"Rigor Redefined" By Tony Wagner

      In the article "Rigor Redefined" by Tony Wagner he describes what skills students will need if they are planning on surviving in the ever changing work world. Jobs are changing every day and different skills are required for different jobs. There are 7 main skills we are expected to have when it comes to the work world we will be living in in the future. They are 1.Critical thinking and problem solving 2.Collaboration and leadership 3.Agility and adaptability 4.Initiative and entrepreneurialism 5.Effective oral and written communication 6.Accessing and analyzing information and 7.Curiosity and imagination. After seeing what the people in the work world are looking for in their employees and why they are exactly looking for that you really think that schools need to be teaching students how to obtain and use these skills to their full extent, while still teaching them the required curriculum. After talking about the skills students should be obtaining in an everyday class room Wagner went on to talk about the classes he has visited and how majority of them are not giving students the skills they are gonna need one they reach the real world. Most of the classes he went to were students doing what they were told or copying things off the board. And these are not giving students any of the 76 skills listed above. Then Wagner talked about how the occasional class he would go to would be allowing students to use all of the skills and not even realize they were doing it. An example of one of these classes was an algebra II class where the teacher wrote a problem up on the board that the students wouldn’t know how to solve. They were told to work in group using what they learned in algebra I and geometry to find two ways to solve thins problem. Wagner explains how this uses all of the skills it should and it really makes you think about how this shouldn’t be a rare as he says. This should be the kind of learning going on in class every single day.

      After reading this article I really thought about all the classes I am in and how uncommon it is for us to do something in those classes that is helping us develop the skills we are going to need. Also it made me realize that in the majority of my classes we are doing stuff that doesn’t use a single one of the 7 skills. Sure, we use lots of skills in class, but how often is it that we are really pushing these to the full extent they have? This article really changed how I look at my classes and what we do in the class time we have. It also made me think about how I can push myself to use these skills even when my teacher isn’t.

"The Machine is Us/ing Us"

      In the video “The Machine is Us/ing Us.” created by Micheal Wesch it starts out by giving information about websites, text vs. typing, etc. and throughout the video it really becomes more about how the web has changed who we are as people. The web has become something more extensive then anyone could have ever imagined based off where it started and what it was when it did start. The things that it gives us access to are uncountable and that just amazes me. And it makes me wonder if this extensive thing we have really is for the better of us.

      We all know the benefits of being able to email, Facebook, Twitter, research, read, watch and so much more on the web, but at what cost? The internet has become a dangerous place for people. Maybe not as much so for adults, but for the kids and teens constantly using it it could be a serious endangerment. We've all heard how we aren't supposed to give out any of our personal information on the web, but how many of us really think twice before we post something about ourselves or start talking to someone we have never met. Do we really think about how someone could be constantly watching the things we say and do? Or that the people we are talking to might not be who they say they are at all? For the most part the answer to that is no. Then again we are usually smart enough not to give out the obvious information like our numbers and addresses, but then there are the people that still continue to do that. They don't do it just to put themselves in a bad position, they do it without a second thought, because they feel like they know who the person they are talking to is, but really they have no idea.

      Another downfall to the progression of the web is something a lot of us are all too familiar with, cyber bullying. It's happening everyday all around us. None of us as teens can say we haven't seen it happen because it's just all to common. And for the most part it doesn't seem like any of us do too much to stop it. It's not like we don't care or we think it's okay to do. It's that we don't think it is our business or our problem so we try to avoid it and stay out of it. That's completely opposite of what we really should be doing though. We hear all the time about suicides of kids around our age group because of harassment and bullying; a lot of which is done online, over text, etc. It is a constant problem and we really need to stand together as a generation if it ever is going to stop.

      This really was brought to mind for me towards the end of the video when it said ”We need to rethink...ourselves.” because the web really has made us do that. I look at myself in a completely different way when I am on the internet because of how I respond to things and people online. I know I can be a lot more brave with the things I say online because it's not to anyone’s face. Then again I also know I can be a lot more closed off with some of my thoughts because I honestly have no idea who is going to be reading that and what they will think of me and what I stand for when they do. I really think this video was an eye opener in lots and lots of different ways and I think it was very connectable to our day to day lives.

10 Postives, No Negatives. Why Not?

            In the article “10+ Ways to Promote a Learning Culture in your School (revisited)” by Karl Fisch it goes in to detail about the purpose behind students writing PLN’s and what a PLN really is in 10 reasons. As we have learned in class a PLN is a ‘Personal Learning Network.’ This is basically a way to respond, comprehend and think on a different and higher level about the things you are reading. You do this by making connections, expressing your opinion on the topic and much more to expand your thinking and understanding. I really connected to this article because PLN’s are something as an English class we do on a regular basis and I personally think they are great ways to improve on our writing styles, making connections and much more. Mr. Fisch really explains this and how students and teachers that aren’t using these at their school can bring them into the classrooms and how they can do it.

            I hope that a lots of students and teachers are able to find access to this blog because I really think if it was applied in more classrooms across the state, even across the country it would help expand countless students abilities to understand what they are reading and make text to text, text to self and text to world connections that really challenge their learning. At the same time they’d be practicing their writing and just improving themselves even more. I really don’t see any negative results from bringing PLN’s into the classroom. They are a terrific strategy and I believe that they really to challenge and extend your reading, writing and mostly your learning.

“Parents unhappy with Cherry Creek's handling of playground incident”

            In the article “Parents unhappy with Cherry Creek's handling of playground incident” by Daniel Smith it tells the recent story about a mother whose son had broken his leg at school after standing up for a fellow student being bullied and how the school district is dening that story all together. In this situation I am definitely on the mother’s side because she would have no reason to make up like a story like this, while on the other hand the Cherry Creek school district has a reputation to keep and protect.

After reading this article I really began to think about how liability is so important during and even after the school day. I thought about the other day when the fire alarm went off after school and there was no coach with the volleyball players in the auxiliary gym because both coaches were helping other students in the math department. When Mr. Booth saw this he was very concerned because of the huge liability there was. We as volleyball players didn’t think much of it because we were usually there before our coaches and no one has ever gotten injured before. Then when hearing Mr. Booth’s concern I thought about how if someone was to get injured we would have to run to get any sort of help instead of having a coach there right away. This article really made me rethink about dangerous the things we do at school can be and why we really do fill out all those forms and releases for everything that goes on. It really is for the safety of the students at Arapahoe High School.

“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.