Matthew Sims

What I learned this Term

simsm — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:52:19 +0000

I’ve learned a multitude of things through this online course:

How to set up a blog with a variety of multimedia to offer.

What a blog roll is.

More about Feminist pedagogy.

Got to finance a passionate goal of mine using a spread sheet.

I utilized the SMS in the library for the first time. I checked out a digital SLR camera and tripod to produce the images for my teach project at the OSU bike shop.

I learned about many women scientists.

Got to explore creative-innovative websites about gender

Explored in more detail about what nuclear fission is and who first proposed it.

Learned how to properly correspond with a professional over email.

learned about the types of art and how they are applicable to gender.

Realized how much I love bikes!

Overall, this was a very fun course and I learned so much! Thanks for offering a progressive Internet course.

Bicycle teach project–coming along nicely.

simsm — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:55:13 +0000

It’s been fun putting together this project. I utilized the student media services in the library and checked out an SLR digital camera w/ a tripod. Then I peddled over to the Dixon Bike Shop to set my bike up and take some photos of basic bicycle maintanence. It was pretty cool using the self-timer on the function so that I could obtain shots with me demonstrating how to do things. At times it was kind of tricky getting the right angles and trying to guess if my hands were in the frame or not. More or less, I achieve pretty much all the shots I needed. It was also fun interacting with people in the shop and taking photos of them for the project. Everyone seemed kind of excited…

Idea for my teaching project

simsm — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:09:59 +0000

My initial thought was to produce a video on how to change out a bike tire and other simple maintenance skills. I will be still teaching this, but instead I will just take high-quality images w/ captions.

Pretty exited, I think I might even produce a PDF file and submit it to a bicycle nonprofit BikeFarm that I’ve been corresponding with in Portland.

Scaled down the goals, makes them more managable.

simsm — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:07:24 +0000

I’ve decided to scale back my goals a tad bit. I feel that my goals are ambitiousness, but very far into the future. I have now decided to focus on one particular aspect of the goal: design and construction of the bicycle. I no longer want to focus on owning and operating a full bicycle shop. The new, altered goal, is more about obtaining the education, skills, and tools so that I can start building sooner than the projected 10 years. I figured this would be more beneficial, since I am aching to build with my hands.

Where I’m at with the Finacial Analysis Project.

simsm — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:49:11 +0000

I have gathered a bunch of research on what I think I need to know about starting up my own business. I updated my financial analysis projected and wrote about why I’m interested in building and selling custom steel bicycles. I also produced some excel spread sheets exploring my current financial situation. I will be updating the site before it’s due with more visuals and information pertaining to my business proposal. I have many links to embed into the site for further reading and information. I’m very excited about this project because I’m exploring something that I was going to do anyways, but now I’m getting credit. Also, I didn’t do as well as I thought I would on the culture project, so I need to increase the work output to help cushion the blow of the D+ on the paper/site.

I am very energized!

Exploring a Business Dream of Mine

simsm — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:41:46 +0000

Studying sociology here at OSU has altered my conscience in a way so that I’m very critical of the world I live in. I’ve come to realize that our nation [the United States of America] is a consumeristic society that burns through 25 percent of the world’s resources, while being only 5 percent of the world’s population. Moreover, our community connections with one another are severing fast and it seems like we are becoming more individualistic and isolated from one another. Essential, our economic development has outrun our spiritual development so much so that we have lost our way of living in tune with nature. We no longer live in balance, but deplete earth of the material that sustains it, that sustains us…

This convoluted ideology of mine is what has shaped my dream of opening up my own business. I want to own a bicycle shop that rents, repairs, builds, and designs bicycles. I want to eventual set myself up so that my income is derived from a particular piece of technology that I believe is the ultimate way of transporting oneself. Cycling is so beneficial–for the individual and society. It’s environmentally friendly, healthy, and economical. You do not produce any pollution, your fuel is your calories, and it is a great way to manage your waistline.

My goal is to eventual be owning and operating my own shop by the time I’m 33. That gives me ten years. If I’m able to achieve this goal before the desired date, I’ll be all that happier!

I want to specialize in affordable steel bicycles, but as well as offering a line of high quality custom made frames. I would also like to incorporate designs into my models that allows for individuals with various disabilities to have access to the fun machine. Basically, I want to sell and produce bicycles that will accommodate anyone that wishes to ride. I want them to be professional, wacky, and fun.

Some quick ideas of how to achieve this dream:

Graduate college
Find a good paying job
Manage my finances so that I can begin saving money
Accumulate a good amount of savings and credit
Study and teach myself the skills needed (i.e., how to run and operate a business, how to design and build frames, how to weld, become an apprentice somewhere)
Become professionally certified through UBI in Ashland, a vocational school that teaches bicycle mechanics and frame building.
Reside in an area that is supportive of bicycling, such as Portland, Oregon or Davis, California
Locate a rental with enough garage or shop space where I can begin to open operations
Use the remainder of my savings and credit to purchase the needed equipment
Build
Advertise locally and on the Internet (Blog! and make connections).
Go from there!

This is a log term goal that will require much balance in my life.

Done with the Culture Site Project!

simsm — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:44:57 +0000

The Ida Noddack culture site is now complete. It was a lot of fun putting together an “online-essay”. I have links to more info about topics in the essay along with photos embedded into the pages. This was an educational experience that has enabled me to work more efficiently with a web 2.0 application. I have really come to value the utility and power of blogging.

Research on Ida Noddack

simsm — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:48:25 +0000

It’s been quite interesting in finding information on Ida Noddack. I found four scholarly sources that directly deal with Ida and her achievements and the others are just .com websites, with good information, just not scholarly. I hope to hunt down some .org websites when putting together my website. I want to organize in a way so that I have an introduction of who Ida was and then move onto her ideas and achievements. In this section I will discuss why there was a lot of negative publicity surrounding some of her discoveries along with a discussion of institutional bias towards women in science in Germany during Ida’s time period. I hope to have a list of all her achievements and awards. A section dedicated to the periodic table and the element that she helped co-discover a final section that covers what nuclear fission is. So basically, by the time I’m done I want to have an interactive multimedia website about the scientists I studied.

Found a great book from Google Books

simsm — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:33:32 +0000

So I’ve been using Google Books for about 5 minutes now and I have already had success in finding information about Ida Noddack. I did a quick search and found over 600 results relating to her name. One particular book that caught my eye was The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science written by Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Dorothy Harvey. From there I proceeded in doing a quick search at the OSU library and I did end up finding it. Going to make a quick photo-copy and then move onto different sources.

Wikipedia.org: a great place to find links to other resources

simsm — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:17:33 +0000

I know some professors do not trust the accuracy or the authenticity of wikipedia.org and I understand and back their stance, however, wiki is a great source to find more links and books referring to the subject of choice. For example, I searched Ida Noddack the German scientist that I’m studying and found a lot of good references to turn to.