Final Personal Project!

My personal project is completed! I worked hard on it. It was really fun to create. My favorite part of my major is the nutrition and foods. I created an assignment for my students that is based on understanding the dietary guidelines and food pyramid. It had extra fun with a nutritious recipe blog.

This project gave me much better insight to what it will take to become a teacher. I haven't taken some of the education classes in my major yet, so creating the lesson plan and assignment was a new experience to me. I enjoyed it because it means I am going to be a teacher!!

Here is my weebly website

Almost the end of the semester

The end of the semester has come! This week is jam-packed with final projects. Sometimes, those are way more stressful than the actual finals. This semester, that is the case. Most of the classes in my major are just plain time-consuming. Why did I pick a minor that is too? Because I love it. As much as I hate the end of semester projects, I love them. I love my classes. I love what I'm studying. I'm grateful to have been a part of BYU. This university is the best place to receive the education that I am. We gain so much from the atmosphere, the teachers, and the expectations. I'm finishing up my personal project and will post it in a few hours. Hasta la vista baby!

Recently

For my personal project, I have been creating healthy recipes. Sometimes I'm amazed at what can be done with a delicious recipe that is loaded with fat. There are so many alternatives. Yes, fat is delicious, but with the right options, you can find ways around the fat and have it still taste super yummy. One thing I like to do is use fat free things. Like cream cheese or sour cream. Skim milk. Then there is vegetable oil instead of butter (better fat). Or apple sauce instead of as much oil.

I actually rarely even use recipes. I like to experiment and see what I can create without them. So when I create my recipes, I kind of have to estimate how much of what I used.

Updates

I started the final project in the last week. It is the awesomest thing ever! I created a website/blog on weebly. It's called Nutritious but Delicious. I am posting nutrition information/ healthy recipes. It's actually really fun to do. I got an email from weebly saying that my site is becoming popular and I should consider allowing it to be easily searched through google. It made me laugh. It was exciting, though. I'm glad it's getting attention. I put the link on my facebook, so I'm sure that's where I'm getting the views from. Here is the link. It's going to be awesome. So far it only has one recipe. But there will definitely be more

Multimedia

Rosi Rummler and I created a Mormon Message. We used the talk "Courageous Parenting" from conference. There are some differences in the requirements for the message than for the multimedia project. We were not supposed to include credits at the end. We used 14 seconds of a combination of tiny clips of train scenes from the movie Stand by Me, so that is our credit to it. According to the copyright things we studied, it is ok to use less than 3 minutes of video if used for educational purposes (as this project is). Another difference is obvious--it is not teaching something from the Utah Core Curriculum. Those are the differences. Since the video is on Rosi's computer, she will be uploading it onto YouTube and linking it to her blog.

Personal Project

I thought for a long time about what really interests me along with what kinds of projects I would assign my students. I decided that it would be beneficial for students to start a blog about a topic that interests them from a list of topics. They would need to do research and creatively create this blog that is informing and interesting. I am going to create a foods blog. I can see it unraveling in my head, and it is awesome! I want to create this blog with nutritional information/ facts about certain foods, vitamins, and minerals. And I am going to post nutritious and delicious recipes. I see this being great!

Storyboard

Here is a screen shot of my storyboard.

Multimedia

I had this great plan for my multimedia assignment, but so far I haven't figured out quite yet how to do it. I am determined to do it (as of right now anyway). Hopefully with this week of playing around with my computer I can figure out how play a video on windows movie maker but also have other things going at the same time. Does that even make sense? I am doing a Mormon Message, and I want the dude to be speaking in the talk and also be able to have other things happen while he is talking. I also lost my camera 2 months ago and still can't find it. I miss it. Hopefully I can figure all this out with my technology challenges!

Comfort Food

I was looking at some website that had fall comfort foods. They didn't all look good, except these cookies sure did! I like them even more because they have wheat flour.

Whole Wheat S'more Cookies

Whole wheat flour gives these clever cookie S'mores a graham-cracker flavor. Leave the marshmallows out for a day or two on a plate to get stale—they'll hold their shape better during baking

Makes about 36

Recipe by Susan Reid
Photograph by Con Poulos

February 2008

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon robust-flavored (dark) molasses
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips (about 9 ounces)
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 3 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in large bowl. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, molasses, and vanilla extract in medium bowl; whisk in butter. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients, stirring until dough is evenly moistened. Stir in chocolate chips, marshmallows, and nuts.
• Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheets, spacing about 3 inches apart (about 12 cookies per sheet). Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until golden brown, dry to touch, but still slightly soft, about 15 minutes. Let cookies cool on sheets 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool (cookies will firm up). DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Read More http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2008/02/whole_wheat_smore_cookies?mbid=synd_yshine#ixzz144Xgncls

Children these days...

I'm in a parenting class, which is really fun and I'm learning a lot about how children develop. We have come across many controversial topics recently: bullying, having children with gay tendencies. It definitely gives me a lot to think about. I was researching online for websites that have parenting tips, or ideas about today's kids. I came across parenting.com and parent.net. They are both a little different, but each offer something great. I liked parenting.com better because it had more to offer, including a discussion board with various topics. One I skimmed through was about whether or not parents are too strict or not strict enough with their children.

I attended a lecture by Dr. Craig Hart on Thursday night. He does a lot of research about how parents matter. Society today degrades the role of parents, and many people are starting to think that parents just don't matter. Parents don't affect how their kids will turn out. Just reading that discussion board about if parents are strict enough provided more evidence to me that parents matter. One of the larger arguments was that children today are extremely disrespectful, and that related to parents not being strict enough.

I like learning about how parents influence children in today's society. Eventually, I hope to start a non-profit organization that raises awareness on parents and the family.

Internet Communication

As of right now, I have completed the entire assignment without the extra customizations. I have all the requirements, (branching pages, 2 classes, map, photo, information, supplemental activity, google calendar, google doc) but am working on making my website personalized.

The link is here

Food

One of my best friends since high school created a cooking blog. I love reading it. First of all, she is hilarious, and so are her posts. Second of all, she finds the greatest recipes. So I will continue to stalk her and use her recipes.

Today, when I was deciding what to make for dinner, and what to post on here, I found a recipe I wanted to make from allrecipes.com. Except I don't have potatoes. It looks delicious though...
 

Vegetable Shepherd's Pie

• 8 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 (19 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cook potatoes, covered, in a small amount of boiling water until tender. Drain and mash.
3. While potatoes are cooking, steam or boil carrots and mixed vegetables until near tender. Drain and set aside.
4. In a small saucepan, cook garlic powder, basil and parsley in butter or margarine for about 20 seconds (or microwave for 10 seconds). Stir into mashed potatoes along with salt and pepper. Gradually beat in enough milk to make potatoes light and fluffy, add a little more milk if necessary. Set aside
5. In a medium saucepan, cook onion in oil until tender but not brown. Stir in kidney beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, soy sauce, sugar and vegetable/carrot mixture. Heat through until bubbly.
6. Transfer vegetable mixture to a 8x8x2 inch baking dish. Drop mashed potatoes in mounds over the top. Sprinkle with cheese and paprika. Bake, uncovered at 375 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

Interior Design

Sometimes, I'm just not sure what interior designers are thinking. Maybe it's a good thing that interior design is only part of my field of study. Maybe it's not even interior designers that I'm having a problem with right now.
My style is very different from many of the designs that show up on freshome.com. They seem to be impractical and very "modern" style. I'm not sure how I feel about modernism in interiors. Many furniture pieces I have seen seem stern, uncomfortable. I want my home to have a welcoming and cheery feel. I want the design to be practical and welcoming.

The house that started this rant is this. I don't see why any house needs to look like this.
Ok, but in reality, some people like this. And interior designers' jobs are to create a home that their customer wants. I really don't like that house though.

Life and Internet Safety

I got in a crazy car accident last week. So, for those of you who are in other classes with me, that's why I was not there. It was pretty scary. Part of me wishes it was bad enough that I can't remember it because now I get scared every time I get in a car. Oh well. Eventually I'll be back to normal. I'm not even sure I'm ready to go back to school because I hurt my back and neck pretty bad. I think I hit my head pretty hard too because I get super bad headaches. But I have finally gotten to start on all my catch-up work. I felt the internet safety assignment was a good one for today since the articles we had to read were from past Ensigns.

I taught my husband what I learned about internet safety. He thought it was interesting.
There are two types of internet safety I focused on: moral safety and identity safety.
Moral safety consists of how to avoid the little whisperings of Satan through media,or, in this case, the internet. One common problem is pornography. Pornography does not start with someone saying, "Hey I want to get addicted to porn today." No, it starts with pop-ups, chat rooms, and half naked pictures of celebrities. Little by little, those porn viewers become pornography addicts, and when they realize it, they are in too deep to let go easily. Another problem with moral safety comes from music videos. I know many people think music videos are just "fun." They are not. Music videos contain scenes that desensitize and numb  the mind to pornographic, sensual, and violent images. Ways you can protect yourself and your children from these internet problems are through filters, creating bookmarks to more easily access your common websites, use pop-up blockers, discourage the use of chat rooms, and not to open spam messages.

Identification safety is another problem these days. Some ways to establish your personal safety are to
1. Never use or give your personal information online (name, address, date of birth, school)
2. Do not open phishing emails
3. Do not talk to strangers, and especially do not meet online strangers in person
4. Never give your social security number online, even on job applications.

After discussing these things with my husband, we decided we are going to be better. We will watch music videos less and change some of our information on our social networking sites.

Copyright Laws

The first post, Top 30 Disney Songs, seems like it has followed copyright laws. It does give the credit to Disney, and each song clip is less than 30 seconds. I also don't think that this stream of songs would negatively affect the market value of any of these movies. The problem is, this is not something that would be used for educational purposes, so I'm not sure if those limitations even apply. If could be violating copyright laws because it is not being used for a fair use purpose. If Disney has been notified of these clips in use, this multimedia has definitely followed copyright laws.

The second post, the Harry Potter trailer, probably followed copyright laws as well. The main reason I believe this is because I have seen movie trailers get taken off You Tube because of copyright violations. This trailer does give credit to the company and the movie. And having the trailer on You Tube gives so many people access to the movie, that it will help movie ticket sales when it comes out. So, I still believe this trailer is not in offense to the copyright laws.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Trailer 2 Official HD

The Top 30 Disney Songs (VOTED BY THE PUBLIC)

Screen shot of my google reader

Discoveries

This week I discovered how to use Google Reader. At first, I thought it was kind of dumb because I could just find websites on what I want to look at just through google search. BUT now I have subscribed to a few websites that have focuses on what I love about my major, and they are so easy access for me to view every time I need to! My favorite aspects of my major are interior design, nutrition, and cooking. I love studying the family the most, but I have yet to find a good blog or site about it. So the websites I have subscribed to on google reader are simply recipes, nutrition- about nutrition and diet, and freshome.com (interior design). It's all quite interesting.

The point of it all

This blog was created for my IP&T class at BYU.

I'm majoring in Family and Consumer Science Education. This major is useful in many aspects of life. We learn how to teach home-ec, interior design, nutrition/ health, human development, and marriage and family studies.This particular class is to help us understand more about technology and how it can be used in the classroom to help our students learn and grow. 

This blog will be used to explore new ideas I learn in this class as it relates to my major. As I learn, you readers will learn too. Sweet. This is going to be fun.