Indianapolis is My Home

17
Jun

Take a 10-yr Old’s Advice - It’s worth it!

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Elementary, Environment, Government, Indianapolis Star, Local Businesses, People, Students

Wynn Brower isn’t really the person you’d expect to be taking advice from these days but it turns out this Bloomington resident has got some stuff many of us should probably be thinking more about.

For a class science project he determined that his family could save a $1/day by just turning off their computer at night. Multiply that be how ever many computers you’ve got going while you sleep, multiplied by the number of homes like yourself and you’ve got a big savings in energy every single night.

It doesn’t stop there though, what if the city governments did it as well?

Wynn demonstrated how he used a device to test the energy use of a laptop and desktop computer, then extrapolated the results to the county’s 550 computers. He came up with a savings of $25,000 a year if all computers were turned off at the end of the workday.

Lot’s of people talk about being "green" and conscious about the environment. I think there are loads of opportunities out there for everyone to make an impact in our city that don’t require buying a hybrid or installing solar panels on our roofs.

Why aren’t we hearing more about these little ways we can all do our part?

10-year-old tells county how to save $25,000 | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

03
Jun

Indiana Student Graduates with Perfect Attendance

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education, High Schools, Humor, News, People, Students, WISH - Channel 8

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really been impressed with anyone that’s boasted about perfect attendance. My theory is that when you’re an adult you get to take vacation and sick days. Why don’t we get the same sort of flexibility as students? Being a full-time student after all is our job.

Cherie Pieper graduated from Northeast Dubois High School in 1989 with perfect attendance through 12 years, and she challenged her daughter to do the same. So last month, 18-year-old Arielle Pieper also graduated from Dubois with the same perfect attendance record.

Congratulations to the Piepers, but I just don’t see what the benefit is and award of having accomplished it. I also wonder how many times they went to school when they were sick and got other kids sick that ended up missing.

If I’m missing something here, will someone please explain it to me?

WISH TV 8: Indianapolis News and Weather - Indiana student graduates with perfect attendance

01
Jun

Kid’s Penalized for Parent’s Involvement in Education

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education

Here’s a situation for you. How would you handle it?

Your kid’s class is taking a trip to Washington, DC at the end of the year as an educational experience trip. For a variety of reasons you’re not able to afford to send your kids on the trip so they don’t get to go. Now, they along with some other kids, spend their days sitting in a classroom doing nothing more than entertaining themselves with games and puzzles and teen chatter.

You find out about the lack of educating going on for your child and you decide to keep them home from school so they can spend their time doing something more interesting, challenging or productive.

Because you pulled them out of school, it’s considered an unexcused absence and your kids don’t get to participate in the annual "Field Day" competitions and instead have to spend their time in detention.

Sound amazing? Unbelievable? It’s actually happening to a mother and her kids here in Indiana, just east of Indianapolis.

You can read all the details about her situation at these posts where she shares the events and thoughts behind what’s been happening:

What do you think? What would you have done? When is it okay for a parent to pull their child out of school for valid reasons? Should they always have to have a "valid" reason as viewed by administration?

09
May

Local Educator Gives Facebook a Black-Eye

Author: Jason Bean, Category: High Schools, South Side

A local Indianapolis educator has filed suit against Facebook for a bogus page that was setup to impersonate him and contact students.

Roncalli dean sues over false Facebook page

Tim Puntarelli, Roncalli’s dean of students, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese are suing Facebook and the anonymous creators of the false Webpage the suit claims contained false, embarrassing, and defaming information about Puntarelli and Roncalli High School

I do believe that Facebook has done the right thing by immediately taking the page down. I’m not sure though if I think they should be required to hand over the identities of those that created it.

I think they might boot and ban them from the site, which in turn might uncover their identities in the long run. One thing about students, they’ll talk and if they notice that Jim & John* are no longer on Facebook, the social media networks will probably be abuzz among those students.

Roncalli dean sues over false Facebook page | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

*names changed to protect the guilty

31
Jan

MyColts.net

Author: Jason Bean, Category: High Schools, Sports

Part of me has just chosen to accept that NFL football is over until next year. Then we’ll be enjoying our Indianapolis Colts in the brand-new and magnificent Lucas Oil Stadium.

The other part of me wants to keep talking Colts and football though and I’ve found a darn good place to do just that on the Internet.

The website is called mycolts.net and it’s basically a full-featured message board and community portal. There’s tons of information and opinion being shared on the site. If you’re a Colts fan and love some online community I think you’ll enjoy this big, blue hang-out.

If you join, feel free to look me up and add me to your friends. I’m "bnpositive", so just do a search. You can also go directly to my homepage at http://www.mycolts.net/bnpositive

Another great feature of the site is they also have MyIndianaFootball.com as well. So if high school football is more your thing, here’s another reason you should check it out.

28
Jan

The Souls of Our Feet at Pike Performance Arts Center

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Art, Concerts, Cultural Events, High Schools, Northwest Side, Pike PAC, Theater, Things To Do in Indy

On Saturday, January 19th it was a frigid day to be outside, but it was also a good night to be at the Pike Performing Arts Center with my daughter. You see, we went on a Daddy Daughter Date to go see "The Souls of Our Feet: A Celebration of American Tap Dance".

My daughter has taken some dance classes, including tap, to introduce her to the art and she got exposed to the true art of dance that night.

"The Souls of Our Feet" is part of a National Endowment for the Arts "American Masterpiece: Dance" production for the 2007-2008 season. The dance group is Tapestry Dance Company (Jaqueline Coleman, Katelyn Harris, Jason Janas, Brenna Kuhn, Tasha Lawson, Tony Merriwether and Matt Shields), Executive-Artistic Director is Acia Gray and special guest was Dianne Walker who was a cast member of the great tap movie entitled "TAP" with Gregory Hines.

The production was great. They would start off with a video projection of a specific scene from history that highlighted the roots of tap dance in performance. Then the jazz trio would start playing the music and the video scene would fade as the live dancers stepped into the light and began doing the routine that was introduced in the video segment. The transition and fading from recorded audio and projected video to live sound and dancers was a tremendous expression.

I found a YouTube video of clips of various segments from the performance as it was done in an opening performance back in November. The clips are almost identical to what we got to see live at Pike PAC.

What a great show.

See the video after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

17
Jan

Are You A Computer Teacher in Indiana?

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Colleges, Convention Center, Downtown, Education, Elementary, High Schools, Things To Do in Indy

A friend of mine is an a technology teacher on the south side in Center Grove. He let me know about a conference coming up next week for computer educators in Indiana. The organization is called Indiana Computer Educators and their annual conference starts next week in downtown Indianapolis. The conference will be held in the Indiana Convention Center, Exhibit Hall D.

Here’s a little more about the organization:

Indiana Computer Educators (ICE) is a non-profit professional group whose mission is assisting educators to enhance learning through the use of technology. David Flowers of the Fort Wayne Community School Corporation founded this organization in 1980. In 1980, ICE was a user group of forty-three people that had an interest in computers, met two or three times each year, and published a newsletter. The first ICE Conference included six hardware vendors.

I was heading into the teaching profession at one time, high school biology teacher was my goal. That changed quickly once in college and I started taking all the educational theory classes. Now what’s odd is I’m very interested in all the theory now. Hmmm….

Visit Indiana Computer Educators website

09
Jan

College Students Can Get Office 2007 Ultimate for $59.95!!!

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Colleges, Shopping, Students

Just a quick post to highlight a great deal I just stumbled across and wrote about on my Microsoft Weblog website.

If you’re a college student or know one that needs Microsoft Office 2007, then check out this post on how to get the $700 Office Ultimate edition for less than $60.

College Students Can Get Office 2007 Ultimate for $59.95!!!

08
Jan

Silly Safaris Live Animal Shows

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Business, Business Entrepreneurs, Elementary, Greenwood, Local Businesses, People, Seminars, South Side

If you’re looking for a unique party for your kids birthday and those same kids just happen to love animals, look no further than Silly Safaris.

What kid doesn’t love animals? With Silly Safaris you get to let them see and interact with some really great things they may only see on Discovery Channel.

If you’re a teacher, you can also have Silly Safari come in for a special class or lesson on animals.

Here’s a little bit about what Silly Safari offers:

Read the rest of this entry »

18
Dec

12 Days of Christmas by IU’s Straight No Chaser group

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Colleges, Education, Humor, Local Musicians