To be able to express yourself is the key to sucess

After reading "Rigor Redefined" by Tony Wagner I learned what the world is expecting from us today.  From what I have heard my parent had much different expectation when they were young. Most everyone had pretty good communication skills. As our technology has progressed our generations skills to communicate in real life environment have rapidly decreased. It is much easier to just send someone an email or a text message. To have good communication skills and still keep up with the technology is key in this day and age. I would almost say our expectations have decreased in some areas of the work force. If a requirement as simple as being able to communicate is key, and other skills are not as important that shows what the world is like today. Our technology is great, but our communication skills should not suffer because of it. Our generation needs to work on being able to communicate in real world situations. As well as using our technology to our advantage to. As the world progresses, we need to adjust ourselves to change with it.

We are in charge of our own infromation.

After watching Wesch's video “Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us” it made me realize where our information is really coming from. People rely on the webs information every day, not always thinking about where the information comes from. I know that I never really bother to look who wrote what I am reading, or any of the background informaton from it.This video made me realize we are really the source of our own knowledge. We are the key to spreading it as well. I look up things and do not think about the time it took for this person to put their knowledge out in the world. I think that those people should get more credit for what they do. We need to be more appreciative of the people who take the time to put their work out their. Maybe even become more brave and share our knowldege with the world. It is very interesting how one little idea can turn into a life changing development for people. All things started with just one idea. I think we should all put our ideas out there no matter what other people think of it. One idea could change a life. That is why we need to express our opinions and help eachother.  

To much stress?

After reading CNN’s “CU press says state funding could be cut 50 percent more” it made me realize how much the stress of going to a high rated college is. As I am only 14 you would think I would not know much about what it is like to choose a college. I am 14 and I am already worrying about how one grade can affect my whole life, and about what colleges I would like to go to.  I know that a lot of jobs look at what schools you went to and if you got a “high end education”. Especially in these rough economic times you don’t want to look “not up to standards” on your resume. It also makes me think why is it that our high school grades affect what college we go to, and our college depends on what jobs we get? We are so young and still trying to figure things out at these ages. By things, I mean just about everything. Yet they set the tone for the rest of our lives. Is that a lot of pressure or what? We have only been able to make small mistakes, now we are faced with failing a test could ruin your GPA, which could ruin your college chances. Should all of our future really depend on our adolescence? Silly little mistakes we make while we are young can affect us forever, which adds a lot of stress to every thing we do. It can also be a good thing though too. To make us grow up faster and jump into reality. The stress may be a little too much though.

How would you feel, trapped in a cave?

            After reading BBC News’ Trapped Chilean miners 'could be reached by Saturday' it made me think about how long a process it was to get even this close to saving those miners lives. With all of our technological advancement today, it seems as though the miners should have been saved earlier. I cannot even imagine how hard it must be for the miners and their families, both emotionally and financially.  If this could happen to future miners, should we still let them do it? Is it worth the risk of missing two months of your life trapped in a cave? If there are dangers like this in a job, there should be a way to fix it much quicker! I cannot even imagine what those families are going through. Waking up every day and wondering if his or her dad, brother, father or friend is still alive. I would not be able to handle the pressure. Not only do they have that on their mind, they have to continue working so they are not in even more trouble. I truly feel very bad for everyone involved in this, and I hope that if this happens again there will be something ready just in case.

While reading Will Richardson’s “Educational Leadership” I thought about how not only are the advances in technology are affecting my generation, but how it is affecting the adults. I always thought it was so hard on us to have to learn about all these new things, that no one else knows exactly how to teach us about it. It is frustrating at times, but we learn how to fend for ourselves. It must be just as, or maybe even more frustrating for adults. They grew up in a different time where some of these new advances may have sounded alien to them, now they are expected to learn how to use them. They didn’t get to learn it while they were just children like us. They have to forget about how things used to be, and get ready for a whole lot of change! While they are facing this, they also somehow have to try to help us prepare for the world we are going into. To me, that would be the most frustrating thing of all! Adults are usually giving out there knowledge to us, but now it’s our turn to help them. It is like the students teaching the teachers. I am assuming not all adults like to be taught by a younger generation, but in a case like this we all need to stick together and figure it out together.

Another Internet story.

After reading BBC News’ article Girl's horror as 21,000 RSVP Facebook party invite, I thought really hard about what the dangers of being online really are. As a teenager in the twenty first century, the usual day for us is to do homework and be on a social networking site at some point as well.  I know that I should never give out my personal information out to anyone, but what if I didn’t know this? What if I didn’t know the dangers of being online? I know that several people do know the dangers, yet they still do things that put them at risk. So I wonder, why is this? Why do people post and give out information that they know they shouldn’t? I believe the reason is because they don’t think that anything could happen to them. They think that those things only happen to other people. The dangers of giving out information online are very high. This girl only trying to invite people to her party could have put herself in great danger. As I read this I tried to think of everything I have online. What if I had something online that could lead someone to me? Just a simple fact that I have put online could have led some one right to me. It is a scary thought. We are only taught the basics of “what not to do online”, but I believe that some of the very important details are being left out. When this girl sent out this invite, she was not expecting the results. What if she had not acted, and several strangers had shown up t her party?  Simple facts like this should be taught at school, because with almost everyone on the Internet these days the facts need to be known.

The Change in our thought process

In Nicholas Carr's "Is Google making us Stupid?” he talks about the different ways the Internet is making us think. He mentions some of the side affects of being on the Internet, for example we cannot read as long of stories or articles as we once had been able to. I feel that Nicholas Carr makes some great points. Personally, I can tell how much harder of a task reading long things has become. Even reading this article was a struggle. The Internet has in fact made it easier for us to find information fast, but the question is, do we really get all the information from the Internet that we would from a book? I would think most of the time we do not. If we really sat there and read a book based on the information we were researching, we would probably know much more on that topic. The problem is, that most people have found that it is very hard to concentrate on a book for hours. I wonder, why is this though? It used to just be natural to be able to read a book for a long period of time. Now, it is a struggle that many people are facing. I myself know that I skim articles and books, just to get the main point. It is a sad truth, that we are loosing a skill because a new opportunity has emerged. Our knowledge can be great, if we learn how to concentrate and use the Internet correctly. It will take some time, but I believe we can do it.

More teachers = Better eduactaion

Tammy Luhby’s Teaching: No longer a recession-proof Job really got me thinking about the state of our education. After reading this story about a woman who was trying to start her life in education, and be a teacher. Although she has searched, there does not seem to be any jobs out there for her, especially with all the teachers getting cut from loss of money. This made me think about the students. How does this affect us? With all these teachers getting cut, wont it affect our learning to? When we have a smaller class, we usually learn better. This is because there is more time for the teacher to help us personally. With fewer teachers, this means more kids per teacher. Is there no way we can try to reduce the number of teacher loosing their jobs? It is not only affecting those fired and their families, but it is also affecting our education. With more kids per teacher there will be less time for the teacher to focus on what our needs are personally. In order for our education to better, we need some one on one time with our teachers. I do not see this happening with such large classes. How do we fix this? I am not sure, but we need to try and find the things that our not necessary to try to keep as many teachers in our schools as possible. It is very important that we get the best education possible.

A new outlook

   Watching Michael Wesch's "A Vision of students today" put 21st century learning into perspective for me. It shows how into technology everyone is. If most of the students are not even paying attention in class then why pay so much for them? If most of the jobs that will be out there in the futuer dont even exist today, then how are we supposed to prepare for them? It is a scary way to look at things. Noticing how many more web pages are visited than books read is also very interesting. Are we going to get to a point where books dont even exist anymore? With everything that we learn in class, how will it prepare us for our future? They were right when they said only 26% is going to be relevant to their life. How are we supposed to fix the problems we have if we have no training to do so? Is the use of technology going to far?  How can we prepare ourselves for the future? These are all very important questions, that i dont know the answers to, but would like to.