PLN 15

I thought this was a very interesting because I have never heard of Web 2.0. This is something alot of people probably do not know about. The most likly reason why is because it is a social network like Myspace and Facebook. The only difference is that Web 2.0 is more educational and not based on pictures and friends as much as facebook and Myspace.
Now do not get me wrong, this socail network still has many of the same features as those other websites do. It includes

-Identity

-Presence

-Relationships

-Conversations

-Groups

-Reputation

-Sharing
But what I think is really great about this new website is that it is alot more safe. Because it is more educational and not as many people are on it many people can join it and still feel safe. But can I have just a little more information in it because this sounds very interesting. This is a great social network for teachers mostly right?


I think that my parents would love this because it is not as unprotected as those other social networks. I know my parents would be happy about this because they grounded me for a month for haveing a Myspace because they think it is dangerous. But what are some more of the uses of this website? Could this be a way for students to comunicate with their teachers while they are at home? Then students would be able to get help with homework at home and many other things. Wow this could be a a huge step in social networking and in students education!

This is the link to the post by Dave Warlick in 2 scents worth titled Implementing Social Networks

PLN 14

Mr. Fisch,
I like that this post talks about all the things that teachers can do to improve. All the things yuo listed seemed very helpful to becoming a teacher, but I know that most teachers do not do it. Like visiting and observing other teachers as they teach and many other things.I think this is a great post because it really shows how much teachers can improve. Most of the teachers I have at AHS are really good and do most of these things, but not all of them. Like the example I said before and things like going to workshops or seminars and other schools to see how they can improve the way they teach.

Last year I had a teacher that had no control over my class and you could tell that she taught the same thing every year. You could tell that she was tired of her job and was just there becuase she needed to money. She had no passion for her job anymore. All the things you listed for becoming a better teacher involve having a passion for teaching. Ms. Smith obviously has a passion for her job because she is always going to different states or conferences to leanr how to become a better teacher. I know that she does not teach the same thing every year, she grades in her own way, and she always is having people come in to our class to observe the new and different way we are learing.

I think more teachers need to do this and if they do not want to, then they obviously do not truly want to become a teacher. Because they job of a teacher is very important. They are preparing the future. The students are the future and if they aren't taught properly, then the world is in alot of trouble in the years to come. So even though some people do not think that being a teacher is very important but it really is.

PLN Reflection

I think that I did pretty well for this presentation because I was very comfortable when I was up there unlike last semester when I used to talk fast and was really nervous and played with my hair alot. I did move around alot which probably was not good. But I think that I made alot of eye contact, alot more than usual. This is also my last PLN presentation for the year. There were some parts where I sounded like I did not know what my PLN was about but what actually happened was I lost my place and I was trying to find it. I know that I could have done alot better on my question. But overall I think I did a pretty good job for my last PLN presentation.

PLN 13

Mr. Richardson,

I don’t really think that googling people to find out more things about them is such a good thing. To me it seems like an invasion of privacy. Some people like to put things on their MySpace that don’t really represent who they are. So when an employer is about to hire someone for a really good job, but then they decide not to because there is a cuss word or strange comments on that persons MySpace it just doesn’t seem fair.

When I read this article I thought it would be interesting to Google myself and see what came up. But mostly what came up was my time for the races I ran in Cross country and the things that are on Ms. Smith’s blog. But what I did find was a project that I didn’t do very well on posted by Ms. Smith. I just think that employers should give people a break and see how they are going to do working with you, not based off of what is on a not very reliable social network.

I know some friends who have MySpaces and put things on there that aren’t who they are at all. They tend to post not very appropriate pictures, comments, blogs, and many other things. But my friends are all very good people and aren’t who they say they are on the internet. They all have really good grades, respect themselves, don’t do drugs or alcohol, don’t cuss, and many other good things. So you see the internet isn’t reliable at all.

http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/making-kids-googlable/#comment-52352 Link to website I commented on.

PLN 12

I think the post What Do We Know About Our Kids’ Futures? Really. it talks about something that most parents don't really care about. They may say they do, but they are more concerned with thier own lives like work. They don't understand that they need to help their kids with school so that they will have a bright future. The future is so unpredictable, but there are ways for parents to still prepare them for it like by making them eat healthier and be more active so that they can learn how to eat well and be fit when they are older. Here are some more of the tips Will Richardson offered in his blog.

• Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”
  
• More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.
  
• More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.
  
• Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.
  
• More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.
  
• Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.
  
• More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.
  
• Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.

What matters to me:

I think these are all great tips that could help improve the adults of the future. It helps with so many aspects that could be different in the future like the enviornment, health, jobs, people. The world is constantly changing with the development of new technologies and new jobs. With this is new people. People change along with the world so I want to be prepared for the new changes in the future. What will happen if I don't help the enviorment and in 60 years we are all out of our energy resources and the earth is trashed and everyone is really really fat and not smart, then what will we do?

PLN 11

Now I know that everyone is doing this PLN and that its unoriginal for me to do write about it too, but it relates to me so much that I just feel like I have to read it. If you haven't figured out which article I'm talking about already, I've been talking about the article 7 Simple Ways to Burst Out of Bed Each Morning. This article contains so many helpful tips that could help teens get much more sleep which will just make their day so much better and easier.

What Matters:
Some of the tips that were given in this article that I found very helpful was
1. Find a waking hour that will work best for you each day of the week, you should stick to it. This will allow your body to want to support you in your endeavor of waking up, and rise you out of bed.
2. Eat small, light meals in the evening, but alot in the morning (which is normally the opposite for me.
3. Take extra steps in creating fun, life changing goals, and scheduling specific ways of how we'll get a step closer to these goals during this coming day. What we all need is not necessary a cause we're willing to die for, but at least a cause we're willing to LIVE for. (This is my favorite and seems like a really clever and good idea!)
4. Planning is one of the fundamental ways to maximize your mind to achieve your goals, and as such it plays a critical role in allowing us to have an awesome day, everyday. (I don't think I would use this very much because that is what I do pretty much already and it still doesn't work.)
5. A bit of water before bed and half a liter as soon as you get up. The water before bed will serve in the rejuvenation process we mentioned above. While you sleep all your cells will fill up with this fresh water and create an over all well being within your body. ( I think I should start doing this because I need to start drinking more water for track anyways, so this would be good for me.)
6. Excercise in the morning because it gets your blood flowing and gives you energy. ( I don't have time to do this at all. But I do excercise in the afternoon. Would that help?)
7. Have "ME" time in the morning. Just some small way to pamper yourself to make your morning just a little brighter. ( I don't have time for this either! I never have time for that, even after school.)

What Matters To Me:
I think this was a great article to read, but it also has alot of ideas that most people do not have time for in the morning so we can't use them. But also alot of these ideas were really helpful and i think that I will start using them, because it would just help me get up in the morning way easier. All these things would help with track also. I also already do some of these tips like planning out my day, which I have to because of school, friends, sports, homework, drivers ed, ect. But that tip doesn't seem to work very well because it just makes me not excited about the bad parts of me day. I still think this is a great article and could help me sleep better and could improve my day, attidude and physical activity so much.

PLN 10

TodayI found a very shocking article in the Denver Post by Tom McGee. The title of the article is TB found at Sterling prison. This article talks about a Sterling Correctional Facility prisoner has been diagnosed with tuberculosis. I picked this article because it was very unsettling to know that TB is out there. It is the cause of many peoples deaths in the 1900s. But now that it is back I am kind of afraid.

What matters:
I know that there is a vaccine for TB. But we thought that it did not exist in our world. But how did this man even get TB? What makes me angery is that the man had been diagnosed for it two years ago. But since he did not have any symptoms they did not think that he was a danger to the other prisoners. The TB victum is serving time for menacing and drug-related charges since 2001. The man was sent to a Denver hospital, along with other prisoners with him and guards who had come in contact with him. He just started showing symptoms so now he is a huge danger to everyone around him. All the people who might have been infected by him are not allowed to have visitors until they are done being tested for the disease and do not have it. It could be very bad if the disease got out.

What matters to me:
This is something that is pretty scary to me because they may have found a vaccine for TB but not a cure. The only thing we can do is take to the vaccine before we even have a chance of getting it. It also makes me very angery that he knew that he had it and still went around and he could have gotten everyone that he ever came in conact with TB. He could cause several people to die from it. One of my biggest fears in getting a deadly disease like cancer or the plague. The plague is the most scary to me because it was so horrible and was the cause of thousands of lost lives. I just hope that the other prisoners and guards do not have TB now.

PLN Relfection

I think this is the best I have done on my PLN presentations so far. I explained my points but didn't take took long and also wasn't to short. I also wasn't as nervous as I normally am for my PLN presentations. I was alot more confortable explaining my veiws. The PLNs I picked to present were the most interesting for the class. Also my question was pretty controversial so alot of my class mates had answers for my question. I think the only thing I need to work on is not talking so far and not rushing through my presentation. I also really really need to work on looking at the audience more because I always seem to rely on my notes and that is what nearly everyone said when the commented my presentation.

PLN 9

This is a very controversail subject that i discovered in the Denver Post. The article was titled Boy, 8, suspended after sniffing Sharpie marker . What really caught my eye when I saw this article was the fact that a third grader was supsended for "huffing" a sharpie. This just sounds rediculous.

What matters:
Ok so if it had been a middle schooler who was suspended for this action then I would think it was a reasonable punishment because that student needs to learn that they should never sniff a sharpie to get high. But the fact that it was a little third grader who got suspended for three days at Harris Park Elementary School because of this just seems ridiculous. I don't think 8 year old Eathan Harris even knew the severeness of his actions. I don't think he even knew what huffing, or getting high is. Principal Chris Benisch says that the boy was punished so severly because the markers present a serious safety risk if misused. I don't think that elementary schools should be spending so muc time worrying that an 8 year old is trying to get high off of a sharpie. I think schools should be focusing more on other things like preventing middle and high schools students from getting pregnant, doing drugs, and getting drunk.

What matters to me:
There are serveral techniques to getting high without using weed and other drugs. It used to be only high school students got drugs and did things like get high off of sharpies or white out. But as the years go by more and more younger students are getting into that kind of stuff. Like Powell Middle school or example. Now I went to that school for all three years and my grade was only a little like that. The younger grades are even worse than most of the high schoolers at AHS. So I can see why the younger schools are cracking down on drugs and getting high off of school supplies. But can you seriously think that a third grader would try to get high off of sharpie. He probably sniffed it cause he was curious and he liked the smell. He is only a little kid. Especially since he drew on his shirt with the sharpie after he smelled it. That shows that he was just being a little kid.

PLN 8

When Laren presented on Friday I though the article by Associated Press titled Teacher OK'd beating of tardy student, police say. I thougt that this article was very important to discuss because this is a very serious matter. In my PLN today I'm going to be talking about my views on this matter.

What matters:
His name is Brian Havel. He is just 22 years old. He was an English teacher at Delta High School. Now he was not big on tardies, so whenever a student was tardy he would make them do a certain amount of sit ups or push ups in a certain amount of time. Now this may seem like just a joke to you, but this was not a joke for Mr. Havel. This was a serious matter and if you didn't do the push ups or sit ups in the time that he told you then he allowed his students to beat the student. The student that this happened to was around 15 or 16 years of age. But when he was told to do all this he refused. So then one of the students asked to beat the student for not doing the punishment and the teacher told him he could so 10 to 15 students participated in hitting the student. Thankfully the student wasn't injured. Its unknown if Mr. Havel still works at Delta high school.

What matters to me:
If this ever happened in our school I know that the teacher would be fired immediately and the student would be taken care of. But this case is a very hard one to argue because it all depends on whether the teacher and students were just kidding a took a joke just a little too far. Because I had a teacher like that year but he was only kidding. It doesn't seem like the students were hitting him very hard either because he has not injuries. I don't think that teacher made the right desicion by telling the students they could hurt their fellow class mate. Thar just seems sketchy to me and not right. I think that his punishment should be that he is fired from working at Delta high school but nothing more because it's not that big of a deal in the first place.

PLN 7

Today I came across another interesting article called Another Shift by Karl Fisch. This article is way different from what Karl Fisch normally writes about but it was very interesting and has to do a little bit with what I'm learning in ERE. It talks about the possibility of a wind powered car which would help the enviornment alot and conserve alot of energy.

What matters:
This may sound like a silly idea and it is merely an idea. But don't be so sure. Israel and Denmark are already working on this new enviornment friendly car. The science behind this is that the strongest winds come at night and night time is when cars are just sitting. So if they developed a wind powered car then it would create alot of energy like a windmills. This will conserve gas and energy and money. Alot of money is already being put into this in Israel and Denmark to make this possible. It isn't clear how long it will take before it is actually working and
efficient. The world is polluted everyday and so much energy is being wasted with every second. Cars also use alot of energy and gas. Gas is also very very expensive. But if these wind powered cars are actually built and sold, then we won't have to pay high prices for gas anymore and not only will our money be saved, but so will our natural resources.

What matters to me:
In ERE we have been learning about global warming and the envornment. I have noticed that ever since we started learning about it I have been more concious of the enviorment and have been trying to be conservative of the enviornment by turning off the lights and picking up trash so when I heard about this I was very happy about it cause this would help alot. But what surprised me is that Denmark and Israel are trying to build it. If they did it that would mean they were ahead in technology. That was surprising because the US is normally always ahead in those types of things.