Survivor San Juan del Sur Winner Prediction

Keeping to my tradition of predicting a Survivor winner, I will attempt to offer evidence for who will win tonight's Sole Survivor title.

Throughout the last twelve weeks, the Survivor editors have been inconspicuously dropping visual hints that Natalie, one of the twinnies, will win this season. Early in the season, Natalie was shown finding the controversial lost flint which was an early plot point unbeknownst to most viewers and yours truly. Next, while sending everyone else at camp to collect water, Natalie took the initiative to find a hidden immunity idol buried by the campfire for someone to find eventually. Moreover, when confronted by this season's anti-hero, Jon, Natalie not only saved Jon by telling him to play his idol, but also beat him in a vase balancing challenge.

Adding to her winner's resume, Natalie then proceeded to deceive Jon and Jaclyn by saying she would vote out Keith, but instead voting out Alec which obviously frustrated Jon and Jaclyn after the vote. She then planned and implemented a plan to blindside Jon by splitting the votes and then easily voting out Jon from the revote. Enhancing her resume, many times Natalie's conversations were visually presented in subtitles to viewers which is used as an important moment by the editors for conveying not only what is happening, but also a pivotal moment in the game.

Finally, while at Exile Island, Natalie offers an emotional loneliness from not being with her twin sister for more than thirty days which pulls on the emotional strings of viewers. Script writers love to use this type of emotional mechanism against viewers for touching a broad range of emotions during a major motion picture, documentary, or other type of film production.

From the above evidence I provided, Natalie's winner montage will include all of the above moments I mentioned, if not more, when she is eventually crowned Season 29 Blood versus Water San Juan del Sur winner tonite as the Sole Survivor. This is my prediction.

--Corey

Psychology of Survivor

Last week, the latest installment of the show Survivor began its 29th season shot in Nicaragua. This season's theme is Blood versus Water which matches up loved ones to compete for the one million grand prize. My fascination with the show stems back to my high school days where I was introduced to the book, The Lord of the Flies (LOTF) by William Golding. Golding's book mesmerized me then and still does today, which explains why I continue to be fascinated by Survivor, a show based on my all-time favorite book LOTF.

From my recent graduate studies, I was lucky to have studied psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for humans and animals. Maslow suggested all humans are motivated to satisfy their basic needs of food, shelter, excretion, homeostasis, breathing, water, sex, and sleep. After these lower level needs are satisfied, Maslow posit that other levels are then sought after by humans. The other levels are safety, social, esteem, and then finally self-actualization. Coincidentally, the players in Survivor attempt to satisfy these same needs suggested by Maslow's model throughout the show.

In an effort to enjoy watching this season while applying Maslow's psychological work, I developed a pilot fantasy scoring game. Somewhat similar to scoring in fantasy football, game players draft castaways on their teams for earning points during the season. The fantasy game player or tribal owner who accumulates the most points at the end of the season wins the game. My goal is to develop the fantasy game in HTML5 for eventually using as an educational tool in the classroom. To start out, the following is an alpha version of the scoring breakdown for the physiology level:

Physiology Points: Breathing, Food, Water, Sex, Sleep, Homeostasis, Excretion

• +1 Player attempts to start fire.
• +1 Player starts fire.
• -1 Player puts out fire.
• +1 Player looks for water.
• +1 Player boils water.
• +1 Player collects water.
• -1 Player dumps out water of another.
• +1 Player drinks water.
• +1 Player eats food.
• -1 Player wastes food.
• -1 Player hides food from another.
• -1 Player throws away food.
• +1 Player fishes for food.
• +1 Player gathers fruits.
• +1 Player gathers wood.
• +1 Player hunts for food.
• +1 Player builds shelter.
• -1 Player destroys shelter.
• -1 Player burns down shelter.
• +1 Player sleeps.
• -1 Player is sleep deprived.
• -1 Player is dehydrated.
• +1 Player excretes.
• -1 Player cannot excrete.
• -1 Player loses tool.
• -1 Player breaks tool.

As the show continues from week to week, I plan to post updates on the progress of the game.

--Corey

A New Spin on Internet Citizenship

For awhile now, I have been tinkering with the idea of developing an operating system for empowering online citizens. This idea aligns with my most recent research and graduate work in public administration and nonprofit management. The main focus is to provide the necessary tools for citizens to engage with outside individuals and organizations with privacy and security at the forefront. My reasoning for focusing upon privacy and security first links to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs which I studied a few semesters ago. Abraham Maslow proposed that all individuals seek five stages in life: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization.

Referencing Maslow's work, I focused on the two primary areas, privacy and security, for enabling internet citizens or netizens. However, instead of creating an operating system from scratch, I selected the Fedora Spins Project for developing a linux-based system. The initial specification for the new spin is located here. My goal for this project, Fedora Netizen, is to have an operational operating system for citizens to download and use from a USB stick or install entirely on their Mac, PC, or other internet enabled device.

--Corey

BlendKit Blended Course Reflection

Reflecting upon BlendKit 2014 blended course, new perspectives were gained regarding how blended courses could benefit students, as well as instructors when delivering required continuing education and licensure courses. In forming a suitable question for basing further blended course development, the following question may aid in the development process: in what ways can a blended course development approach improve effectiveness and efficiency for delivering high quality educational experiences within the real estate industry?

Implementing this question, the first benefit that my be realized is the dual allowance for learning synchronously and asynchronously by students. The opportunity for students to learn multiple and alternative may promote higher levels of cognitive learning. In addition, permitting remote participation may be more convenient at times for students, especially for those who work full-time jobs and have family responsibilities. On the contrary, those students who may have the need to directly interact with their instructors benefit from the in-class sessions eliminating the possible feeling of totally being disconnected.

From an instructor's perspective, blended course delivery may offer an increased amount of time for managing courses and responding to students' need due to the decreased amount of time required in a classroom. Moreover, integrating a blended mode may also aid in the implementation of a flipped classroom scenario. By assigning reading and work assignments for homework, students may be more attentive within the classroom since they are given the opportunity to work on their assignments before meeting in-class. Because more in-class time is available, alternative learning experiences may take place such as role playing, games, and other in-class group activities.

In conclusion, the implementation of blended courses may provide a significant impact to my future development and delivery of instructional courses. As identified in my original question, effectiveness and efficiency are two important keys to the ongoing success for my current course covering cybercrime and upcoming courses on internet privacy and cybersecurity. With this in mind, I envision offering these three courses in blended mode along with online versions at the start so that I can make proper adjustments for effectively and efficiently delivering higher learning experiences to my future students.

--Corey

Certified Google YouTube Digital Citizenship

Today, I earned Google's YouTube Digital Citizenship Certification by passing the online examination. My official test record can be viewed here. Studying for the exam was actually an enjoyable task as I gained new insight into YouTube's safety and privacy policies and tools. The next Google certifications I plan to take are the Google Analytics certification and the Google Educator certification.

--Corey

Survivor Cagayan Prediction

After years of not watching Survivor, I finally returned to watching the show this past season, Survivor Cagayan. Even though I do not subscribe to cable, I can still watch the show on Amazon's Instant Video service. Nevertheless, this past season has been a treat, to say the least, for watching because of all the new players, twists, and location. Since tonight is the finale, I will attempt to predict who will be voted out and of course, the eventual winner.

Analyzing the final four, I predict the next player to go will be Kass since she is considerably weak at physical challenges. With the final three consisting of Tony, Spencer, and Woo, the next to be voted out after losing the final immunity challenge will be Tony leaving Spencer and Woo for the final tribal council. After answering the jury's questions and debating their reasons why they each should win the million dollars, my final prediction is for Spencer to be named sole Survivor.

All in all, it has been a great season to watch as a fan, a social science researcher, and a Lord of the Flies true adorer. I look forward to watching the next season with the hope of no returning players and all brand new players similar to Cagayan.

--Corey

Quality Assurance in Blended Learning

Focusing on this week's readings from my blended learning course, many questions need to be not only investigated, but also answered regarding my upcoming development and delivery of blended instructional courses. First, the question of following standardized rules and procedures for creating and instructing blended learning courses exist due to its location within the early stages of a product's life cycle. Second, instructional effectiveness was also questioned and must be addressed. The need for learners to transfer newly gained knowledge to real world applications is a critical issue for developing credibility of blended learning. Finally, a conclusion is offered for perhaps providing insight on how I may resolve issues and questions pertaining to standards and instructional effectiveness for blended learning courses.

In the reading, the lack of a formalized, authoritative body to oversee standards of blended learning was declared and discussed which translates into that the blended learning discipline is in the infantile stage and still evolving. This point was an important concern for me since I have previous experience in researching authority bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN), and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) regarding the standardization of internet protocols, web development, and cyber infrastructure. The commonality between all three of these organizations mentioned is that they are formed as nonprofits, but more importantly, tax exempt public charities for the purpose of serving the general public. With this in mind, the formation of a nonprofit organization may be a possible solution for moving forward and developing standardized blended learning course development, best practices, and open source tools which also do not exist, but were mentioned as a major problem within the discipline. Furthermore, the question of efficiency and collaboration may also be resolved if a consortium of organizations networked together to share information and strategies under the helpful hand of a neutral and public serving nonprofit organization for advancing blended learning.

Besides the need for standards and a governing body, instructional effectiveness was a a major point realized from the week's reading. In my attempt to provide effective blended learning courses in real estate science and other disciplines, I plan to develop Google Docs forms for students to submit their feedback. Both formative and summative, student feedback during and after course delivery will be a key component for my instructional development because of their alternative perspectives will render new information outside of my instructional role. The other key component for my continued growth in delivering effective blended courses will be the requesting and collecting of peer review feedback. Peer review feedback may also provide ideal and timely information for improving blended learning course delivery since others may have already encountered the same issues within their courses.

In sum, my approach for developing and delivering blended learning courses covering real estate science will be a consistent, researched approach for helping students build new knowledge. Nevertheless, it is important as an instructor and researcher to stay abreast of the latest scientific research findings concerning blended learning by reading peer reviewed articles found in academic journals. Moreover, I will also pay close attention to other academic instructors' views and methods by perhaps subscribing to mailing lists, joining forums, and attending workshops involving blended learning best practices. Lastly, the academic community within the University of Central Florida will continue to be a main resource for me to lean on as I continue to develop and deliver blended online courses.

--Corey