefull weekend and have a smooth week ahead.
Hopefully I start blogging more, I always have tons of stuff to say jsut never remember to get on here!
KMP

Student Teaching!

UGH. This week has been crazy and I am ready for the weekend. As of January 4th, I started student teaching. My first week would have been spent at the high school that is hosting me, but snow caused the school to close all week. Monday I started a 4 week "block" of class. We are learning about dealing with diversity in classes, teaching agricultural labs, as well as program planning and all the behind the scenes of running an ag program. This is 12 course hours all crammed into 4 weeks. I am so antsy by the end of the day that I have to get up and stand against the wall while listening to my teacher. There are only 9 of us in these classes so we all get to help each other out. After these 4 weeks I will venture back out to Springdale High for the remainder of the semster. That is, if I make it that far!
Also, I applied for graduate school and am ready to head down that road...I enjoy research and am excited to write my thesis. If you get the chance look into downloading SecondLife...Its free. It is an online virtual world that my reasearch will be using to look at the educational effectiveness of online atmospheres. If you decide to try it, look me up "Kristin Loopen" is my in world name!
I am headed out but felt the need to blog!