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.