“Footprints in the Digital Age” By Will Richardson

            In the article “Footprints in the Digital Age” by Will Richardson it really describes how we as students need to think about how we are using the internet to better our learning whenever we are using it. It really makes you think about how the students in today’s world need to use the technology they have to better their learning and to extend the knowledge they have about the things they are passionate about in their day to day lives.

            In the article Richardson describes this process as “being Googled well.” What he means by this is when people find the things we post about, blog about, etc. we want them to connect with what we are sharing while they read and also connect with us personally to share the knowledge from person to person about whatever the subject may be. By doing this we can extend our knowledge on whatever subject we wish, but we just have to grasp how this is to be done in the right way.

Richardson also wants us to think about how “The things we create are searchable to an extent never before imagined and will be viewed by all sorts of audiences, both intended and unintended.” The most important part of this to me was that people that we don’t intend to see the things we post on the internet are going to whether we like it or not. Plus if we didn’t want to risk someone outside of the intended audience to view what is it we are posting about we shouldn’t be posting it to start with. The reason for my belief of how important this is to students of our age group is because of the things we post on our social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. We don’t really give a second thought to all the things we say on those sites because we don’t even take into consideration who will end up seeing that, whether by mistake or not. I really could connect to this on a deeper level because I know how dangerous the internet can be if not used in the right way and that if I personally am not careful about the things I say and do they really could haunt me for the rest of my life. And I’m careful when posting because I know that even if I delete something, it will never truly be off the internet. That is not how I want to be Googled. I want to be Googled for things that hopefully people with the same interest or passion will be able to connect with. Then I want them to be able to use the internet to connect with me and share knowledge to take my learning network to the next level. I don’t want to ruin the reputation I get on the internet before it is even really there. That’s why I’m going to make the smart decisions about what I post so that I can to be on my way to being Googled well.

"First day of fall brings autumnal equinox Wednesday"

            In the short but sweet article “First day of fall brings autumnal equinox Wednesday” by Jeanine Junell it explains how that on this past Wednesday (September 22, 2010) there was a very rare equinox going on right above us. At the exact moment of 9:09pm (MDL time) the center of the Sun was directly over the Earth’s equator. What is the significance of this? Well because of the Earth’s tilted axis this gave us almost exactly 12 hours of night and 12 hours of day. This still may not sound very important, but the reason it is so rare is because it happened while there was a full moon. Also called the harvest moon. This event last occurred in 1991 and won’t be coming back until 2029.

            I chose this article because I really am interested by the changing seasons. Along with our solar system and the orbit patterns that go on in it. The thing the stuck out to me the most about this article was the fact that it happens barely ever, but it still isn’t recognized as a rare event as most people didn’t even know it was going on yesterday.

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

            In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr he talks a lot about how the internet is changing the way we read and how we comprehend and make connections to the things we read, because when we read things off of the internet we have become accustomed to skimming whatever is it that we are reading. He explained how he used to be able to spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose and being able to analyze and make connections to what he was reading, but now he finds it a struggle to stay focused after two to three pages. I know how he feels when it comes to this, because unless I am reading something that I’m really connected to or really interested in my mind drifts away while I read. It’s almost like I never read it in the first place. The part about this I don’t understand is how he explains that he loses his concentration after two to three pages, but then he writes this article that is eight pages long. A lot of those pages to me also seemed very off topic and somewhat random. Then again a lot of it really made sense to me and made me think about how reading articles and letters off the internet really changes our learning. It made me question do we depend on the internet for our learning too much? Or maybe do not even depend on it enough? I wonder this because if we can’t comprehend things well enough when we read them on the internet maybe we should practice reading things on the internet so that we have the ability to understand and fully read everything instead of just skimming.

            In this article I believe the main focus was supposed to be on the supercomputer HAL that’s idea is being constructed by the makers of Google. The Idea of HAL is to somehow connect this so called “ingenious” device to the human brain to technically upgrade our intelligence. I don’t believe this would be a good idea what so ever because in my honest opinion it sounds like this would turn us in to living robots. Having a computer controlling all of our brains would cause us to lose all emotion we have and it would not enable us to move forward with technology because it would be controlling us. The whole idea seems completely out of reach from where our world is technology wise now, but I still don’t think this idea would be taking a step forward, but a huge step back in our world’s technology.

"Dear Denver Post-You're The Disappointment"

      After reading "Dear Denver Post-You're The Disappointment" by Karl Fisch I felt proud of what a great environment I have going to Arapahoe. I have only been at this school for about four weeks and I already love it. I also felt proud because this just is an example of what a wonderful staff we have at Arapahoe. That the employees are people who take pride in the school they work at and the students that attend it. I know that I’m not alone when I say I’m proud to be a Warrior at Arapahoe High School. Although sometimes I do miss lying around and relaxing during the summer I still don’t feel like coming to school every day is burden. I love being able to walk through the halls just happy to be where I am.


      To me the most important part of this article was that Mr. Fisch explained what the perspective of coming back to school was like for most students, staff and administrators. I think this was an important part because of how completely true it is. I mean look at the students at our school. Majority of them are excited and overall happy to be there. Those that aren’t are the ones that don’t really care about making their high school experience a fun and memorable one at Arapahoe. The students that get involved by joining clubs, playing sports or even just going to the games are the people that come to school ready to learn. That’s the kind of students that go to Arapahoe and the kind that will be well set later in life because they took the time to get involved.

"A Vision of Students Today" By Michael Wesch

After watching “A Vision of Students Today” By Michael Wesch I really began to think about how in touch our generation is with today’s technology. It made me think about how sitting in a classroom and taking notes used to be all it took to teach students, but now a days we use technology for the majority of our learning. The facts and statements in this video were extremely eye opening and they really make you stop and think about the things we do and how we do them. The part about everything that we do in a single day adding up 26 ½ hours blew my mind, because I can’t imagine that I spend that much time on certain things when the reality is I do, we all do. I think the part that matters most of this reading was when the one student held up the scantron that said on the back “this isn’t going to help me with…” and then had all the problems that are going on in the world around it. I think this was important because it’s very true, because what I am learning in my classes I will most likely never use in real life. This Connects to what we are doing in class because we use technology as a daily thing and we relate a lot of what we talk about to the technology we use. An example of this is our blogger accounts, I think these accounts are going to be very useful and such an extra addition to our learning in English this year. And going back to the part of the video where the scantron is held up, it shows that while getting a good grade in class is important there are plenty of things out there that are much more worthy of our time. In the end this video brought so many different thoughts to my head about my education, my time management and my life in general and it most definitely changed my perspective on what a big part of our day to day lives technology is.