Help Conserve Water!

        It might be hard the get the concept but the world is actually running out of water. Of course we have wide vast oceans but it is extremely expensive to convert salt water to pure, fresh water. There are so many countries in the world that don’t have enough water. In the U.S we are so lucky to have a working shower and kitchen sink and we take it for granted. There are so many things we can do to help preserve water. The first and probably most important is to stop taking super long showers. I am a victim of taking long showers and I have to say that it is hard to quit but it is really important that you do because all of that water just gets washed down the drain. Another thing is not to leave the faucet running for too long. Just remember that there are little things you can do to preserve water because we are so lucky to have more than enough, where as in parts of the world people have to walk miles to get water for them and their family. We are so lucky.

For more information about the water movement: click here!

Google Docs.

     One tool that I think is really important in the classroom is Google Documents. It is a web tool to create documents (like word documents) but you can have multiple people work on it at the same time from different computers. It is great for group projects or for teachers to make changes to it or comment on it. It is also great for taking notes in class because multiple people can have access to it. It is a great tool to use in the classroom and it makes group projects go so much smoother if everyone can’t meet in one place to type up something. You can upload photos and type just like on a word document. It is really helpful in class and I think it is a tool that defiantly should be used in classrooms.

It Can Be Too Much

School  can be very overwhelming sometimes. Especially in high school. There is so much going on that teachers forget that their students have 6 other classes to deal with. For example if a teacher gives homework tonight (let’s say it's Monday), a 1 page essay due in a week, and a quiz on Friday. Then another teacher assigns homework tonight, a quiz Wednesday and then a test next Monday. And let’s say 3 or 4 other teachers do the same thing but instead of an essay due next week, it’s a project. Or instead of a test next week, it's a presentation. It becomes a huge overload of work. All of these assignments are a big part of your grade so you can't slack off on any of them. It gets crazy to think when you get home Monday afternoon you have to think about all the homework due tomorrow, then  the essay, the test, the projects due next week, and the quizzes  this week. Students can get really stressed and most students do extra activities after school which makes it all even harder to maintain. I think teachers need to spread out the work they are giving or give less of it because 7 classes a day is bad enough and then they have to give so much work to do at home on top of the work the students do in school. Somethimes it can be too much.   

Being Good/Not Good at School

After reading this small article about being good at school  it got me thinking about the students that are good at school and the students that aren't. I really like how he siad that school is like playing frisbee. You can be good at it but if it has nothing to do with what you want to persue then it's almost pointless. I definatly think all classes should be about things the kids are intrested in. If you play frisbee and you don't like it, you are not going to try or do you best in it. It becomes boring to you. This is the same in school. I definatly think students should try different subjects to see if you like it but it only takes about 1 game of frisbee to decide if you lwould like to play again. It doesnt take a whole year for a student to find out if they like a certian school subject.

iPads in the Classroom

The question had always been Mac or PC, but since the iPad came out it is almost like another kind of computer. I think it is a great idea for students to have iPads in class. They cost so much less that laptops and most of the millions of apps they have are free. If schools were to get iPads instead of laptops they would be saving about 50% of what they would be paying for students to have laptops. I feel that there are two downfalls to having students have iPads. iPad's are much more delicate than laptops and high school students aren't really graceful people. The iPads will definitely break if dropped on the floor with no case. Also I feel like the iPad has the capability to becoming very distracting. Of course students will be distracted with laptops anyway but most have worked on laptops before or know how to use them because they are just like any other computer only portable. iPad's are new, and many students haven't even played on the iPad for more than 10 minutes. It will defiantly take a while for students to get used to it and not getting distracted by all the apps they can get. I don’t think iPads are hard to learn how to use, I just think they have so many capabilities that it’s hard not to get distracted.  Even though these downfalls are very important I think that the iPad still should be the choice for a high school learning technology because when the kids graduate and have careers, who know what technology will be out then.     

Intresting Things of the Future

I went on Time Magazine's website and there was a list of the top 50 inventions of 2010 and some inventions caught my eye:

- The first one that I thought was incredible was a bus that drives on the highway that is raised above the cars and drives on a rail track on the highway. It goes slower than the normal highway speed but it allows cars to pass underneath it. Also, if something goes wrong with it, and it stops, cars can still pass underneath it and it won’t cause traffic. It is in China right now and they are waiting for permission for test runs.  It the picture below it is at a rest stop on the highway but it doesn’t block traffic. Genius.

- Another invention that caught my eye was "the car from the future" it was invented in Hungary and it is called the Antro Solo. It can fit up to 3 people (including the driver). One thing that is really interesting is that the driver is in the middle of the car and the passengers are on either side of them. The passengers have peddles and they peddle for electricity for the car. The car’s main's source comes from an electric motor that gets its power from solar panels.

- Lastly, People are trying to figure out ways to get natural energy source but they keep thinking wind is the best choice (wind turbines) but instead of wind, why don’t they use ocean currents? A Swedish company called Minesto created and underwater kite that gets energy from the ocean's currents. They say it generates 800 times more energy than sky sources. Even in calm waters it can generate 500 kilowatts of power!

No More Snow Days???

     I saw on the news a couple of days ago that a school in Columbus, Ohio is making it so on snow days, students can go online at home and either go on video chat or work online with other students. I think this is a little much for the students. Snow days are someing kids hope for in the winter; just to have a surprize to wake up in the morning and realized you dont have to go to school and get to sleep in.  I think there will be many problems with this because since there is bad weather, the power could go out or the students will just not do it and act like it's a regular snow day. The kids are stressed enough from school and they should get a sudden break from it once and a while. Snow days are rare and I think they are something that should have absolutly nothing to do with school except for the fact that there is none.

This is one article that I found on it that quickly summarizes what this school is doing.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms Respose

The Video

 I defiantly agree to what he was saying. I really like the part when he was talking about ADHD and how kids keep getting distracted and how it is not a health issue, it’s the way they are being taught. I think that the paperclip test that he was talking about was also very interesting and it was very important to understand that they first tested kindergarteners. This showed that it is because they are taught a certain way and their thinking is decreasing in these schools and the way they can solve problems is becoming worse. This is a very good video and the animation and speech really helps to understand this growing education problem.   

Google Timeline

     One easy way to view the news today, instread of looking at different news websites, is Google Timeline. It writes out all of the news like a timeline and has the dates at the top so it is all cronologicly organized. There is also a search at the top if you are looking for something inparticular. You can look up everything in the news from sports, to quotes, to music and movies. It is really haelpful if you just want to look up current events quickly.

Get a Voki now!

Creative Learning=Creative Thinking

There is so much information and talk about students, no matter what grade they are in, and about the way they are learning in school and how kids aren’t learning the right way and how they aren’t as focused because they don’t see the point in it. The key to making a solution for this is to teach and learn creatively. My sister is dyslexic and has gone to two private schools in Massachusetts and the way they teach is completely different compared to many public schools. It might seem that they teach in a imaginative way because they are teaching dyslexics and that is absolutely true but why can’t students in public schools be taught the same way? There is nothing wrong with this way and it will defiantly improve the students’ attitude towards school.  The teachers at these schools get their students involved in the class more and think of creative ways to make the students understand and absorb everything. My sister is 2 grades below me and all of her subjects in school have all gone past what I learned this year at least a year ago. The students don’t feel like they are pounded with work because of the creative way they were taught and they get through the material faster because they are not going directly by textbook. Even though they have to teach the curriculum, they do it in a way that the students understand and remember and this helps them get prepared for college and jobs. Companies are looking for the most creative people, not the people who know everything. They stress communication in the schools she has been through and they want to make the students feel that they are the most important people in the building, not the teachers and staff. Creativity is defiantly an important feature in education and should be stressed in schools today.   

Ways To Get More People To Look at Your Blog

     Adding gagets to your blog is very helpful. It gives a visual to the reader looking on your blog. Another way to get more people to look at your blog it to make it organized, instead of just writing random facts, write what you think and maybe the reader feels the same way. Blogging is very different from just wring facts on a website, it is all an opinion and there are many people with the same opinion as you. I think that one of the most impirnat things about intresting blogs is how they look. When someone goes on a blog they usuall look around and then read. If it looks apealing to the eye, then people will find it more intresting. I try to use all of these techniques and they are becomming very helpful to me.

Zotero (the research tool)

Zotero is a research tool that works with firefox and helps keep track of your research, such as links and notes. It is all neatly organized on the bottom rigth corner of your browser so you always have it when you are online. I have used this many times and it is so helpful. I really like how if I need to do a citation on a link and don't remember what website i used, I can go down to Zotero and find it easily. I also really like how you can write little notes with each link and write about each website. So when I am looking for a certian website in Zotero I don't have to look at each one, i can just read my little notes and figure out which one I want to look at. Zotero is really helpful for school research projects or anything that requires looking at alot of links for information.  

Personal Learning Networks Are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids

This article (Personal Learning Networks Are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids) is about a teacher who's students have a Personal Learning Network. She says it is helpful with projects and researching because they can put whatever they are researching on their PLN. It is good to know that this will help me a lot in school. She also says that it is a "virtual locker" because it keeps changing when more information is put onto it. This teacher monitors her student's PLN very often. She makes sure all of the kids computers are visible from where she is teaching so she can make sure they aren't distracted with something else on their computer. ( I don't really understand how she does this because the students are facing her, so the computer screens shouldn't be visible from where she is teaching but maybe she has a certain technique) I think that a PLN would be fairly helpful for high school students as long as they are focus and willing to work on it. I think that it is possible for the students to drift off from it because it is another thing that takes up time in their busy high school lives but i also think it is worth it.

Teens Lacking Online Ethics

I think kids need to be responsible online beacause it refects who they are and it could get them into trouble if they are not responsible. I agree with the Harvard Study Finds Teens Online Lack Ethics when it says that there are many ways to help teens be responsible on the web and on social networks such as Facebook. Many kids however are responsible online and on social networks and they have ethics and know to track what they are doing online.

Building My PLN(Personal Learning Network)

A PLN is a Personal Learning Network where I will have the things I am intrested in on it. I am intrested in Art Design, Music, and Dance and my PLN will refect that. I will start by stating what I am intrested in and then eventually finding people with the same intrests.

Response on video for principal who banned facebook from his students

I believe that there is nothing wrong with Facebook, it's the kids who are doing the wrong things on it and not acting appropriately. I think that if you ban Facebook from all these kids, its not going to stop them going on it at all. Most have access to computers, so they will defiantly go on even if they are banned from it. Also, what about the students that did nothing wrong on Facebook? Are they banned from it too, because that would just be unfair. Facebook is a social network that can be used for important things other that socializing with friends and i think that the principal needs to know that.

Principal who banned Facebook from his students video

5 Easy Steps For Students To Establish Their Personal Brand Using Social Networking

These 5 steps for students are helpful for highschoolers getting ready to go to college and finding a carreer they enjoy. Using social networking will definatly help students develop a platform to start fiuring out what they want to do.

5 Easy Steps For Students To Establish Their Personal Brand Using Social Networking

Erin's Blog

My 1st blog for web 2.0 class.