Tom Slider

This afternoon boys had their first home league game against Eisenhower High (Rialto, CA). Our boys won it with little difficulty. Eisenhower has struggled to keep their team going in the past, due to feigning interest in the sport out there. It's really too bad, as I think it's a sport that reaches many athletes who have no interest in the standard fare sports.

The sun was out in full force this afternoon, so you'll notice the difference in the photos. Once again the D7000 and 70-200/f2.8 VR combination did a great job. I'm really impressed! The lens is so fast that I was able to catch the water droplets coming off the player or off the ball as the action occurs.

Check out the rest of my photos from this game at my Picasa photo gallery!

Today was the first home game of the season for the Yucaipa High School boys water polo team. The game proved to be a difficult loss to Chaparral High School, the final score going to Chaparral 15-5.

This game was my first time shooitng with the Nikon D7000 body and the 70mm-200mm/f2.8 VR lens. My impression? I think this picture speaks for itself. That combination is a sweet setup!

Check out the rest of my photos from this game at my Picasa photo gallery!

This evening I got my second midterm back and I earned an 87%! I was pleased with that score, as I seemed to blank on one section. If I had done that section of the midterm, I am confident I could have easily gotten a score in the mid 90s.

I realized I didn't share my score from Midterm #1. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I did get a 'B' with an 82%. Integration isn't as simple as differentiation. :(

I met with Dr. Williams today and we laid out my coursework, quarter by quarter, until I graduate. As it stands, I will finish after the spring 2016 (class of 2016!) quarter, so I've got a few years to go. The lengthy time is because of two reasons: 1). I will be going part time, in the evening, since I will continue to work, and 2). I am concurrently completing my math BA and a secondary teaching credential.

This afternoon our Calc II class was greeted by a new instructor. It seems that Dr. Chavez had to have emergency surgery, so we now have Dr. Ferzic. He seems like a good guy and I like his style of presenting new concepts this evening. We were scheduled to have a midterm tomorrow, but Dr. Ferzic has postponed it to Monday and he's making tomorrow a review day for the midterm. That was something that I really needed, as Dr. Chavez wasn't going to give us a review day.

Final for Math 211 this evening. I think I did well. We'll have to see.

Tomorrow starts the next quarter of single variable calculus, Math 212. .For those math folks out there, this is the quarter that we cover integration in detail. I know from my previous experience, integration is more difficult than differentation, so I'm sure it's going to be more work for me.

True to his speedy grading of miderm #1, Dr. Wang handed us back our second midterm exam that we took yesterday. Before I spill the beans, let me share with you that I was pretty confident about this test, with only one area that I felt was going to be my problem area.

I knew that our section on word problems was the area that I was going to be struggling with. Looking at the problem, analyzing it, and setting up the equation was an area that I seemed to be having the most difficulty with. If I didn't do well on this test, I knew it would be because of the word problem.

So how did I do? I got 70 points out of 75 possible, making this exam a 93%!! I now have 50% of my grade in this class done and I have an 'A'. Dr. Wang's grading makes each midterm exam worth 25% of your grade and the final worth 50%.

We've still got a few sections to cover and then our final is scheduled for Monday, August 2nd. I just hope I do as well on that exam as I did on the midterms.

Yesterday we took our first midterm exam. I was really nervous going into the test, but I was feeling pretty good with my effort after the exam was over with. Nothing seemed to be a surprise, it was exactly the same type of probem we've had for homework.

I didn't expect Dr. Wang to get our exams back to us so quickly, but this evening he came into the class with our exams in hand, already graded! I was impressed, as he must have spent a lot of time last night grading the exams to get them done.

So I'm eager to share how I did. Guess what I earned? I got 71 points out of a possible 75, making my exam a 95%!! Yes!!! I looked over the parts I got wrong and they were minor things that I lost a few points for, but it's a solid 'A'! I'm feeling really good about this class and doing well in it.

Today was the first day of my Calculus I (Math 211) class. I'm happy to report that all is well. We spent the first half of the day going over his expectations and the syllabus, and dove right in the math.

It looks like we're starting with limits of functions. It's been so long since I've even thought about these things, but I have to say that it's gradually coming back to me.

This old saying seems to best sum it up: so far, so good!

Well, here's the latest on my venture back to CSUSB. I had my appointment with Dr, Williams today and it went well. We discussed my "unique" situation and we've worked out an academic plan for the 2011-2012 school year.

I'm going to start with re-taking the Math 211 and Math 212 classes this summer. These are the first two (of a three class series) on single variable calculus. I took 211 and 212 when I was last at CSUSB, so it puts that over 15 years ago. I don't expect to be able to remember the finer details of calculus after 15 years, so we both agreed that I should take these classes as a refresher.

I'm in the same situation with multi-variable calculus. Multivariable calculus is a two-quarter class (Math 251 and Math 252), but I only took the first quarter (Math 251) when I was here last. That means that this fall I will be taking Math 251 again to refresh my memory. There's nothing like taking a class again because you last took it 15+ years ago.

Dr. Williams and I looked at the class schedule for the upcoming school year and we've figured out when I will take each quarter, making sure that each class was being offered that quarter in a late afternoon (4-6PM) or evening (6-8PM) time slot. It looks like I will be taking two or three classes each quarter, so I'm going to be busy.

Well summer school starts in less than one week, so it's time to dive right back into college. I'm both nervous and excited, but I'm going to do what I have to and get that bachelor's degree and teaching credential this time.

I want to get you up to speed with my return to California State University at San Bernardino (which I will refer to as CSUSB from now on). I will be starting in the fall and majoring in mathematics with a minor in computer science. I'm actually participating the Mathematics Department program called the "Bachelor of Arts, Integrated Teaching Track".

(Please excuse the cell phone photo....)

On Saturday, June 4, 2011, I attended the student orientation for transfers at CSUSB. This orientation is called SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising and Registration). They did the usual "congrats, you're now a university student" stuff in the morning. Honestly I felt it really dragged on and most of the information was of no relevance to me as soneone who works full time.

The part of the day that was the most valuable to me was the end of the day when we branched off into our majors and met with a representative of our department. The math majors lucked out and got the Mathematics department chair, Dr. Peter Williams.

Dr. Williams explained the differenet degrees that are available in mathematics and how they are different. He gave a tour of the department's facilities, and ended with any questions. I was able to get a few of my questions answered.

I later emailed Dr. Williams and I have an appointment with Dr. Williams tomorrow for some advice and guidance for my degree. I need to know what classes I should take in the fall and how my evening class schedule is going to work out. I'll keep you up to date!

Part of my job at Yucaipa High is to maintain and expand the school's web site. Everyday I go through it, update text that needs to be updated, and look for ways to make the web site a better source of information about the school. One of those tasks includes taking photos of school events and any other sight during the school day.

Until now, I didn't have a camera for my exclusive use. I would bring in my D70s or I would see if the photography classes had a camera available for me to use. It was a struggle at times, especially with photo opportunities that were unplanned. The opportunity arose this spring for the school to get me a digital SLR of my own. Yay!

The new camera, a Nikon D7000, is a newer model that's received a lot of praises for performance and features. The camera is a nice piece of machinery! I'm looking forward to getting to know this camera better and explore it's potential.

The D7000 features a 16.2 megapixel sensor, battery charge life of approximately 4500 shots, 1080i video recording, 100-6400 ISO (with noise reduction to go to 25,600ISO), dual SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card slots, 6 frames per second shooting, and the option of the MB-D11 battery grip to give it a second battery. The dual memory cards give you many options when you shoot. You can use it as a straight fill-card-one then card-two, or you can have it mirror the images to both cards, and use one card to store RAW photos and the other to store JPEG photos.

My D7000 came as a kit with Nikon's newest VR lens, 18-105. So far it's been pretty impressive. I've used the eariler VR 18-200 and this one is just as clear and accurate. It doesn't have the range that the 18-200 has, but this lens is also about half of the price.

Next school year I'm going to see about getting that MB-D11 battery grip, as I find battery grips necessary to make digital SLR cameras perfectly balanced. The extra battery usually speeds up the frame rate (which is advantageous for me when I shoot water polo games) and they provides a shutter button and other controls for when you rotate the camera 90° to get a portrait photograph.

I'm looking forward to putting this camera through my personal test: a YHS water polo game with the VR 70-200/f2.8. The 16mp sensor, 6 fps rate, and that lens will mean I should be able to get great shots. Stay tuned!

I'm still learning my way around this fine piece of equipment, but if you want to know more, you can find a more in depth review over at DP Review. Say cheese!

June 1, 2011 Posted by Tom

Could the Internet spell the end of snow days? According to an article from an Associated Press writer, there are school districts that are looking into the viability of students checking in from home using their home computer.

It's a nice idea but it will never work in the real world. There are too many variables that can go wrong. What if the family doesn't have the money for a computer (or at least a new enough model) or can afford an Internet connection. What about sofware issues? What about if the phone or cable company issues? If it's snowing hard enough to call a snow day, there's a good chance that somewhere locally there's a down connection.

I think this will work best if the school offers a resource for the parents to offer to the student as a supplemental reinforcement of the material. A responsible parent would utilize this resource and give their child some reinforcement before they don the snow gear and head out to the snowball fights.

This weekend I seized an opportunity to borrow an Nikon AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED lens. What makes this lens so special is that it can focus on an object very close to the lens. It allows the photographer to get some really close up and detailed shots. I've been wanting to play with a "micro" lens for a while now.

Armed with my Nikon D70S and the 60mm micro lens, I headed over to the Fontana Memorial Rose Garden off of Sierra Ave. in downtown Fontana. I've been wanting to shoot the roses there but I've never really gotten around to it, so it made sense to try out the lens shooting the roses.

So how did it go? I have to say I was impressed. The lens did what it was supposed to do, and I have the photographs to prove it. One thing I did learn when using this lens is that you, and the subject of your photo, must not be moving. This is Fontana, and for those of you who are familiar with Fontana, so you know there was a breeze. It would come and go, but I was able to get some really interesting shots duration the time that the winds died down.

I've posted a few of the photographs I took today on my Picasa gallery. Check them out! You'll find more information on this lens at dpreview.com.

This afternoon, as I was leaving from work, I decided to stop into the school's main office and check my mailbox. I found my new issue of Tech & Learning Magazine there waiting for me. I get a free subscription to the magazine, so I browse through each issue, looking for any tidbits of educational technology that we can use at YHS. I'm usually pretty well aware of new and upcoming technologies, but this magazine is handy to see what companies are capitalizing on these technologies and providing a solution for the K-12 market. I also find they reporting on education and trends with the ed-tech field to be interesting.

Anyways, the reason I'm writing here is an article in this issue. It's in the "School CIO" column and titled "The Pros & Cons of Open-Source Products". (I discovered it's available on their web site for you to read.)As you may already know, I'm a very happy and enthusiastic open source user. I try to integrate open-source technologies into my campus's computer labs in order to meet a need. My personal laptop and desktop computers, along with my school desktop computer and server at all rely on Ubuntu Linux to provide me with reliable service and the features I need.

The magazine presents a few of the questions that are encountered when considering open source software. As an open source user and administrator (the Linux server is my pet project), I found the questions asked to be predicitable for the audience it was intended for, but for me it wasn't anything new.

If you are an educator who's intrigued with the possibilites that open source software can create, I'd suggest giving it a read. Maybe I should do a similar article... we'll see.

Back in 2005, I had just purcased my first camera, an advanced point and shoot, the Nikon CoolPix 5700. That following winter I decided to try my hand at photographing one of my favorite sports: water polo. One of the seniors on the girls water polo team was a fomer student from my time at Ridgeview Elementary School, so I had known Tamara for many years. I talked to her about the teams schedule and decided to give it a try at the next home.

Fast forward six years and I'm now a common sight at the home (and nearby away) games for both girls and boys water polo teams. I have camera in hand, ready to snap away at the action. It's a fun way to spend an afternoon and sharing in the excitement of this sport.

As this season came to an end for the girls, I was contacted by my buddy Doug Earnest, a freelance sports photographer who runs Inland Sports Photography. I met Doug four years ago when he started coming out to the girls' games, as his daughter was a freshman and was playing. We hit it off and have remained friends ever since.

Anyways, Doug contacted me with a proposition. He wanted to give the senior girlss a framed photo of themselves at the team's post-season banquet. Due to professional obligations, Doug wasn't able to make it to many games, so he asked if I'd be interested in teaming with him and using 5x7 prints of my photographs, along frames that he purchased, and we'd present a framed 5x7 to each senior with a picture of herself playing.

I thought it was a cool idea, so I readily agreed! I then embarked on finding the names and cap numbers of each senior (there were ten, yes TEN girls who are graduating this year) girl in the hundreds of photos I took this season. It took me a while, but I was able to come up with a suitable photograph of each senior girl that I was pleased with.

So tonight Doug and I presented them to the girls. They were so pleased to have them! Doug and I got many thank yous and compliments from both the players and the parents and families. We told them it was our pleasure and that we wanted the girls to have something to remember the great times they had with their team playing this great sport.

Today is a day that only those of us who love math celebrate, it's Pi Day! For many years I really didn't much about the day, other than March 14's similarities to the first three digits of π. It seems that in the last couple of years, March 14th has become an unofficial holiday that people (like myself) who like science and math, celebrate.

My friend Desiree works at the NASA Dryden Research Facility (that's the same Dryden where Edwards Air Force Base is located) and this year she shared their Pi Day activities at NASA Dryden. There were songs dedicated to pi and others to pie, there were moonpies given out, and an overall light hearted atomsphere.

I think when the time comes to that I become a math teacher and have a classroom of my own, I think will have my students join in on the festivities. Let's make math fun!

For almost a year now, the staff, students, parents, and community of Yucaipa High School has been preparing for the accrediation review from Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The accrediation lets colleges and other education organizations know that YHS takes it's students success seriously and that they are provided with a comprehensive and valuable education.

These participants (the persons mentioned above) were divided into groups and tasked to evaluate the various areas of interest to the WASC committee. It's this part that's the most time consuming, as these groups collaborate, discuss, debate, and finally give their finding to the school's administration. From these findings, the campus wide report is written and submitted to WASC.

The final culmination of this process is the WASC committee's visit to the campus. These individuals visited our campus for four days, becoming familiar with the campus, talking to all of the participants, and trying to understand the culture of the school. Based on this visit and the submitted report, the WASC committee gives it's recommendation for accrediation and sets a duration for the accrediation. From what I've been told, the maximum the WASC committee can give is six years.

So guess what the WASC committee's findings were..... Yucaipa High School earned six years of accrediation! What made this all the more rewarding as we did this during the merging of our campus (grades 10-12) with the YHS9 campus (9th grade only). Our campus is now serving grades 9-12, so you imagine the difficulties we encountered with increasing our students and staff by a 33% AND having to do this accrediation. In the end they've both worked out fine, but it's been a busy year!

The term "para-educator" is a term that you don't hear, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that the role isn't a vital part of the education system, because it is. It isn't uncommon for a para-educator to spend more time with any individual student than a teacher.

A para-educator is an individual, like myself, who doesn't possess a teaching credential, but is assists educators in helping students meet their educational roles. The most common para-educator is the instructional aide, but there are many other para-educators who provide assistance. I'm one of those people.

In my job as a "computer reseource assistant", one of my many responsibilities is to assist students with computer use in achieving their academic goals. This assistance comes in many forms, including using word processors, spreadsheets, presentation programs, the school web site, and even the basic stuff like using the keyboard and mouse.

For me as a para-educator, the best part of my day is when I assist a student and that mental "light bulb" turns on in their mind. It's not just that they've learned what I just told them, it's the understanding of how this tool (a computer in this case) can be useful in reaching their goals.

And that's why I'm proud to be a para-educator.

Earlier this school year I discovered an interesting web site that I decide to check out regularly. The web site is called "Classroom 2.0" and it's primary purpose is to help educators to share and discuss the use of technology in the classroom.

It seems to have a diverse group of users: you have teachers from kindergarten through high school, multiple and single subject, private and public school, tech-savvy to tech-newbie, and any other category you can think of.

I was pleased to see that they have a group for educators using Ubuntu Linux. I've joined the group but it appears that this group isn't very active. They have thirteen threads on their message boards, and with most of them last posted in 2009!

I'm putting together my introduction and see if there is anything I can contribute to the community. I'm sure my many years of being a Linux user (and all of it as a para-educator) will be able to help someone and maybe help to spark interest in this great operating system.

Those of you that know me personally know that I'm a big Linux fan, so it should come as no surprise to you to know that the computers I use daily are Linux computers. My work desktop run Ubuntu 10.10, as does my desktop at home and my laptop. I use Microsoft Windows because it pays the bills; my job requires that I help keep multiple Windows computers running, otherwise I'd be a 100% Linux user.

For those of you who haven't even seen a Linux desktop computer and think it requires a Computer Science degree to use, you need to take a moment and give Linux a try. Ubuntu, one of many customized versions of Linux, is a great replacement for Windows or MacOSX. I will say that in some ways it's actually easier to use than either offering from Redmond or Cupertino.

I am planning on writing up a more in depth review of my experiences with the current version of Ubuntu Linux, version 10.10 (or code name Maverick Meerkat). Stay tuned for that!

If you are an avid everyday Linux user, I'd love to hear from you! Unfortunately I don't have many acquaintenances who are Linux users and I'm not aware of any Linux User Groups (LUG) in my area.

I've sorted through all of my photographs from the 2010-2011 Yucaipa High girls water polo games I was able to make this year and I've compiled the best of each game into it's own gallery. You'll find my photos on my public galleries on Picasa.

Parents of the YHS athletes: I hope you enjoy the photos and realize what it takes to allow me to take these photos. The investment in equipment is quite substantial, the lens needed to get these shots can be quite expensive. I don't charge money for my photos and I am not a professional photographer. I don't make a penny on the photos when you have prints made from my Picasa albums. I'm just a recreational photographer who happens to love water polo.

On that note, if you find the photos useful and would like to help me to continue to be able to take these photos, any kind of assistance would be welcome. I will be providing a PayPal link soon that you can give me a buck or two (or more if you are feeling generous) to say thanks. Any assistance would be welcome!

This web site has undergone a full update and re-do. I've changed the focus from my entrepreneurial ventures to now reflect my focus on my career in education. I am currently waiting to hear from California State University at San Bernardino to hear if I've been accepted into their Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics (Integrated Teaching Track).