PLN 6

Today I read a post by Jeff Utecht called Is Payment For Good Grades Legitimate Motivation In this day and Age?. It was about a debate on comedy central on weather or not to pay kids to motivate them to get good grades. I think it would be cool if my parents payed me for good grades but I don't need to be payed to get good grades, I get them because I personally want to do good in school to get a good job and stuff like that. I know that I'm not going to pay my kids for good grades, and if they aren't doing well then I'll just ground them or something. I think this subject relates to the world in how if you do good in your job or profession you will get payed more. And it re;ates to this class because some people might be getting payed if they get an A. I think kids should earn there money from a job because that teaches them that they have to work for their money, even though school can be hard work sometimes.

PLN 5

Today I was looking through the Fischbowl and i found an interesting article called Is it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher ?. It was about how everyone, especially educators, should have basic level of technology capability. What mattered to me was what basic things people should know. I don't think everyone should have to know how to use a cell phone or a computer to live a normal life and neither should teachers. I mean would you rather have a Spanish teacher who is very good at the language and can't use a computer, or one who's alright at Spanish but can do anything on computer. Though I definitely can say my english teacher knows her stuff about technology, I mean we use laptops every day in that class and she taught us everything we needed to know about blogger or Google and so on. The post also referenced another post by Terry Freedman dealing with the subject and part of it said:

...and we don't have the moral right to sit placidly on the sidelines when some educators are potentially jeopardizing the chances of our youngsters.

I would definitely have to disagree with this because I know more about technology than half the adults I know and the educators wouldn't be jeopardizing our chances because as long as they're teaching us math or history or whatever it might be we should be fine. This relates to the world because I know a bunch of people who are technologically illiterate and all of them are adults but I can't name one kid I know who doesn't know how to use modern technology. I know a lot about technology and if there's is something new then it really doesn't take me that long to figure it out, so I really don't think it's that big of a deal unless it's your profession or something.

PLN 4

Over the weekend i read a post by Karl Fisch called A fundamental Disconnect?. Inthe post he talked about a story he read and listed some high lights from it. The story was about how schools aren't preparing their student for the future and that teachers are too broad with the subjects they're working on. Here's one of the parts of the story he put down:

teachers are covering too many subjects too broadly, when only a few core subjects should be taught and basic skills should be well developed in all students... In terms of assessments, multiple-choice tests rarely ask students to explain their reasoning or apply knowledge to new situations.

Personally I would disagree. I think the teachers teach us what we need to know in the subject if we learned every single thing out of a subject we would never get to the next one, or advance in our learning. Back to the teachers not preparing us for the future, I think is wrong because we live in the present not in the past and we're always advancing. Like in this class we're using lap tops and jump drives so I'd say thats pretty advanced. I have agree with what Mr. Fisch said:

I don't believe that all we're about in K-12 is preparing kids for college and to be future employees, but certainly that's part of what we do. And I do think that - at my high school at least - we do a fairly good job at many of the above things.

I think that the world is keeping up with technology pretty well and same with me. For example I have one of the latest game systems, and cable and just stuff like that. I think maybe this person should have done some more research before they wrote this story.

Surreal Shanghai Response

I read Surreal Shanghai By Will Richardson. What mattered to me was how they just remove old things and replace them with new ones. It reminded me of how we toke the native Americans land and replaced it rodes and buildings. It reminds me of kids these days because they always have to have the newest game system or toy or stuff like that. This kind of thing goes on everywhere, I'm always seeing new apartment buildings or houses or office buildings. It just seems like they never stop trying to improve.

This relates to our class because of the technology and how were using laptops instead of books and paper, just like in Shanghai How they use LCD screens instead of billboards. It is very amazing how far china has come as far as technology goes. Like how how Will said

"...ships cruise down the river carrying these huge LCD screens that must be like 50 feet wide and 30 feet tall, flashing one advertisement after another for designer clothing or local restaurants and health clubs."

Nata village blog Response

I thought the nata village blog was very interesting. What mattered to me was helping others out in times of need. Like how they provided those people an education, gave the kids new shoes, and the nurses goggles. I thought it was cool that they were learning literacy and things that we are learning in this class. This relates to the world because this is actually what going on in Africa and other places around the world. I am glad that we are helping them out but sometimes it seems like we're helping out other country's more than we are our selves. This relates to me in a smaller scale as in if I am in need of something my friends or my parents will help me. Or if I am helping someone else out like if my parents needed anything or my friend needed some money because he didn't have anything to eat.