PLN11

"2020 vision"
By Karl Fisch

In the video "2020 Vision" by Karl Fisch, he talks about how technology and education will change dramatically. This matters to education and students because of they way we might start learning in the future and the way technology will work in school. Teachers would have to change the way they teach and the school might have to find different staff members if they were better suited with technology and could use it better. This video also relates to Mr. Fisch's video "Did you know" because they are both about how technology and the world around us will change very rapidly, and it also relates to "A vision of students today" by Dr. Wesch, because of how the students are learning and how they have laptops but they are not doing school work on them. It was surprising how he could predict these things and some of them have already come true since he made this video a couple of years ago. Clearly, the world is going to change for the better and even not so good at the same time, we just have to know when so we can change with it and adapt.

PLN10

"Are we Selling it to The Wrong People?"
By David Warlick

In the article "Are we Selling it to The Wrong People?" by David Warlick, it says that what the teachers and schools are buying for the students are good materials and that they have good intentions but is it really what the students need to learn effectively? The staff in schools will buy text books and other materials for the students and then teach them out of that, but the students really are not learning as much as the teacher thinks they are because it does not fit our learning styles. In the conversation David had with some co-workers in a meeting they said that most of the tools and learning supplies including books speak the language of students today, but the actual ad was pitched to teachers not students so they really cant know if it is or not. Some people think that the students should get a say in what the school buys regarding materials since they are the ones that will be using it, but others say that students are still growing up and cant decide what they want yet so teachers should just teach them what the schools buy. Clearly, there is a big dispute about education these days and what is best for students in regards of learning in the class rooms of today.

PLN9

"What makes people want to play Rock Band and Guitar Hero?"
By Gary Marcus

In the article "What makes people want to play Rock Band and Guitar Hero?" by Gary Marcus, it talks about how Guitar Hero and Rock Band are some of the stupidest games on the video game market in a while. Gary says that they are some of the stupidest games on the market these days because it makes you feel like you have the power to create the song and that is why people will pay the $60 for some songs on a CD, not including how much the plastic guitar with the buttons costs. It does not even resemble a real guitar there are no strings, no frets not even cords for an amplifier and other additional pieces to change the sound. It also says that it takes not very much skill to do it because robots can ease through all of the songs on expert and you could probably teach a monkey how to play better than most people if you took the time, plus if aliens or other foreign people saw it that it would probably be one of the biggest wastes of time. You download this music from a disc you buy and its on your Xbox or whatever console you have and you cant even bring that music you paid for in the car, to the gym or anywhere you are out of range of the TV. Clearly, these are the least interactive and games that take the least thinking out of any in stores and that they take not very much skill or even effort to play the music on it.

PLN8

"A Vision of Students Today"
By Dr. Wesch

In the video "A vision of students today" by Dr. Wesch, he shows us what it is like to be a student at this time. Dr. Wesch makes a lot of examples of how tough school is these days and how much work we really have to do because it even says that they are working 26.5 hours a day in total on different things and that they have to multi-task to get it all done. This video also shows people that if we really do have technology at our finger tips we probably wont use it for educational purposes even in class, we would go to other sites like Facebook and be side tracked on other things. One of the big things that was on the video is that the students did not even use the textbooks they bought for hundreds of dollars or read most of the assignments that the teacher gave to read and most of it did not even relate to our lives, that is probably why they did not do it because it wont help them in life. Another bad thing is that they are saying that they spend all of this money on classes and some of them do not even show up for class which is really a waste of money on their part. Technology is distracting student from learning better because they are in such big classes that the teacher will not notice so then they can just go to their favorite web page or text their friends. Clearly, technology is distracting student from doing their best in school but it is also helping them at the same time.

PLN7

"Making it your own"
By Ask.com

In "Making it your own" by Ask.com, it talks about how you should make your bike your own when you get it and make it special to you. They were saying that no matter what you have to do you should make your new bike unique to you. When you get your new mountain bike it is all the same as every other model of your new bike and you should put some stickers on it, put different or your parts on it and change it up a little bit and adjust everything for you, then it is like nobody else's bike in America. It also says that when you ride it and you get scratches on your bike then it gives it even more of a personality because ever single scratch has a story behind it no matter how good the story is. This article relates to me because i mountain bike a lot and i have had some scratches on my bikes that actually did have a good story behind them. All in all you should make your things special to you and unique to you pretty much no matter what you have to do.

PLN 6

"Men's soccer tournament"
By Natavillage

In the article "Men's soccer tournament" by Natavillage, they held a soccer tournament in Africa to help raise money and help the community. In Africa Tebelopele held a soccer tournament over the 4 day weekend they had there and it was a six round knock out tournament for the community. While the tournament was going on they had a place where you could get tested for HIV/AIDS in fifteen minutes with their rapid test, in all 158 men, 122 women and 12 couples were tested for it and they educated 1362 spectators about the importance of getting tested for STD's and other acquired diseases. The winning team got 3 soccer balls and a pair of nets and all of the other teams received a soccer ball even for participating. This is a really good thing to do for the community because it gets people aware of diseases that are out there while they get to do what they love and that's play soccer with all of their friends around and even raise money and get free equipment. Clearly this was a very good idea from Tebelopele to catch awareness and help some of the people of Africa out.

PLN 5

"The New Literacy"
Clive Thompson

In this article "The New Literacy" by Clive Thompson, it talks about how there is a new era of writing coming and it is the teens leading it. This article was saying that people think teens don't write and we are terrible at writing but we actually write more than our past generations and more than most adults because we socialize so much on the Internet. Also it says that teens write better to an audience of more than one which is usually the teacher so it isn't as exciting or anything as it is on like facebook or twitter and I don't know how teacher can change that but if they do it will probably change a lot of writing grades and scores in the schools today. Writing is kind of boring to most kids and on c-sap we get really bad topics to write about so that's why the test scores aren't very high because we are writing to one person, we have a bad topic and it doesn't count for a grade or anything so most student probably don't take it all that seriously. People are putting out articles that say teens are doing bad at school and they have bad grades and scores but this article says that we are changing the writing era forever so It cant be that bad. Clearly teens write more than most people it just about our own personal things.

PLN4

"The Machines are Using Us"
Dr. Wesch

In the video "The Machines are Using Us" by Dr. Wesch, he talks about how the Internet is changing and how we can move text all over the place very easily. This video is showing us how easy it is to move digital text from anywhere to pretty much anywhere else in a couple seconds and this matters to everyone because of how easy it is getting to communicate on the Internet and how people can steal what you say or put on the Internet. This matters to us students because we can put things on the Internet and have our teachers see it from there but one of our other classmates or at a kid at a different school could just right click and copy everything we have. This is changing education because now you see and hear more about courses online rather than in class rooms and you just post your stuff to your teachers web page and they grade it from there. Mr. Fisch's video had more examples and was easier to follow but they kind of said some of the same things in general about the Internet but Mr. Fisch went above and beyond the Internet and into how the world is changing and what we are starting to do or are doing. Clearly the Internet is starting to take over how we think about computers and machines and is changing the world around us.

PLN3

"Colorado Springs man strikes bicyclist in case of mistaken ID"
By Keiran Nicholson (The Denver post)

In the article "Colorado Springs man strikes bicyclist in case of mistaken ID" by Keiran Nicholson, a man hits a biker because he thinks it's the theif who stole his son's bike earlier that week. A man from Colorado springs was arrested on suspicion of second-degree assault after he hit a pedestrian with his truck on a bike because he mistakenly thought it belonged to his son, since his bike was just stolen and he thought it was thief who had stole it. The article says that the driver intentionally hit the guy but he was just trying to stop him then he was going to go out and confront the thief about stealing his son's bike, after he hit the man and got out to confront him the biker punched him in the face because he thought he was going to get attacked again by the driver. The pedestrian suffered minor injuries to his leg but was treated at the scene and was let go, the driver was treated on the scene also for a face injury from the punch then arrested. This article was a good representation of why we have to look out for our selves and how there really must be crazy people out there if bikers are getting hit just to be stopped and confronted.