The KENooSphere

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Know your past, enhance your future.

I have reviewed these videos on you-tube when searching about grading beliefs of various lecturers and hope that these preentations have some effect on how we view assessing students.

Doug Reeves

Rick Wormeli

Think about it, you can train your environment to be your home, you eliminate carbon footprint and you don’t have to worry about the ‘awful’ engineers, architects and contractors. It may take awhile to have your home constructed, but think of the economic savings and the ability to be self sufficient as you live, work and feed off of your home. It’s essentially the elements of life wrapped into one.

I found this very interesting as presented in one of my classes and thought it may be interesting to share. ENJOY!

It is intrinsic that I discuss an area of particular concern to me as this unorthodox atypical idea of educator brings up an aspect of my very own niche that I haven’t considered. The discussion of the apperceptive mass, in which all of our experiences in life is our method of understanding a new percept or idea, is what stood out to me in listening to Mr. Phillips. It redefines how we can model out lifestyle around our atmosphere, however we have modeled our lives into a model that is insufficient and non-sustainable.

 If you’ve looked at the gas prices recently and all you could see is:

[graphicshunt.com]

or all you can say is:

(note: we provide onsite home refinancing to help out with gas purchase)

[retiredredneck.com]

enough so it makes you want to:

[rgbstock.com]

Then it becomes clairvoyant to understand the plight of the energy efficient conservationist in reuse of materials we claim as trash or otherwise. No, I am not an uber environmentalist, or a peace sign slinging hippie. I am simply considerably more conscience of limited resources and how the technological advancements, or on the opposite spectrum, reclamation of natural technology has shaped our generation’s minds from industrialization.

But to the nitty gritty, why is Mr. Phillip’s contribution to the aspects of built environments so essential? Simply because we have been trained by the concept of “out with the old, in with the new” not out with the old, re-process it so it appears new. Dan Phillips has been designing and building homes in Huntsville, Tx since 1998, utilizing his skill as a builder to:

1) Create an apprenticeship program to build homes while teaching sustainable building practices.

2) Divert landfill waste by utilizing various materials in the construction.

3) Provide, LOW COST, energy efficient sustainable homes to low income families that are amazingly beautiful.

4) Encourages out of the box methods for construction of habitation.

Here is his TED speech on the homes he has built from reclaimed material along-with a few photos of his work.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html <–click it

Difficulty…well, having some time to really think about what type of vibes I would like to emit to the world as my first personal blog post, I imagined it being enlightening, sophisticated, inspirational or a plethora of other things. Sure it probably would not align with my character, beliefs or what I would truly like to say, however it will be sufficient. Should it involve education (of which i’m an avid recipient of) environmental design & planning (my area of study) or should it be something to simply entertain. Will it be one that the world may find useful? Or will it simply one that will be swept under the carpet, to be removed by virtual cleaning crews at a later date.

Bloggertalk.com states that your first blog post should introduce yourself, introduce your reason for blogging, what you will be blogging about and that you must encourage comments…Needless to say, I wish to do none of those items and I wish not to be considered as an anti-blog-enthusiast, however that is Cómo se dice en inglés? boring…I want to sparkle, I want to shine, I want to come out of the gates running like a thoroughbred with everyone in awe as if it was Tebow time!!! I do my virtual victory dance all over the blog-floor, then I realized, it’s all about development, not standard…you will learn who I am, you will know my reason for blogging and you will know what I am blogging about…and in time you may actually leave commentary.

Well what do you know…my first blog post is developed. But I feel amiss leaving without something of greater value, so I leave you with two of my favorite philosophies…(Educators beware of future posts, as rhetoric is not my forte)

1 – BE LAZY – BUT SMART 😉 – Daniel Donkoh, Ph.D

2 –

"The Jouney of 1,000 miles, begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu

Illustration Obtained From – YourLifeYourWay.Net

3-

                          “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” – Michael Jordan
(Click the Quote for Video)