Our farwell party

Our farewell party

Our trip to Philadelphia:

gerardo's best writing

Technology and Education

Since the appearance of computers, the impact of technology has been felt on an ever expanding range of areas; the evolution of all kinds of technological artifacts keeps accelerating. Even though the rapid creation of new products makes some people uncomfortable, most look forward to the new products on the market. As part of this evolution and its spreading throughout all sectors of society, it is also normal that technology has reached the educational system with the objective of speeding up educational progress. Consequently, it has revolutionized the ways of learning and, currently, technology can show up in many forms to improve the learning process.

The use of computers is one of the most important learning tools at schools. There are lots of digital programs with the objective of improving knowledge, such as those that children use to learn math and grammar. I remember that when I was in elementary school I used some of those softwares to learn the history of my country, and thanks to that, the history class became suddenly interesting. Using computers, students are also encouraged to write more and, actually, they can even write more words per minute. Another reason is that typing is easier than hand writing. All my classmates agree with me that the best way to write any school paper is through a computer; it is because the computer helps us to correct the grammar and edit writing easily. Computers allow students to access any kind of information through the use of the Internet, a powerful tool to do research. As a part of the educational process, the use of computers enhances learning in students.

Email is strongly used in schools. It has become an important communication tool between students and teachers. For example, if a teacher wants to give his students data about the issues in the next quiz, one of the best ways to do it is by emailing them. My English teacher always says that if there were any day where one person in the class were unable to attend class, then that person must email her in advance. Nowadays, schools send student all kinds of information through Email. When I applied to college a few months ago, the information about my acceptance at BMCC was sent by Email. Since that day, most of the time, the communication between the school and me has been by Email, such as date of appointments to discuss about financial aid, the best academic programs for me, and the like.

The use of media is a powerful tool for the teachers. Today, any class can have media incorporated, such as videos, pictures, and sounds. A class where a teacher includes some media elements is more interesting to the students. Obtaining examples through media elements, students can improve their understanding about any issue.  In my experience, a class in which a teacher used media to make a better flow of ideas, most of the times humanities courses, had become more understandable.  For example, in high school, when I was studying the roots of modern music, watching documentaries and listening to music was the most suitable way used by my teachers to develop the courses and, consequently, I have a strong knowledge about that subject.

Cell phones and e-books are gaining popularity among current students. Cell phones can be, in a certain way, a factor that helps the learning process. Currently, smart phones’ functioning has characteristics that resemble computers. Owing to this feature, students can access the Internet, and all its potential, whenever they want to from their phones. As a student of English as a second language, I use often my phone as a dictionary and translator. Even though one of the most widespread uses of phones is texting and that “texting writing” obscures the beauty of any language, the phones, used adequately and smartly, favor education. E-reading is a current phenomenon which has rapidly invaded the educational system. In recent years, e-books, digital textbooks, have been supplanting traditional books. Many current students, such as my friends and I, do not even want to know anything about a traditional book and feel weird reading one. For example, my sister has grown up in the middle of this “technology revolution”, so she prefers e-reading rather than traditional one. Today, she is studying marine biology at college, and all of her text books are digital. The possibility of having many books inside a little artifact and reading them at any time is making students change their reading habits.  Since e-reading is easier than traditional reading and e-books are less expensive, many schools are migrating to the digital era of literature and, consequently, their libraries are becoming digital too.

Definitely, technology has had a positive impact on the educational system. It can accelerate, enrich and deepen basic skills in students. Activities using technology have the potential to allow all students to succeed. Inside schools, technology can become a bridge between academics and emerging practices in professional fields. In conclusion, whether it is because of the significant velocity of this technological development or its widespread presence in every sector of society, and into education particularly, technology’s impact is getting stronger each year. We are sailing in a world where technology has become an essential factor in our lives and nobody can imagine the current world without its active participation.

Viola's writing

Wrote on May 5^th

Water Flows in You

 

When it rains, water flows in you.

Drops and drops into you.

Into your mirror face, stir up ripples.

Every ripple sings.

Every sound from them likes the piano plays.

The piano made from water drops.

It taps. Tapping those claviers.

Sometimes gently, sometimes wildly.

Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast.

Soft, like a whisper.

Strong, like a march.

Waters drops linked together, and falling like pearls.

Like a broke-string of pearls, droped and rebounded.

Into you, and disappeared.

When it rains, water flows in you.

Crystal's best writing

Crystal Wang

                            My Badly Experience about Sun Stroke

       When I was a teenager, I went to countryside in a bright, intense hot summer. I got a sun stroke for first experience in my life. The illness came unconsciously. It gave me a deep impression because it was a terrible experience. It broke all my good feeling about summer.

       The illness started with a hot feeling. I didn’t notice that it was an early symptom of the illness. I thought that it just because it was a summer time. I didn’t care about this ‘’ normal’’ feeling. That’s why I went straight to bed without see a doctor after watching TV.

       One of typical symptoms of sun stroke was fever. My feeling about hot was going extremely obvious during the mid-night. I started sweating, and my pajamas got wet. My body temperature was high. I could not sleep. In fact, I turned around and around on bed like swing clock whole night. It felt like I was in spoiled water. My breath came shortly, and I felt that there was no enough oxygen in my bedroom. The fever also made me to hallucinate that I was walking in a huge desert under the intense heat.

       Another typical symptom of this illness was headache and dizziness. The headache made me feel that my head was constantly beat by someone. In addition, I got dizziness. Everything in my view was moving. I looked at a calendar on wall, everything tiny number seemed dancing. It made my eyes tired that it couldn’t open widely. I also couldn’t walk straightly because my body lost balance.

       All of those badly symptoms made me have a weakness. Firstly, lack of sleep cause me feel very exhausted. Even though I was eager to have a sleep, I couldn’t get sleep well because fever. Secondly, I lost my appetite. I didn’t feel hungry although I didn’t eat certain amount of food. In fact, I couldn’t identify different favor of food by my gustation. Because I didn’t eat well, I didn’t have enough energy to move. The weakness even made me not willing to talk. I also become dehydrated. For example, I still felt thirsty even thought I just drank a big bottle of water.

       After a doctor checked me, he said that I had a sun stroke which is very popular illness in such hot summer. He gave me medicine and told me that I have to rest, stay in cool, windy place and drink more water. He reminded that I have to avoid explore in extremely hot sunshine.

       I felt much better after I took the medicine and follow the doctor’s direction second day. My body temperature went down. Finally, I had a good sleep at the first night which I took medicine. When I woke up, I felt my headache was relieved much more. Additionally, there was no dizzy again. My mom prepared green bean soup which is good for summer. She also cooked conge that is easy to swallow and digest. I regained little energy after I slept well and eat some conge. It took me several days to recover completely. This experience changed my life’s habit in summer. I use sun umbrella and wear sun glasses to prevent explore in summer.

My Best Piece of Writing ''A Terrible Flu Infection''

A Terrible Flu Infection

In December, three years ago, I got the worst flu I ever had in my life. It started with a cold, but unfortunately, it got worse and worse. It reminded me why the flu can be fatal for some people if it is not treated on time. I will never forget this terrible experience. 

The worst part of this illness was the pain I felt in my chest when I coughed. I felt like my chest would blow up or like if someone was pressing and hitting my lungs so hard. Suddenly, my temperature increased. Once it started elevating, I started shivering and sweating so much that it almost made me hallucinate. It was the strangest feeling I ever had because I had a high fever and at the same time I felt my body so cold. It was like if in a second I was burning in a desert and then the next minute in a freezer.

My throat was congested, so I had a sore throat and phlegm. I couldn’t speak or even swallow any kind of food or drink. That was awful. Food was tasteless. When I tried to taste the food, it tasted like plastic. All of these symptoms made me lose my appetite and made me feel fatigued, tired, and exhausted.

Although I had no energy and wanted stay in bed, I couldn’t sleep very well because I had an unbearable headache. My head was so painful that it caused me to feel nauseous. I threw up what I had eaten and the skin of my body became yellow like if I had made up myself in to Frankenstein. I looked so pale and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was helpless.

After I went to the hospital, my doctor found what type of flu was it and gave me antibiotics.  The function of these antibiotics was to kill all the bacteria I had and made all of the bacteria not to grow or spread in my body. He said that I became dehydrated, so he recommended me to drink fluids as much as I could. These antibiotics started working so quickly that at the next day I was able to speak and drink some tea. Rest, stay warm, and drink hot drinks were essential for my recovering. My cousin, who was a great cook, had been making me some chicken soup, so I slowly recovered my appetite and food became to taste again.  I felt much better when coughing and headache went away from me because those symptoms were killing me. 

            Finally, I overcame this infection and  since that happened, I have been getting the flu shot every year even though each year could come out different flu virus. At least, I’ve prevented it again.  My full recovery took a process because I lost weight and my level of energy was too low. Now when I feel any kind of those symptoms I immediately drink some pills and visit my doctor right away. This disease can be dangerous if it’s not treated on time. Hopefully, I won’t catch it again.

The Good and Bad Doctor in My Life

The Good and Bad Doctor in My Life

Most doctors believe that being a doctor needs a lot of good qualities, such as competence, responsibility and professionalism.  However, some others ignore that.  While good doctors are responsible and competent, bad ones are careless, incompetent and even impatient.

I remember one day, I got sick.  I had a terrible headache pain almost every day.  I coughed and coughed all the time.  When my parents noticed that I coughed too much, they decided to bring me to the hospital.  Arriving at the hospital, I told the doctor I thought it was a cold. The doctor, J. Franklin, worked at St. Louis Hospital in Haiti as the main doctor.  At this moment, I felt so bad.  I felt my body’s temperature increased and was more than it would normally be. My whole body was so hot.

After a few minutes, the doctor impatiently tried to give me something to drink.  I took the medicine he ordered me and drank it.  When I finished drinking the medicine, I felt uneasy. I couldn’t really know what happened to me because I felt confused, bored and even dizzy.  I couldn’t clearly identify anybody. That was the worst moment in my life.  It was then that the doctor said to my parents, “He is going to be fine. That was my mistake. I apologize, right…”

“Doctor, what happened?” replied my parents. The doctor said that he realized that he was supposed to take my body’s temperature first in order to determine the level of temperature and what it was exactly.  The situation was deplorable. Eventually, the doctor noticed the medicine he gave me was not appropriate for my illness, so it affected my mind.

The next day, my parents asked the main doctor who was in charge to send me to another hospital named St. Anthony Hospital where I found a very nice doctor to treat me. Unlike Dr. Franklin, he was friendly, competent, careful and patient. His name was Yves Davermann. He knew what had to do. The first thing he did was he asked me how I felt. He quickly prescribed me some ibuprofen for relieving my headache pain and made me do some tests. He explained, “This test is very important.  It helps me to determine exactly what you have and how you could feel”.  He also asked me when and where I did my last check-ups. Then, he took my body’s temperature and a small amount of blood from my arm. Some minutes later, he told me that it was flu.  “You don’t have to worry about it. You will recover in a short time, right” he kept explaining.

After that, the doctor prescribed me some medicines like aspirin, chloroquine and vitamins C to take twice or three times a day. I followed exactly as the doctor ordered me and then, one week after, I was cured. I was on the mend. I felt like someone that nothing had happened. I felt healthy and was back on my feet. That’s why I notice that all the doctors don’t believe in the same way that being doctor requires a lot of good qualities. For me, to be a good doctor, you must be competent, responsible, careful and patient.  In contrast, bad ones are impatient, careless, impatient and unprofessional.

My Best Piece of writing
by Irina Godovikova

Two Doctors

Probably you will agree with me if I say that doctors are an important part of our lives. But they can be so different. Some of them are very knowledgeable and careful about what they do; are just interested in status and their profits.

I remember two very unusual doctors. Both of them are unique in their own way.

It was my last trip to India. The trip was going to be very interesting, until I became ill. Why didn’t I take serious a warning about drinking water from a lake or a river? In the middle of the trip, I started to have abdominal pain and felt nauscios. I thought that I ate unusual food and I believed that I would recover in couple days, but with everyday I felt worse and worse.

 One day I opened my eyes and saw an unknown person in a traditional Indian dress, who ask me in fluent English my name and where is my home? Later he explained to me that I fainted on the street and people just brought me to him. He diagnosed me in a very unusual way – He took my hand and started to count my pulse. He repeated it several times. After a time I was really surprised when he told me most of my chronic diseases. When I ask him how did he know about it, he told that he knew about it through my pulse and added that he studied it for 8 years in Buddhist monastery. He gave  me some herbs and water and after couple days I was on my feet.

It was amazing experience, which I never forget.

In a couple years later I had different medical story, and the  doctor who surprised me not less then first, but from in opposite way.

I was in SP-B in this time and going to see doctor. Because I suffered from pain in pelvic part of my belly.

It was women of middle age, which seemed to be nice in the beginning. After all analyses and research she gave me diagnosis – appendicitis’. I told her that I can’t have appendicitis, because already had this operation when I was 16. She scans me from the top to the bottom of my body and started to yell. She told that she had 20 years experience and can recognize common diagnose like appendicitis. I was so scared and ran away from the room. In this day I saw her the last time.

Doctors are very an important profession. And if you choose to do it for your life you have to take all responsibilities about it. And it’s has to have attitude to help people and make their lives easier and happier. 

My best piece of writing

Iliana Britos

April 23, 2013

Essay #2 Drafts #3

 

The Evolution of Education Thanks to the Internet

 

When I was at school, I used to spend long hours in the library. They used to have big encyclopedias with all types of information. I studied each subject from real books. Sometime we needed to look at more than one book to find out what we needed to know. It was normal to take books from the library for a couple of days to study. We also used to take books just to have something to read. The progress in technology is so big that the method of education is completely different today than when I was at school.

Today education goes together with technology. Teachers use smart-boards in classrooms. Students read books in tablets or even in cell phones. Part of the homework couth is completed on-line. The communication between teachers and parents is, in most cases, through e-mail. Most, if not all schools have their own website where we can access all kinds of information, from the homework for the next day to events to come.

                Recently, my daughter had to do some research about vertebrates and invertebrates for school needed to look for four different species of each one. She needed to find out what were the differences and similarities between them. She also needed pictures of each one. She used Google to do her investigation. She copied all the information and pictures of each species from the website to Word. It took her about four hours to do all this investigation, put everything together and print it.

                In contrast, if I’d had to do this project as a child, I would have had to look in many books and encyclopedias. I would have had to write all the information in my notebook and then I would have had to organize each one with the most important aspect. I would have had to draw and color each picture. I would have had to write the similarities and differences in another sheet. I would have had go to the library multiple times, and spend many hours to complete this project.

The progress in technology is a great change in everyday life. The scopes are tremendous and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon. We can access all kinds of information from our home in a very short time with the internet. Our children spend less time searching for specific topics and more time studying.  We have access to almost everything with just a click.

Lina Shkilko ( the best writing )

June 2, 2013

Technological Helpers.

Imagine, you are on the subway platform. You see rats on the rails. You are hearing loud thunder of metal wheels. Trains, with different color circles and letters, are going to unknown you destination. You can't ask anybody, because you are alone on this station. Scared human being, your skin are covered by goose bumps, and... Eureka! I put my hand on a pocket of jeans and squeeze my smart phone. Technology! Thank God! We have technology in nowadays. I took my iphone and smiled. Small brown application “subway map” was looking at me through the smart phones screen and helped me found shortest way to my home.

We use technology every day, everywhere. For example, I use ‘‘Subway map’’ application every day in the subway. Despite the fact that I have live in New York fourteen months, sometime I can be baffled with all these station and different numbers of train. Today, like usually, I used my phone in the morning to research which of the station on my way can offer me transfer for right train to my destination. My small helper “Subway map” like always gave me right advice. As a result I came to my lovely lessons in the BMCC in time.

Sometime, when I think about ancient people I feel sympathy about haw they lived. No planes, no internet and smart phones. Theirs ability and resources were so limited. Only carriage with horses , and pigeons or postman, who delivered letters. Our ancestors needed ages for sending letters or communicate by distance. In 13^th century famous Moroccan traveler Marco Polo spent 15 years, from 1276 to 1291, to reach Indonesia from Asia across Persia and China. But now it is doable in several hours by plane.

It seems easy to check a weather forecast in the morning and reply to emails the same time. You can calculate your road time to your destination on “Hop Stop” application and see your best friend in the Skype, in spite of the fact that she or he lives of another site of the globe. It is a typical morning for average human being, in nowadays.

I came to the U.S. 14 month ago, I am a new immigrant who lives in NYC, and I can say ,”I am real New Yorker”, and I can say. ”I can't imagine my life without technologies”.

The most useful gadget for me is iphone. I think all smart phones make our life more comfortable , interesting, safer, and more organized. I can't underline more important application or service, but I fully aware how I addictive from all application in my phone. This smart device is real helper in different sites of my life.

Sometime I realize how strongly I miss some people, who very dear to me, but between us a big distance. And how these amazing technologies, give us a possibility to communicate with each other and feel pleasant emotions. I am also happy that we have a Skype and Viber.

Now almost all people addictive, in good meaning of this word from internet and smart phones. I think it is very positive tendency, which improving our life and give us more possibilities for our health, work, emotions and communication.

My Best Writing (Nataliya)

Nataliya Stefanyshyn

05/21/2013

Essay #3       Draft #1

                                        Doctors in My Daughter’s Life

Many people believe that any doctor can effectively resolve any health problem that people have, but the truth is that there are good doctors and bad doctors around the world. While bad doctors take much better care of their portfolio and career these days, good doctors take much better care of their patient’s health. 

            I believe that a good doctor must be professional in his or her field otherwise patients will suffer from wrong treatment. When my small daughter was 3 years old, we went to the Bellevue Hospital for her regular check-up.  My daughter’s   doctor did her a PPD shout to check if she has tuberculosis. After three days we went to the hospital again to show the doctor my daughter’s hand. Then the doctor recognized that my daughter’s PPD was red and big, what medically means that my daughter was sick with tuberculosis. Then this doctor prescribed my daughter a very strong medicine to take every day during next nine months. Also she told me that my daughter should have a check-up every two weeks during next nine months to see how she is doing taking the medicine.  I was very shocked to hear that. I couldn’t believe that my daughter was sick. I asked the doctor to help me, to make more tests and analyses to proof my daughter’s sickness, but she said me that only taking medicine could help my daughter. At that moment I just felt rushed of her actions. Because this doctor was stubborn and careless, maybe she was looking just for charging money from my daughter medical insurance in following appointments, I started looking for another doctor as my second opinion.

I was very lucky to meet another doctor. My friend recommended me to visit this doctor, because she has had medical experience from Russia and the Ukraine. When the new doctor saw my daughter’s medical records, she understood why my daughter’s PPD was positive. She explained me that because my daughter was born in the Ukraine and was vaccinated from tuberculosis there, she didn’t need to have PPD in the USA.   Also she said that my daughter should have extra blood tests to proof that she wasn’t sick. When my daughter’s blood tests came to the doctor’s office and they all were good, I was like beside oneself with joy, because my daughter wasn’t sick. This new doctor was very professional and analytical in her field, because she had studied medicine in Russia and in the USA and she has working experience from these countries. In my case it helped my daughter, because in the Ukraine kids get different vaccinations than in the USA. Also this doctor was very patient to us, what made me feel as a person and I will recommend her to my acquainted people.

I believe that we should be very careful with our health, because we cannot buy it for any money in the world. Also we should be very careful in choosing our doctors, because good doctors will treat us, but the bad ones will maim and destroy us.