Fun & Exciting Stuff

This is just amazing. 438 students are freshmen this year.

# Percentage of first-year applicants who applied online in 2003: 33%.
# Percentage of applicants who did last year: 89%.
# Year that an incoming Amherst College class first created a Facebook group so that they could socialize and otherwise get to know each other prior to arriving on campus: 2006.
# By the end of August 2008 the total number of members and posts at the Amherst College Class of 2012 Facebook group: 432 members and 3,225 posts.
# Students in the class of 2012 who registered computers, IPhones, game consoles, etc. on the campus network by the end of the day on August 24th, the day they moved into their dorm rooms: 370 students registered 443 devices.
# Number of students in the class of 2012 who brought desktop computers to campus: 14.
# Number that brought iPhones/iTouches: 93.

And I am running dittos and using a textbook. Sheesh. I have never felt like an old lady driving a 1970 Pinto in the slow lane of the 6 lane super highway. Teaching is passing us by.

As a group, the Social Studies department is trying to increase students’ awareness of the outside world. Someone realized that we didn’t have to force current events, for lack of a better term, down their throats.

Each classroom has this big box with a screen that shows moving pictures on it. Where does it get these pictures? Some say through the air, others say the cable running from the wall to the big black box. Me? I say there are little stone age people creating all the scenes inside the box. *attempt @ humor, now turning off*

So now, we are going to turn CNN on during homeroom. I know it sounds very logical, but we just didn’t think of it.

Our recent home building project at school made the paper and got some good press. Check it out for another perspective on the whole sh-bang.

I hope that the people involved in today’s horrific shooting at Virginia Tech. will be able to find peace in some way.

I noticed one thing on today’s national news broadcast that illustrated to me the conclusion that blogs/social networking/Web 2.0 will eventually lead to the end of traditional media. ABC spent time showing how Tech students were using Facebook, text messaging, blogs, etc. to check on each other. The journalist _read_ blog and Facebook posts to a national audience. I felt like I was watching old footage of students practicing a nuclear bomb drill by hiding under their desks. 5 -10 years from now, we will look back on broadcasts like this and shake our heads at how primitive this seemed.

Meanwhile I am sitting here, wirelessly, hitting refresh on the wikipedia page of the event learning more in 5 minutes than I learned in 30.