The Venture Forum Pt 3

At this point in our Venture Forum research our group has begun to conduct primary research. Up until this point we had mainly focused on secondary research that we were able to access online through the consortium, we decided to focus on the seven schools within the consortium because the Venture Forum has already disclosed that they had changed the name of the organization from the WPI Venture Forum to the The Venture Forum in hopes of attracting a wider variety of people and also because they planned to spread to other schools with Clark University being the first school that the new Venture Forum would branch out too othere colleges. To collect our primary data our group which was focused on collecting data in regards to how The Venture Forum could build a better relationship between them and the students in the consortium which consists of seven schools and a little under 23,000 students. The surveys that our group created were directed at least one to two professors are each college where we asked them:
1. How important is innovation as part of the curriculum for students?

2. How do you cultivate innovation among students and faculty?

3. Are you aware of the Venture Forum and what it does?

4. The Forum is interested in broadening. Its work beyond the technology sector. What would kind of services. Could it provide that could both benefit your students and encourage them to participate? (i.e. provide free transportation, offer mentor/internship programs, establish a guest speaker network, etc.)

These questions asked, so that our group could gain a better understanding on how teachers in the consortium use innovation and Entrepreneurship in their classrooms, how can The Venture Forum service them and how can The Venture Forum be beneficial to their students. As we were conducting this data our group ran into many road blocks in regards to communication with the professors from the other seven schools.

Osama bin Laden's death

Could bin Laden’s death increase risk of domestic terrorism attacks?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110502/ts_yblog_thelookout/could-bin-ladens-death-could-increase-risk-of-domestic-terrorism-attacks
Enough said!!!

More From The Onion

I thought you guys should watch this. It's pretty funny.

American Dream Declared Dead As Final Believer Gives Up

http://www.theonion.com/video/american-dream-declared-dead-as-final-believer-giv,19846/

The Onion Review: Obama Casts National Musical

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-review-obama-casts-national-musical,19949/

San Diego Zoo Lays Off 2,000 Animals

http://www.theonion.com/articles/san-diego-zoo-lays-off-2000-animals,19933/

Teen Rebel Refusing To Purchase Yearbook

http://www.theonion.com/articles/teen-rebel-refusing-to-purchase-yearbook,19901/

I Need Feedback On My Satire Piece

MCAS Testing Is Seen More Positively

A few years ago when The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, better known as MCAS, was first instituted, few, if any, of the students and educators believed that the standardized test for Massachusetts students was beneficial and worthwhile. Now, however, more students take it seriously and the ones that have taken it before encourage the young sophomore students to prepare well for it. “I tell them that if they pass it the first time they don’t have to keep taking it over and over again,” says a two time senior who has taken it for the past three years. “I have to take it this year again, but I’ll pass it this time. It’s my last shot and I want to do well.”

Most seniors are taking upon their shoulders the task of counseling younger students. “It really shows that they care about us,” says Jorge Martinez who is one of the students expected to score advanced on this week’s English MCAS despite having failed the test before. “I want to make my senior friends proud.”

The younger students appear to look up to the older students who have taken the test before and actually listen to their advice and prepare in advance for the test. They even go to the MCAS prep classes that the school hosts once a week after school before the actual testing takes place. “You would think that they wouldn’t take the advice of the seniors and the juniors who have taken the test before since most have had to retake it more than once,” says the principal of a school that is about to be taken over by the government. “But they do and it’s really improving scores. I mean, at the rate the score are going up we might be able to keep running the show ourselves.”

However, 9th and 10th grade teachers are not optimistic. “Scores are not improving significantly, and the students are still not taking the test seriously for the right reasons. They still don’t get that if they fail it they might never get their high school diploma,” commented an MCAS prep teacher. “I still think it is a waste of time because we are still not getting the scores that we should be getting and it makes us teachers look bad. I mean it’s not as if I’m doing something wrong. So I let my MCAS prep students doodle all they want, what’s the point of trying if they’re failing anyway.”

I Called It: No Government Shutdown

11:55pm

While watching "20/20" just now (I know...a wild Friday night, huh?), I saw a banner at the bottom of the screen: Agreement Reached, No Government Shutdown.

Good thing Period A didn't have the guts to give me odds when I offered them a bet. I would be RICH right now.

I hate to use our blog to brag (actually, no, I don't) but this is news, too. Oh yeah...and I'm the teacher, so I can do whatever I want. In summary, two important points:
1. No shutdown.
2. I win!!!

Your Obsessive Love Or Hatred Of Me Means Nothing In The Grand Scheme Of Geological Time

As the undisputed No. 1 teen pop sensation in the world, I have become something of a fulcrum upon which the extremes of human emotion pivot. On one side, you have people who have vaunted me to such lofty heights it is tantamount to deification; on the other, my high-spirited song-and-dance routines elicit an almost murderous rage. But, I ask, when viewed within the context of the geologic timescale, wherein chronological development is measured by evolutionary and stratigraphic events over countless eons rather than transitory human experience, what does any of it truly matter? Quite simply put, it doesn't. Your adoration or loathing of me, a 17-year-old entertainer from Canada, is no more significant than a grain of sand on a beach, disappearing when Earth's mighty oceans rise and then retreat—as they will hundreds of thousands of millions of times until the sun is extinguished and the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Rick Ross, the Great Wall of China, and everything else even remotely related to our feeble, fleeting species are but forgotten whispers in one planet's geochronology...

I suppose we've come to the point where we should just plainly state the ugly truth of all this: If you expend any energy at all either obsessively doting on me or hating me with the very fiber of your being, then I'm sad to say you are squandering your brief window as a cognizant being in this universe. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how better to use your comically tiny duration of sentience. Perhaps tell your family you love them; ponder the intricate beauty of a dew-flecked spiderweb; listen to Nicki Minaj's very good studio debut Pink Friday. In the end, however, none of these things will matter all that much either, not in the great and widening chasm of geological time—let alone when one considers the age of the cosmos from which it has sprung. But maybe in these ways you can draw a brief moment of respite from the existential dread. Ultimately, I believe that this is all one can reasonably hope for. There is no God. Justin Bieber's new smash-hit concert film Never Say Never is now in theaters nationwide! http://www.theonion.com/articles/your-obsessive-love-or-hatred-of-me-means-nothing,19707/?utm_source=morenews

Funny Political Pictures

Google Search (Chinese Water Torture Cell)

Harry Houdini
When I was bored I went to google like many people do or facebook but in google I saw that the logo was different. I searched the cartoon in the logo and found it was Harry Houdini a famous magician. I don't know much about him so this is what I found. Cool stuff:

Chinese Water Torture Cell
The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a predicament escape made famous by Hungarian-American magician Harry Houdini. The illusion consists of three parts: first, the magician's feet are locked in stocks; next, he is suspended in mid-air from his ankles with a restraint brace; finally, he is lowered into a glass tank overflowing with water and the restraint is locked to the top of the cell.

The original Chinese Water Torture Cell was built in England in 1911. Houdini first performed the escape for an audience of one person as part of a one-act play he called Houdini Upside Down. This was so he could copyright the new escape (having learned with his Milk Can escape that patents failed to stop imitators). The first public performance was at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912.[1] In letters Houdini referred to the effect as "the Upside Down" or "USD". Houdini continued to perform the escape until his death in 1926. Despite two Hollywood movies depicting Houdini dying in the Torture Cell, the escape had nothing to do with his demise.[2]

After Houdini's death, the cell was willed to his brother who performed as the escape artist Theodore Hardeen. Hardeen never performed the cell himself, and despite Houdini's instructions for it to be "burnt and destroyed" upon Hardeen's death, his brother gave the cell to Houdini collector Sidney Hollis Radner in the 1940s. The cell remained in the Radner basement until 1971 when it was put on display at The Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Canada. Here the cell suffered from neglect and theft. At one point, the museum owners put a fish tank inside the cell to achieve an aquarium effect. The leaky tank caused mold and damage to the cell wood and structure.

In 1995, the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame burned to the ground. While it was initially reported that the cell was completely destroyed, but the metal frame survived and the cell was restored by illusion builder John Gaughan. In 2004, the restored cell was sold at auction to magician David Copperfield. It now resides as part of his massive private magic collection in his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 2003, an exact duplicate of the Water Torture Cell was discovered, leading to controversy over the authenticity of the restored cell.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini

A Visual of the number of nuclear tests there has been made since 1945, it goes by monthly

Chernobyl Winds Over America

Nuclear Reactor in Japan

This video shows what happened with the nuclear reactors, and how they got destroyed.

Responsible, Thoughtful Nation Decides To Ignore Charlie Sheen Situation: More From The Onion

LOS ANGELES—Calling the situation "none of our business" and "not worth a second of our time, quite frankly," a responsible and thoughtful U.S. populace uniformly decided this week to ignore Charlie Sheen's recent outbursts, saying they had far more important things to focus on than a sitcom actor's personal troubles. "When Mr. Sheen's public meltdown began, I immediately recognized how a Hollywood star's crisis could be voyeuristically appealing, which is exactly why I said to myself, 'I am better than that; Charlie Sheen's attention-seeking behavior undermines my intelligence, and the sooner I ignore it, the sooner it will go away,'" said 41-year-old Denver accounts coordinator Margaret Atkins, who along with the rest of the nation has paid no attention to Sheen's situation, and has spent the majority of her time concentrating on the unrest in Libya, the collective-bargaining debate in the Midwest, and the health and well-being of her own family. "Not only have I chosen to ignore Mr. Sheen, but thankfully so has the American media, which has once again shown journalistic decency by only reporting the news that people legitimately need to know." Charlie Sheen was not sought out for comment.