PLN 22

I read a post by Greg Toppo called Town may criminalize online harassment and what mattered to me was that kids should be monitored by their parents or someone else on what their kids are doing on-line. The post talked about how a thirteen year old girl named Megan Meier met a sixteen year old boy on my space and they became good friends. Then he started to make fun of her saying stuff like "nobody likes you" and " your a bad person and everybody hates you". A couple days before her birthday she committed suicide. The article said:

Weeks later, Megan's grieving parents learned that the boy didn't exist — he'd been fabricated by a neighbor, the mother of one of Megan's former friends. The girls had had a falling out, police say, and she wanted to know what Megan was saying about her daughter.

This is very sad to me and I think that their neibor should be ashamed of herself. I can see a couple of yougn boys doing this(witch is still horrible) but a grown woman doing this to a young girl because she thought she was saying stuff about her daughter is even worse. That is very immature and I can't believe that she drove that poor girl to committing suicide. It would have been more responsible if her parents were checking on what she was doing on-line because they probably wouldn't have allowed her to speak with the boy in the first place. Maybe she should have told her parents what was going on and they could of done something about it, or she could have just blocked them when they started to make fun of her. This relates to me because I know some people who have met people that they did not know on my space but luckily they didn't get into any trouble with it. This relates to my class because probably everyone in there has a my space account and hopefully they are careful with it and they don't talk to strangers. This can relate to the world because people are always talking to strangers on my space that turn out to be bad people and I think that if you have a my space you should use it wisely because you could get yourself into some big trouble.

PLN 21

I read an article out of the Denver Post called DPS school vote Monday may not close arguments and it talked about how DPS is planning to close 8 of their schools to rework some programs and it matters that parents and even students have the right to vote in this. This is totally unfair to parents and students because the parents of the students might not be able to work out something with taking their kids to another school. It might ruin some students education and they might lose some of their friends from their schools. I don't think that this should happen and if it does they should at least let all the kids finish in that school before closing it. Also a lot of teachers would probably lose their jobs and that would be unfair to them, so the teachers should also have the right to vote on this subject. It said that some people were protesting about this to stop them from shutting down this elementary school and this middle school and I think that's what they should be doing because the district has no right to just close these schools down and just make these parents find a new school. Part of the article said:

Only 68,000 students attend Denver Public Schools, which has room for 100,000 - leaving 30 percent of the classroom space unused.

That means that they would take away even more kids out of the district. That probably wouldn't be to good for the district. And i don't really see how the district would make enough money to even stay there if they took out all those schools. So they should let the teachers, parents, and students have a say in what happens to the schools.

PLN 20

I read a post from the Rocky Mountain News called Pellet gun at school leads to lock down and it talked about Chatfield Senior High School going into lock down because a kid had brought a pellet gun inside the school and they thought it was a real gun, and what matters out of this post is that schools are staying safe. I'm glad that this school is being safe because after all the school shootings there have been you have to be cautious. The kid who saw the gun reported it to the school and they immediately put the campus on lock down The boy and his friend who was with him were detained. This is what the post said:

Deputies responded to the south Jefferson County campus at 11:15 a.m. after a male student saw two teen boys in a car in the parking lot with what looked like a "real gun," said Lynn Setzer, Jefferson County Public Schools spokeswoman.

The boy who saw the gun reported it to school officials who immediately locked down the campus, she said.

They don't think that the kid pointed it at anyone and they later found out hat it was just a harmless air soft gun that shoots plastic pellets. I don't know what this kid was thinking bringing an air soft gun to school because you can get in big trouble for things like that. He should have known better after all the school shootings you can't just bring a fake gun to school. I mean what if the cops shot at him or something. I can kind of relate to this because one time at my old middle school one girl threatened another girl and she brought a letter opener to school and they found it in her locker. They suspended her from school and she probably went to juvy. This relates to the world because mainly in collages students have brought real guns to school and shot and killed other kids. It is a really good thing that this school took that precaution to lock down the school because some one could have gotten hurt, even though it wasn't a real gun.

PLN 19

I read a post from the rocky mountain news called More than half of Colorado teen drivers text message and what mattered to me was how safe drivers are being especially teens. Part of the article said:

Fifty-one percent of Colorado teen drivers admitted to text messaging and 66 percent said they used their cell phones while driving

This isn't really that surprising to me because I how much a teenager can become dependent on their cellphones. It is very dangerous for teens to be talking and texting on their cellphones when they are driving. This is one of the the main causes of car accidents and teens always think it can never happen to them, but it does all the time. I can relate to this because my mom talks on her cellphone a lot while she's driving, and my sister does to sometimes but not very much because she is a pretty good driver. It is funny because one time they were doing a story on the news about people who talk on their cellphones while driving and they actually showed my mom for a second talking on her cellphone.
This also kind of relates to drunk driving because people always think that it will be fine until they get into an accident. I think that it should be a law that you cannot use your cellphone while driving and if you get caught you get a fine. Police would probably have to pay closer attention but it would pay off with better drivers and less accidents.

PLN 18

I read a post by Paula Góes called Brazil: 5 years old boy dressed as Spiderman saves baby, part of the post stated:

“5-year old boy named Riquelme (named after an Argentine soccer player), rescued a one-year old girl from a terrible fire in a neighboring home, while clothed in a Spiderman outfit. When he saw the fire growing, he yelled, “I'M SPIDERMAN!” and ran into the house and saved the girl”.

Because of spider man that kid had enough courage to go in to a fire and save that baby. That's amazing! what matters to me is that kids know how to be safe, because that kid could have been seriously injured because he thought he was spiderman. It is a very thing that he did this but it is very dangerous thing too. This reminds me of a story that I saw in the news a while back and it was about a kid who was at the beach and went into the water to look for Spongebob and he almost drowned. They also almost had to cancel the show so I think that even though kids don't want to hear it, parents need to tell them that they can't be or find these fictional characters. Or at least the parents should keep better track of what their kids are doing.

PLN Presentation Reflection

I thought that I did fairly well on my first presentation. I got a lot of good comments about it. I guess that I didn't focus on my audience enough and relied too much on my notes. I did feel like I should have practiced some more to know my material better, but they do say people learn from their mistakes. I also think that I related my posts pretty well too. They all had to do with school and what we should be learning and to me those are important subjects. The next presentation I do I will probably have to practice a lot more, and not focus on my notes during the presentation. Also I don't feel that I was speaking clearly or loud enough. But I think it was good for my first presentation.

PLN 17

I read a post called Do schools have birth-control role? and it talked about schools here in denver giving away birth control pills, what mattered to me from the article was making good decisions. The article stated:

Health clinics in six Denver high schools should be allowed to dispense birth control and emergency contraceptive pills, according to a new report by a health task force.

I think that this is a good and a bad thing. It is bad that they have to hand out birth control pills because you shouldn't be getting pregnant at that age. It is good because it is protecting the girls from ruining their life because they can't take care of a baby. I don't think that you should have sex until you are an adult, but if I were a parent and my daughter was going to make that bad decision than at least she would be able to have protection. The article said that they were even handing them out in middle school. I think that's outrageous that girls are getting pregnant at that age. I don't see any reason why they would even have the chance. I think that they need to do something about it, I don't know what but that is pretty unacceptable if you ask me. I t is good that they are trying to stop the pregnancies with the birth control but those kids need to make better decisions.

PLN 16

I read a post by David Warlick called Compare & Contrast and it was about how he had to do a presentation on personal learning networks and he asked these questions:

• In what ways are personal learning networks like our students’ MySpace or Facebook sites?
• In what ways are they different?
• Are the stages for developing your personal learning network?

I don't really think that our personal learning networks have that much in common. Some similarities are that you can post comments or you can post your own bulletin. You can also express your feelings towards anything like another persons post or just something you were thinking about. They are also very different because on myspace you can have certain friends or you can block your profile. But personal learning networks are definitely safer than myspace or facebook. On personal learning networks you can look at peoples posts a lot easier than on myspace. Myspace is a lot more social than personal learning networks because you can see when your friends are on and message them or comment them, and on personal learning networks you can comment but you can't actually talk to people. I would say the stages for developing your personal learning network is a lot different than myspace or facebook because you have to have a blogger and Google account and you have to find some good networks to look at and write about or just write about anything. Personal learning networks are definitely less complicated, but I'm not gonna lie myspace is way more popular.