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  <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:13:16 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>hi everyone!!!</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4963.html</link>
  <description>Well I had some issues with my internet last night I could not get a connection.....I am sorry for this, I realize that we all have busy schedules and our class has been a bit confusing thus far and I am sure I added to the confusion last night by not being online.....everyone that added me to msn is now added....I hope this issue will not happen again....but really I am not sure what the deal was....luckily we have been given some time to get everything set up and rolling.....the timing is good for me (sunday 7pm) and I will be online next sunday to stick with our plan&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4806.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:01:29 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Sunday Meeting</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4806.html</link>
  <description>Ok so here is my plan for Sunday&apos;s meeting.....I will give out my friend contact for msn (m_fugard@hotmail.com) so everyone in the group add me and then I will create a group discussion so that everyone can see everyone else and make them friends also....sound good? That way we don&apos;t have to all post our msn names up.....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am thinking sunday 7 o&apos;clock.....we meet from 7-8 as a standard time block...we can talk about anything and if we really need to extend it we can or if finish early we can do that too...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;M_Fugard@hotmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;See you guys on sunday....(If that time doesnt work....Im flexible with my sundays)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4360.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:47:07 GMT</pubDate>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4360.html</link>
  <description>WE HAVE 6 PPL YES!!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me Matthew Fugard matt_fugard.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nadene Fischer............nfischer2.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Venus Tsang.................venustsang.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tracy Leytek-Koehler.........tleytek.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Danielle Lightfoot...........dlightfoot.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Im not sure of her/his full name but here is the contact.....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;faiso.livejournal.com/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok so when I find all of this info out I will send it on to Jason....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we have to meet once a week....when is good for everyone????&lt;br /&gt;Im thinking a sunday night thing would be good because thats when I usually post to live journal anyways....we could meet on msn or on facebook or wherever...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4129.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:34:49 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Our Group</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/4129.html</link>
  <description>Ok so group how is everyone!!!!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;we now have 5 members (I think we should stay together for the online meeting assignment too)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me Matthew Fugard matt_fugard.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nadene Fischer............nfischer2.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Venus Tsang.................venustsang.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tracy Leytek-Koehler.........tleytek.livejournal.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Danielle Lightfoot...........dlightfoot.livejournal.com</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3923.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:33:53 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Technology and I &quot;A mystery riddled past....&quot;</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3923.html</link>
  <description>Ok so it has been almost a month since my last blog, and I realize blog fans that simply is just not sufficent. It is however, the start of a new semester and as I am again engaged in a course that requires me to make use of Livejournal I am back again ready to share my voice louder than ever. I went through a bit of professional growth in the last semester, realizing now the work that must be put in for me to continue my education beyond that of Ryerson U, but the good news last semester I accomplished my goals and feel ready meet this semesters higher standards. Now when I said continue my education beyond Ryerson, I had two things in mind, the first was teacher&apos;s college and the second was continuing my existance as a life long learner. Which brings us to a class focused on technology and more specifically the place of technology in the K-6 curriculum. In my past have never been comfortable with technology,I would almost say affraid of it&apos;s use. But the more I become emmersed in the world of &quot;wikipedia, google, YouTube&quot; as well as a host of other popular tech media tools (yes I hate to admit it even facebook)the more comfortable I am getting with their use and the more I am realizing that it was not fear but anxiety that i was feeling towards technology. It was really sort of silly of me to fear information and I feel that there is great power through technology to connect ideas, people, and really great experiences. I mean even Livejournal, without overcoming my anxiety issues I would not have been able to produce a week to week blog and the more I use the more comfortable I am to use it again or extend the use of it&apos;s technology. I feel that this anxiety that I went through is something that children also go through. Now don&apos;t get me wrong here, with all of the great things tech can do there is a wealth of aweful things that tech can be used for. So there is still a need for monitoring the use of technology, especially with young kids. There simply is no reason to fear it....yet.(Im watching the new terminator television series in the background...and Im a bit affraid of my cicero monitor jumping up and taking me out lol).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew Fugard&lt;br /&gt;402 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3743.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:22:14 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>trial</title>
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  <description>a</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3339.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:31:09 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>life love and just what is this thing we call the universe anyways....</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3339.html</link>
  <description>so I have been giving a lot of thought to things beyond the realm of science lately. I have met a special someone who has gotten me thinking just what and why it is that we exist. The universe is a very large place and we as humans sit in our little bubble (Earth) and do the ultimate good but the ultimate bad deeds on a daily bases. How is that we can be so two faced so two sided in our lives. Take for example a woman who smokes, shes married to a man who is a CEO of a large tobacco company...during day to day on goings they share love and happiness (the good) but then that man goes to work and markets a product that ultimately is killing his love (the bad). I believe that this notion of ignorance is bliss reigns all to true in our society and until something affects our daily lives we never take notice of it. It&apos;s like my doctor said about a bone I broke in my foot a few weeks past, just because it doesnt hurt does not mean its not broken.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SO the Universe, such an awesomely massive topic in fact so massive I am not about to try and blow my own mind over on a live journal post, but the good, the love the happiness, this is life, and that my friends is why we are here, for some reason or another, be it Devine intervention or a big bang...or some other possible creation theory we are here and I will tell you that in my limited amount of years of life, it is in love that I see meaning to life and ultimately the answer to the ultimate question.....Why am I here?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know it sounds awfully hitchhikers guide of the galaxy of me to say this but I am truly speaking from the bottom of my heart, no science can explain (well other than the physiological responses) emotion and what better emotion than happiness....so over Christmas spend time with loved ones they truly are what it is all about and when one realizes this and is in the company of friends and family the universe will not seem so unbelievably complex.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3232.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:20:49 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>His &quot;Air&quot;ness.....Michael Jordan or.....Matt_Fugard???</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/3232.html</link>
  <description>Hi again Journal fans! Welcome back to another exciting edition of the masterpiece known as Matt_Fugard&apos;s Journal.....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today Journal fans I am going to give you a little insight in the workings of the brain that has been creating these journals. I want to share my greatest fear! I Matthew Fugard am affraid of flight!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now why is that relevant to this journal? Well Journal fans. Today&apos;s topic is air. Air has many hidden talents, one of which the Wright brothers discovered was lift. To me, lift is not all that scary just that what goes up, must come down and in a 1000 ton aircraft with air being my support....I tend to get somewhat nervous.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But for children the fact that air is a real thing is a really hard concept to grasp, and why do you think that is? My best guess is because air is not something that can be seen. But it is very real and it is something that is actually there....I guess my point is that it is a &quot;thing&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There were a plethera of great activities that were presented in the text all exploring the various uses of air, and air pressure. To me the fact that a human cannot survive too far below sea level and too far in space due to pressure since we were designed to stay constant in our air pressure (on the &lt;br /&gt;planet earth). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are so many cool things related to air, like the fact that air is not entirely oxygen like many would believe. Right now I am sneezing and that is my body moving air at a speed of 103 mph (around there this was a recorded sneeze from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sdreader.com/php/ma_show.php?id=607&quot;&gt;http://www.sdreader.com/php/ma_show.php?id=607&lt;/a&gt;) and I feel it is really important for children to think about air and how air moves because this will stem into the chapter on sound.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;311 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2817.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:13:58 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>It&apos;s my body and I&apos;ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to!</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2817.html</link>
  <description>Hello again Journal fans! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the last few posts I have been trying to create a progressive notion of respect for life and I think this was the aim of the book and how it was put together. We started with plants moved to animals and now we are discussing the human body. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I brought this topic up before but by starting children to respect differences between species then when you begin to discuss difference amoung humans it is done through more of a respectful and open forum, because the children have already seen that difference between plants species or animal species or between both and they are fine. Not all things are created the same, in fact most things are created different but it is interesting to note that on some basic levels (like dna make up) we are not all that much different from some animals (and to be honest some people&apos;s behavious would suggest on larger scales we are not that much different either)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also with all the understanding that stems from the topics of plants and animals and their essentials for life, when we want to talk about the care and maintenence of our own bodies it becomes much more in grained. ex A plant needs Carbon Dioxide, sunlight, water and soil nutrients. Similar a Bear needs, food (what it can find in its natural environment) and water (and also sunlight) and the you can discuss what we as humans need for survival.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like that the book is not affraid to discuss the muscular and nervous system, these are scientific areas of the human body that I really didn&apos;t get to touch base on until much later in my schooling career. I also like (and this might just have been my interrpretation) how the book almost separated the being from the body and tried to explain that our body is how we interact with the world around us and move though that space and time and the being is the conscious body that manipulates the body to explore and interact. It made me think of myself as a marionette. My brain pulling the string and then when the show is over recognizing the care I need to take of my marionette doll.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This was my favorite chapter, my kinestetic brain was actively stimulated while I mentally worked out some of the activities...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;398 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2710.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:38:22 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>You&apos;re a strange animal that&apos;s what I know (Gowan song title)</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2710.html</link>
  <description>Welcome back journal lovers...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok lets talk animals. This is one area of the science curriculum that I really feel is neglected by alot of teachers I have seen in the feild. Now it must be mentioned that my feild experience is limited but be that as it may I feel that these are the experiences I can draw from. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now here is the massive shocking statement, I have not seen a classroom other than the ELC at Ryerson that had live animals integrated into the workings of the classroom. Even at the ELC they had only fish (for care and cleanliness reasons). I feel that the absolute only reason to keep live animals out of the classroom are health and safety reasons. Ex. If there are allergies, or if that animal poses a threat to children. It is simply inexcusable to use &quot;cleaning and maintenence&quot; as a vaild excuse to keep an animal out of a classroom. Children learn through experience and as nice as pictures of animals, or computer images or moving creatures are, they are not real animals. If you want a child to gain the appritiation and respect for life and living things plants can be used as a starting point and animals can be used to extend that learning of care and nurturing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I don&apos;t suggest just bringing in a alligator as a class pet out of the blue. In fact I wouldn&apos;t even suggest bringing in a cute little bunny rabit without discussing it with the class, the prinicple, other teachers and the parents of the children in your class. But if all of the loose ends are tied then there are very real learning opportunities for your children that simply can not be reproduced through any other medium.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally having an animal in the classroom can create some new &quot;jobs&quot; and resposibilities for children of the classroom and I think is a point that is often frowned upon, in my classroom the more the children are engaged and active members in the learning environment the better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;345 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2388.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:35:55 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Writer&apos;s Block: Sunday Songs</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2388.html</link>
  <description>&lt;div class=&apos;appwidget appwidget-qotd&apos; id=&apos;LJWidget_5&apos;&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;the best sunday music by far is The Chairman of the Board....that&apos;s right Frank Sinatra and the sound of his jazz ochestra magic....great cleaning music.</description>
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  <category>music</category>
  <category>writer&apos;s block</category>
  <category>sunday songs</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2199.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:56:56 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Plant life and other blossoming curriculum ideas!</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/2199.html</link>
  <description>Hello Blog fans! This is the beginning of my makeup blogs and I hope that they will be as entertaining and exciting as my &quot;on time&quot; blogs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now on to plants. Plants are in my belief an absolutely fantastic way to introduce thought about the creation and maintanence of life. Plants as all living things live through a life cycle and have necessesities to their survival. I think it is really cool to see that all living organisisms are deserving of respect and care and if this value can instilled in children at an early stage of development then issues surround race and religion and differences in humans can be taught easily, because that respect for life and differences has already been established when children were young. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a book that I highly recommend for young children it&apos;s called &quot;Our Tree Named Steve&quot; by Alain Zweibel (he used to write for SNL) the book deals with the impact on a families life that this gaint tree has and then the tree passes and the family deals with the greivance period together. I think that a good way to talk about death with children without talking about their own mortality is through experiementation with various plants and the plant life cycle that way children gain the appreciation for what it means to be alive without thinking about the wildly complex ideas surrounding what things will be like when we  are dead, this is a thought that even scares me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The book presents some really cool activities and incorporates mathmatical statistic recording. I think it is crutial to the success of the classroom to encorparate as many curriculum areas into each activity we do with young children and approach each project from a wholistic view point because this is what life is, we are never simply focused on the science or math or literacy alone as we travel through the world, we are constantly challeneged from all areas of the curriculum so why can&apos;t school be taught in the same manner.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Until next time, Matt_fugard signing off!&lt;br /&gt;347</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1818.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:50:48 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>I ordered this with &quot;light&quot; cream cheese this is clearly &quot;dark&quot;?</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1818.html</link>
  <description>Hello again Livejournalites once again it is time for my weekly blog, it has been a while since you last heard from me, assignments, tests and evaluations, oh my! Anyways such is the life of a student do what you can when you can, try not to miss deadlines but it happens I am sure even to the smartest or more appropriately more oranganized of us out there. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well my rant is over, so my last journal discussed sound as the movement and inturpretation by the brain of vibration. Today I am going to to talk about another vibration that is inturpreted by the brain, light or heat vibration. Because I am writing this journal late, and its not so late that I don&apos;t remember the inclass discussion, I am going to try and steer clear of the points made about light in class. It will be tough though because we covered light from almost all angles...making light of the topic and casting the misconceptions into darkness....haha a little &quot;pun&quot;ishment for my readers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So light is the fastest moving thing that is known to man currently, nothing can move faster than light. We discussed that in class. E=MC2 and light moves at  299,792,458 metres per second (wikipedia.com) But there has been current research to support the idea that there is such a thing as &quot;faster-than light&quot;&lt;br /&gt;In 2002 at Canada&apos;s own University de Moncton a physicist was able to produce the first group velocity of three times C. It is not yet applicable to the transfer of information (www.wikipedia). This is something really awesome (like wholesome but with awe)....because for so long I have been under the belief that science is always right (I think this is something that children grow up believing in the traditional sense of what science is all about. Really this book and the learning we are doing is class is teaching us that science is not always right, when a new door is opened in science you walk through it and discover that there are 40 new doors to try and open. Science is a way to figure out the world around us, it is not a concrete, but rather a constantly evolving body of knowledge and it is one of the greatest ways for children to interact and discover the things of this world this life. To continue I always thought of science as a cold lifeless mathematical thing that was done in school to test out ability to perform a task, but I have now realized that might be the most theoretical subject in the curriculum. It&apos;s hilarious that the dipiction and thoughts that society instills upon the word &quot;nerd&quot; (also the word jock but thats another arguement) people who close themselves off from the social world and have nothing better to do than conduct weird experiments, and this is not the case science is not about weird experiments (well it is) but it is a medium a child can use to pursue the ultimate question &quot;what is life, and why am I hear?&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;511 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1656.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:19:02 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Sound testing, testing, Can you hear me???</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1656.html</link>
  <description>I would first like to talk about my own awe inspiring thought about sound. The biggest thing that blows my mind with sound is that even though sound is defined as the vibration of air particles that picked up by our ears and then turned into brain readable signals, those vibrations are not actually necessary for sound to be heard, or for the brain to hear a sound. Im turning off all of my electronics, except the computer to try and get as quiet an environment as possible. Now as I am typing I can clearly &quot;hear&quot; my own voice, my own thought. Even just thinking about other familiar sounds like, a volleyball spike, or a a snare drum being struck, my brain is creating these sounds in my thought and it feels as though these things are actually in my head, I am actually hearing them. This conscious thought and self conversation is one of the things that really scares me about death. Am I still going to be able to hear myself? Over the last twenty four years of my life I have become my own best friend and I would be really sad to lose someone as close to me.....as me. Try and think about nothing, that is one of the scariest things I can imagine.I like the idea of intergrating music and pitch into the curriculum for the pupose of exploring their mathematical values that the text book discusses. I feel as though music is one art form that has been making a steady decline from the post-early years curriculum and strongly believe that music not only has a place in schools but its educational value is as important to student learning as the the &quot;r&apos;s&quot; reading, writing and arithmatic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;294 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1461.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:37:24 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>A Simple Machine for a Simple Man!</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1461.html</link>
  <description>Hello to all of my valued readers!!! I am extremely sorry about the lateness of this post, however I was up north at a cottage helping a friend replace the shingles on his roof. Now although it is tragic that this journal is being submitted late the experience and the chapter on Simple Machine really went hand in hand and drilled in some great concepts. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where would we be without the pulley? For one downtown Toronto would definetly be a lot more flat than it is presently. No cranes, no cars, even without pulleys, the first sailboats never would have been able to leave port and things as we now know them would be dramatically different. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I think simple machines, I am always reminded of this computer game my father had when I was a young child, it was a game based around simple machines in which you would need to build with a set of pulleys, mice running in wheels, bowling balls, levers and various other simple machines a larger machine that would create a light to turn on, I wish I could remember the name of that game because my google search did not bring it up, but this game was incredible.....lol I just did a wikipedia search and the name of the game was &quot;The Incredible Machine&quot; I think it might be downloadable now and its a really neat way to explore simple machines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok so about the textbook. I thought the book did a good job discussing the concepts of simple machines, I liked how they began the chapter with friction as friction is a constant factor in all simple machines, be it the principle upon their locomotion like the wheel, or a factor that must be monitored like the friction on a rope in a pulley....The way the book was set up from friction to wheel and pulley with lever in the middle felt like a natural progression in concept development.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok so back to the story about the cottage, for our lifting we needed to setup a wheel and pulley system and for the heavy moving of shingles and the dock (which we had to bring in) we used rolling log type things, it was all my idea because I had just read about simple machines and we really saved ourselves a lot of time and heavy labor with their use!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I downloaded T.I.M and I am going to go enjoy it....cheers&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;410 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1103.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:44:50 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>magnetism....when opposites attract....</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/1103.html</link>
  <description>I cannot recall my very first magnetic experience in school or in life, but I have seen the wonder that magnetism creates in children and can think back to times when I was enjoying the &quot;magic&quot; of magnetism. I was a bit of a loner as a child growing up, I was an only child who had moved with a military family from city to city around the Ottawa area. So entertaining myself became a hobby and a skill I came to be quite good at and to this day I still enjoy my personal time. I remember one summer I had befriended a magnet,I carried it around where ever I traveled and learned about its scientific properties, ie what my friend stuck to and what it repelled. I think this wonder and exploration with magnets is fairly common in children, I still to this day am not sure why the magnets stick, is it an exchange of electric energy that makes magnets stick? what is magnetic force? I have yet to come across a child who was not impressed by magnetism upon first discovery and I have scene the power magnets have with creating intrigue in the minds of children with ADHD or autism, a group I worked with this passed summer. For some reason or another they are just a really cool thing. I think that magetism and the way it affects our world is so neat, many modern technological devices are ruined by magnetic energy &quot;EMG&quot; electromagnetic pulses in theory can disable cities if they are on large enough scales.....and that is a pretty awesome thing to realize from holding my friend up against a poll to see if it stuck or not.....the power...of magnets....MRI or Magnetic Resonance Images have revolutionized health care and the way we view our ailments. Also research is being done to view the assistance with blood circulation and swelling reduction that can be done with magnets...all of this done on the same force that me and my childhood &quot;friend&quot; were exploring one summer.....it&apos;s no wonder children are drawn or &quot;magnetized&quot; to such power....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;351 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/879.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:11:53 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>I wanna &quot;rock&quot;.....?</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/879.html</link>
  <description>Looking around in a city like Toronto I really began to see some interesting things. As unnatural as our city setting apears to be it actually is quite natural when you look for the details. Rocks are everywhere, maybe not the round &quot;typical&quot; rock, but every building every road, sidewalk almost everything that surrounds us is a rock. So to say that our city is unnatural is a bit of a misconception, it is unnatural in the sense that there are few plants, and that Toronto without human activity would be covered in plant life, since it&apos;s soil is of the most fertile of Canada BUT it still holds an element of natural beauty if we can appreciate the rocks and minerals that surround us. From the book I loved the activities, I am even &quot;growing&quot; my own stalactite as I am typing this. I have gained a new appreciation for rocks and have begun to see the rock cycle as a sort of rock &quot;life cycle&quot; as the move through the three stages of rock formation. (p.216) I don&apos;t want to say too much about the rock chapter because I don&apos;t want to give away what my group will be discussing on thursday, but I will say that my stalactite is really cool and I think it was a great project tat can be done with children....I even gave him a name &quot;jonny stalactite&quot; on facebook....so for pictures of his growth you can go online and check it out.....&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;251 words</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/618.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:35:34 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Water, 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen, All parts essential!</title>
  <link>http://matt-fugard.livejournal.com/618.html</link>
  <description>Ok sooo my first live journal post, I would like to address this issue first and then I will get into my discussion of water. Reflection is a practice I enjoy doing in the comfort of my own home, the lights low, the itunes playlist shuffling through some light jazz music and the warm coffee filling the room with its delightful aroma. I realize I am a fourth year ryerson student and as one I should be able to figure my life out and work through issues that come up, but for me a reflective journal is more for my benefit than for the marks I am being given for doing it. So rather than go through the motions and write a few paragraphs in a computer lab or an internet cafe, I decided to wait until I had internet up and running to full figure out what this live journal thing is all about and how I can use it to reflect and further my learning. The bad thing about doing this is that I have no idea if my posts will be satisfactory to the grading scheme or not, but as I stated previous a grade is only a grade, the real goal I have for this journal is to extend my learning. Ok enough about my (what would appear to be) laziness, and moving forward to the ideas I have about water.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Water, the first ingredient to life. A bonding substance that holds together humanity in that we all need water to live, and without it we all die. Yet at the same time it is what I believe will end up dividing humanity and create our eventual demise.  All of the conflict that is going on in the world today over crude oil, a substance that human beings naturally do not need to survive (it could be argued that we have created a world where we now need it to survive) seems almost trival while we are slowly but surely depleating the amounts of clean fresh drinkable water available to the population. I am extremely scared for humanity when I look at the conflict in the world and the covert politics that surround the &quot;oil wars&quot;. If we (humans) can do such damage to each other over a substance that is not naturally life essential, imagine the carnage when our water runs short. I have read a few articles about the United States having a potential water crisis in the near future...&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hermes-press.com/water.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.hermes-press.com/water.htm&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3747724.stm&quot;&gt;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3747724.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0605_030605_watercrisis.html&quot;&gt;http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0605_030605_watercrisis.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As a Canadian, living in a country who holds an extremely high percentage of the world&apos;s fresh water (7% of which is renewable)&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/misc/e_FAQ.htm#1&quot;&gt;http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/misc/e_FAQ.htm#1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;more than enough for our low population, I am counting down the days until we become a target for our fresh water. The United States has gotten alot of bad press for their involvement in the &quot;war on terror&quot; there was even a major motion picture called &quot;Jarhead&quot; that made a strong statement to the pop culture public about the &quot;war on terror&quot; and so I  am not going to just sit here and spout off that USA equals bad, the rest of the world equals good. There have probably been more than enough blogs about all of that. What I want to touch on is a much more local thinking than global thinking. It&apos;s about humans its about our thinking our brains.It&apos;s the freudian Id &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego&lt;/a&gt; influenced thinking. The animal inside humans that is still not tame. Why is conflict always the answer?  Can we as a race not be more creative in our problem-solving than...&quot;oh you have something I need, so if I remove you from the equation, than I will have what it is that I need&quot;. If we look back at the major conflicts through the eras of humanity they all stem to basic you have this I want it, give it to me or we will fight and the winner will get it. As ECE&apos;s we teach children to share, why is it that as adults we can not do such a simple and basic thing as repecting each other and sharing. Ok this has spiraled a bit away from water. &lt;br /&gt;Water, it surrounds us, it is us, yet we never really pay attention to just how valuable a thing it actually is. It rains we get mad, because we might get wet, or possibly ruin our precious hair dos. We turn on the tap and boom, water, but we never really think about the process that it making water come out of that tap, or that shower, or that water fountain.  Have you ever stopped to think about how many water fountains, toilets or taps there are in Toronto, or even in Ryerson, or even one building at Ryerson. That is alot of water outlets. Yet we never really think about this, its just taken for granted like the rest of the planet we call home is. it is disgusting to think how bad we are hurting the world, and it is even more disgusting to think that most of it revolves around the new &quot;life essential&quot; element.....money....I want to leave it there and pick it up next week with money and my hatred for what it has done to us for another blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok so I read some of my friend&apos;s posts and I am seeing I need to add a teaching and theoretical piece to this blog. Also some info from the textbook would help too, because this is a tool to evalute my understanding of the material in that book. First in my practice as a teacher, I agree with my friends&apos; statements that water should not be feared in the classroom, other than if it&apos;s on a slippery when wet floor,  you don&apos;t want someone to slip and fall. I think that if you can connect children to nature they will end up having a greater appreciation for it and maybe just maybe a generation will be born into the world that can turn this mess around. From the textbook I have sort of already touched on the respect and appreciation for water (all of the earth) that I would incorporate into my classroom. The coolest thing I noticed about the textbook&apos;s chapter on water, was how many different concepts ideas and activities that were presented in the chapter. Everything from evaporation to snowman making, sinking and floating, fresh to salt, soluable to insoluable there are so many really cool things that all connect to water. Who would have thought water drops had a particular behaviour? When we as educators sit down and give quality thought to what it is we would like to teach I think we gain better understanding, I know even just reading the chapter I re-learned some things I had forgotten (taken for granted) about water and it is a really cool feeling to think about something a &quot;simple&quot; as water and look at it deeply with quality thought. I loved the part about the centre who had build a flowing &quot;snake-river&quot; into their property and allowed children to freely explore the properties of water.(p.188 &quot;Science Experiences for the Early Childhood Years&quot;, Harlan, Rivkin)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The in-class activities based on what I read from the textbook were ok. We did a dam building exercise similar to what we had done when we built our habitats for disaster (the 1st presentation from the science centre) and i felt like the focus was more on building the dam that worked than on the properties of water. I think as adults we have had enough experience with water to know what being wet is like, but as we are designing these activities for children, I think maybe we could have gotten wet, we could have atleast touched water, or tried to change the water from a liquid to a solid or a gas. these things are a bit more telling of water than asking us to build a &quot;dam&quot; out of mystery materials to avert a natural disaster. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Matthew&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1,341 words</description>
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