PLN 20

I read a post on Roger's personal Blog called Retakes and it was about how he has been giving the option for retakes and some people do them but some of them don't even do any better and there is a few that do worse. This is how I responded:

I think that it is good that you give your students the choice to have retakes but if no one does it then it is kind of a waste. I Like retakes because if I get a bad grade on something that I don't get then I can go in and talk to my teacher and take it again. Retakes are good not only for getting your grade up but they can help kids make sure that they understand the material. Also it is a waste of the kids time when they come in and don't even do much better than they did before. It is probably because they just hope that because they have seen the test before they can do better on it. Whenever I go in for a retake I study more to make sure that I can do better, or I try to study in a different way to see if it can help more than the previous. Maybe you can Have a couple quizes where if kids do bad on them they have to retake them until they do good that way they would have to find a way to do good on them and they would eventually get used to doing it.

PLN 19

I read My Blogging Legacy on Weblogg-ed and in this post Will talked about how his mother passed away and that he still had so much more to ask her. He also said that he had a dream where he had passed away but his kids were wanting to know more so they were on line and an avatar was giving them all the information and answering their questions. And he said that he hopes that other people carry on the blogging and this is what I had to say:

First of all I want to say that i am very sorry about your mothers death. I am sure that that is very hard for you. I think that the dream that you had is very cool. It is very interesting what the mind can come up with. That kind of technology sounds really cool and who knows what the future will bring. I also think that it is cool that you are interested in knowing all about your mom. I am really glad that you posted this because now that I think about it I have a lot of questions for my parents, even my grandma. And in the future I'll make sure my kids know everything that they want to. It is also awesome that you have this blog and hopefully it will be carried on in the future and even after them because blogging is a great way to express yourself and any topics that you feel are important. Blogging is really cool because there isn't just one certain thing to talk about you can talk about whatever you want and that is cool to me because I really enjoy expressing myself and maybe one day I'll get a blog of my own.

PLN 18

I read Study: Young Kids Online by Will Richardson and this is what I had to say:

This is a very important subject to me because the internet can be a very dangerous place especially for young children. If a kid gets on my space and posts a bunch of information about themselves anyone can get to it and use it. It is kind of scary if you think about. I think parents should supervise there kids while they are on the internet or they should put parental guidance on their computer. Another danger is if the kid gets on a bad website and it gives the computer a virus. Those can be dangerous depending on what kind of information you have on your computer because it can possibly be hacked. If I was letting my kid on the computer I would just tell him what sites are ok to go on and what kind of sites are bad and I would block them just in case. Hopefully people can learn from you blog and prevent things like this from happening.

PLN 17

I just read a post by Darren Draper title Becoming A Better Teacher and I said:

I like that you posted this because there are a lot of things to say about it. First of all this list gives an ok guide line for teachers but there are definitely some things that I don't agree with. For example, it pretty much says teach the same thing in the same way that you have in the past and I think that that is boring. Teachers should come up with creative ways to teach there material. That way they can figure out what works for them and what doesn't. And that leads me into the don't take feedback from your students. I would think as a teacher you would want to know if you are teaching things well and what the students think. It helps me to learn better when we have class discussions in class and everyone puts in some input into the conversation. This can help me see it from another point of view and sometimes that helps. Also teachers should talk to each other about their teaching techniques and if it is working well for them because that can really help sometimes. I think that this list is good if you have already got everything figured out but there are still some things on there that are still a must to me.

Thanks,
Ethan

PLN 16

I read a post by Will Richardson called Blogging/Tweeting/Reading Funk Abatement and this is how I responded:

I like this post because everyone needs a break sometimes. Right now I could really use a break from school. But there are only 3 more weeks so I think I can handle it. Anyway,I think breaks from learning and working are very important because you can get overloaded with all of that stuff and it is good every once in a while to not have to worry about it. This is the reason why I like summer so much. It is so nice just to do whatever I want for three months without having anything to worry about. School and work are very important, I just think it is hard to handle all the time so I’m glad that we have breaks from school because doing the same thing every day can get really old. I think that it is really cool that when we have jobs they let us choose our vacation time so that we can have a break whenever we need it the most. Good job on this post and I look forward to more good ones from you.

Check out his blog, it is very interesting: Weblogg-ed

PLN 15

I read a blog by Karl Fisch called The Need for Textbooks and here's what I said:

That is very funny to me because it seems like lately textbook are becoming more and more out dated. I think that textbooks are good but they are such a chore to bring home from school everyday. You can see how much that technology is replacing textbooks in the schools. In my English class all that we pretty much use is our laptops. Even my French and my math books are on the computer and probably a lot of my other classes to. I think that this is cool but the schools should still keep the textbooks anyway because not everyone has working internet or a computer. So it is definitely a convenience to have them on line, but it is good to have them at the schools to, especially during a tornado. I have nothing against textbooks, besides the fact that they are extremely heavy, but it is so much easier to have them on the computer so I don't have to bring much home after school.

PLN Presentation Reaction

On my second presentation I felt like I did a little better be cause everyone said I made great eye contact and spoke loudly and looked like I knew what I was talking about. This time I did not use notes so that helped with the eye contact and speaking better and not just reading from my paper. I did pause a couple of times because I lost my train of thought but I felt like I saved it pretty well and other people said so also. Even though my posts were not related I think I transitioned well and talked about important things in the world and in our class. It felt like an overall good presentation.

PLN 14

I read a blog by Jeff Utecht called Screen Free Week and this is how I responded.

This is very interesting to me. It seems lately there have been things going on where we don't use electricity like when everyone shut everything off for an hour. This is very cool that you participate in this screen week. Personally I don't think that I could do it, and it is kinda sad that the world is becoming that dependent on technology. Especially kids these days with our cellphones and my space. The screen week thing is a great idea because it probably helps a lot. Even though it doesn't show that much electricity that is not being used really helps the earth. I know a lot of people who are way too dependent on there technology and I'm not that much but I don't think I could go without TV that long. Hopefully in the future I will be able to be a part of these things because I think it is very important. I am also going to try to participate in Earth Day too because the pollution is overwhelming lately. I am glad that I read this post because it has inspired me to do these things also. Hopefully more people will realize how important it is to keep our world healthy because if we don't soon then who knows what will happen.

PLN 13

I read a post on Ferrill's blog called Blogger Sense for my 13th PLN. This is an interesting blog because when I started doing blogs in Ms. Smiths class I thought it was pointless but it became interesting to talk about things. I think that if your not into it then there really isn't any point because it is only interesting if you want to talk about it or tell people about. I like posting blogs but I have to find a blog I really want to talk about or I can't really think of anything to say because it's not interesting to me. I am glad you posted this because blogs are pretty much pointless if there is no meaning to them.

PLN Presentation Reaction

I thought that I did ok on my presentation. I felt like I didn't know my material as well as I should of. Most people said I did a good job and talked about importatn topics but I needed to make more eye contact with my audience. Next time I will aim to be mare prepared and review my notes more so I can look at the audience more rather than my notes.

PLN 12

I read a blog on the tips for life blog called 7 Simple Ways To Burst Out of Bed Each Morning and what matters is in the morning are you rested because it could effect your day. The article talked about 7 helpful ways to get out of bed in the morning. The tips were:

1. Appointment with walking
2. The King an the Pauper way of eating
3. Living with purpose
4. Plan your day
5. The water hack
6. Work that body
7. Have "me" time

To learn what they mean by these tips check out the post. The tips are pretty much just about what to do to make yourself more rested in the morning and this can be very important, especially for students. Being a student I know that I can stay a lot more focused and learn more when I am not tired and am more rested. This relates to me because I have a lot of trouble getting up in the mornings for school. What I usually do is take a shower in the morning to wake me up when I finally get out of bed. It helps some but by the time I get to school I am just as tired as I was before. You should definitely check out these tips because they seem loke they would really help I think I might give them a shot myself. SO remember that getting a good noghts sleep can really help you out the next day because you are rested and feel up to doing more stuff.

PLN 11

I read a post called Gas prices strain school budgets on the Denver Post and what matters is how much gas is costing lately. The article talks about how schools are paying a lot for gas for their buses and stuff and it is coming to the point were they can not afford it. The article said:

Oil at more than $100 a barrel means the state of Colorado, local governments and area school districts are pouring more money into the fuel tanks of their bulldozers, buses, trucks and snowplows.

Benke budgeted $2.4 million, or an average of $200,000 a month. For the first three months of 2008, the county spent about $670,000 for fuel, averaging $3.37 a gallon for diesel and $2.66 a gallon for unleaded gasoline, Benke said.

Buck Benke is the director of fleet services for Jefferson County, so he manages all the county vehicles like the school buses and the trucks and others. This is an outrageous amount of money for just ONE county. Imagine how much all the countys in Colorado would cost all together, and that's only 3 MONTHS! Soon nobody is going to be able to afford gas with these prices. What we need to do, and I also mentioned this in another post of mine, is find an alternative and fast. An Ideal alternative would be something that is not a fossil fuel that way it would be cheaper because we would not run out of it. There are probably a lot of alternatives but we just need to research and try harder and maybe we can find at least something. I was driving with my sister the other day and we went to go get gas and I noticed how much it cost and then I looked at the price per gallon and it was almost $4 a gallon. It is probably harder then we might think to find an alternative to gas but if we don't try soon it won't be just schools that can not afford it. And also gas is a big pollutant so it would also help our planet to stop using gas.

PLN 10

This weekend I read a blog by Will Richardson titled Making Kids "Googlable" and what matters is that kids are giving themselves good job opportunitys and a good reputation on-line and on their record. In the blog he talked about how he has been asking principles if when they were looking to hire someone like a new teacher, have they ever "Googled" them. Most of them said that they have and some said they even searched them on Myspace. I don't think that that is such a bad thing to do because they were just looking for positives and negatives about the person. He also said in the article:

But then I ask them something along these lines: So if you are Googling people who you might want to teach at your school, what are you doing to insure the kids in your classrooms are “Googled well” when they go for their own interviews? And I don’t just mean telling them NOT to post certain things online. I mean what are you doing to help students shape their online portfolios so that when their future employers or future mates run the search, what they find is not just a lack of negatives but a potential plethora of positives? Not surprisingly, the answer is basically “not much.”

I think that it would be very helpful for someone to have pluses for them when they are searched on the internet. A lot of people who are looking to hire you will probably search you to see what good and bad things might come up. If you have bad things that come up when someone searches you then most people won't want to hire you any more. So it is important to have a strong reputation and positive things that show up when you are searched.

PLN 9

I read a blog today in the denver post called Teens get $505,000 in Harassment Settlement and what matters is the fact that stuff like sexual harassment happens still. The article talked about how an owner of a McDonalds is getting charged for sexually harassing 4 young girls. the articles states:

The girls' then 24-year-old manager allegedly bit the girls' breasts, grabbed their buttocks and made numerous sexual comments beginning in December 2003.

It is sad that this has happened to those poor girls and I am glad that they are getting payed a lot for it. You may think that $505,000 in a lot but for the disturbing things that those girls had to go through he should pay at least that and hopefully his job is taken away because who knows if that would ever happen again. There are a lot of cases of sexual harassment out there and it is very wrong. In the report that I did on animal abuse it said that most people that do things like that have had a past of animal abuse. So maybe we should take baby steps to eliminate this stuff and try to get rid of animal abuse and see what that does. Animal abuse is a major problem alone. I do not care what abusers have to say for them selves, what they do is wrong and they need to be stopped.

PLN 8

I read a blog from the Fischbowl called Another Shift? and what matters from this blog is how we are using up all of our fossil fuels and need to find an alternative. In the post he talked about how how the world is becoming ore and more dependent on gas and about how many other different energy sources that we have created like solar energy and wind energy. I think that if we do not find an efficiant energy source soon we will run out of oil and gas and we won't know what to do. I think that stored solar energy is a good idea because it collects energy and stores the energy we do not use for a day when the sun's not out. I can relate this to me because in elementary school I always did my projects on solar energy. It was always so interesting to me for some reason. My neighbor has solar panels on the top of their house and even though it was probably very expensive it probably ends up being a lot cheaper in the long run. Getting back to the subject, our fossil fuels are not going to last us forever so we need to find an alternative that will and we need to find it soon. Judging by the gas prices these days we do not have that much time to do it.

PLN 7

Today I read an article called Red Light Cameras Debated on the denver post, I'm sure you can guess what it was about by the title, but what matters is that drivers are obeying the laws and driving well. Every year a number of people die in accidents because they or someone else was driving badly or carelessly.The debate was:

Denver drivers will soon have firsthand information
concerning a national debate: Do cameras at red lights work? And are they worth
it?

I see drivers run red lights all the time and it scares me because if someone would have had te green tey would of easily gotten hit. The article stated:

Collisions involving drivers who ran red lights killed 900 people nationally in
2006 and injured 144,000, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety.

I know people who have lost good friends of theirs in car accidents because of stupid drivers on the road and it's sad because they don't deserve that just because other people are being stupid. If anything I think that they should make driving laws even more strict that way there would be less chance of an accident.

PLN 6

I read an article by Jeff Utech on the Thinking stick called Student information Online and what matters is that kids and students are being careful with the information that they put online. He talked about how to be safe while on the internet. He mentioned a couple things you should do like:

1. Do not post personal information
2. Do not use last names
3. Get permission for pictures

These are all very important to remember when online. If you post something like your adress or your phone number or even your name people can find you. It is always important to make sure that your information is secure and no one accept your friends, family, and people you know can reach it. Myspace stories have gotten on the news all the time about how weirdos get on there and find kids and stuff and it is horrible. I have a myspace page myself, and I made sure not to post any information about me that was true and I blocked my page so only my friends can access it. Everyone who has a myspace should do this as well, and same with facebook or anything like it. I like how safe schools are in having to log in and blocking websites and stuff, but sometimes I think they can be a little to cautious. They block a lot of good resource websites like youtube and a lot of the images on google too. It is very important to be safe though no matter if the website looks safe or not.

PLN 5

I read an article in the rocky mountain news called Schoolboys face court in racial taunting and what matters from this is how people are acting dealing with racism. The article talked about how three boys were taunting a minority student yelling things at him and it resulted in a fight. The article stated:

A minority youth told school and police officials that other boys put hoods over their heads and taunted him, chanting "KKK," according to news reports. The confrontation lasted a few minutes between classes and resulted in a fight.

The boys were disciplined by the school and currently are permitted to attend classes, Adair said. She said the boys were all of different ethnicities.

I think that this is absolutely unacceptable. Those kids had no right in taunting that kid and especially the fact that they were all different ethnicities. This behavior is the kind of stuff that was supposed to be banned by the civil rights laws. Hopefully the boys apologized to the other kid because he didn't deserve that. This relates to the world because there is still quite a lot of people out there who still believe in racism and segregation. I am definitely not one of those people and neither is anyone that I know. I do not agree with that kind of stuff at all it is wrong and hateful and people should get punished for it, it is not something to be taken lightly.

PLN 4

I read an article on Weblogg-ed called Students Pay a Price (Literally) for Cell Phone Ban and what mattered is how much the youth of our time let alone everyone is so dependent on technology. The article talked about how this guy went to this middle school and was talking to the kids about technology. He was asking questions and all of them had cellphones and a guessed 90% had a myspace page. It also mentioned that they had a cellphone ban at the school. This is what he said about it:

But here was the moment that floored me. Obviously, these kids don’t leave their cell phones at home. They are too important as a communications tool for safety’s sake and for social connections. Yet they can’t get these phones through the airport like scanners at the front of the building. So what do they do? Seems a little cottage industry as sprung up at the delis and bodegas around the school so that kids can check their phones in for the day at $3 a pop. They get a ticket, just like a coat check, on their way into school, and they pick it up on the way out.

I cannot believe that these kids would pay $3 everyday just to have their cellphone after class. It would cost so much money every month. It is kind of sad how dependent they are on having their phones. and they are pretty much paying them to not be able to use them, why can't they just leave them at home. And also the 90% percent with myspace said that they also check them everyday. They use them to get information about homework, communication, and whatever else. I can relate this to my English class because we depend on our laptops in that class for the majority of our work. And think about how many people you see on there cellphones texting or talking to someone everyday. Everyone is dependent on technology these days.

PLN 3

There is a blog in The Thinking Stick titled Words That define your online presence and it talked about how to post a good blog. This matters because if you post bad blogs no one will want to read your blog anymore. It has 5 good tips about what to do and what not to do:

1. RESPECT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. This is something just as important as it is obvious. Netspeak and 13375p34k can discredit even the most brilliant of blog postings, not to mention it opens the door to unnecessary comments about how there’s no ‘z’ in ‘please’.
2. Avoid sweeping generalizations. Of course, this should be absolutely no problem at all, considering we’ve covered it in the ToK classroom. If there’s one sweeping generalization that may be true, it’s that there are always exceptions. And even that one probably has an exception, too.
3. Don’t complain. Unless you’re at some website made specifically for the purpose, people don’t particularly care about your latest ex or the pet dog that just died. Furthermore, there will inevitably be somebody out there that has it much, much worse than you do, and will not hesitate to rip into you for it.
4. Don’t lose your temper. Should somebody post a scathing comment despite all your precautions, the worst thing you can do is flip out. Remember that everybody can see your retort, and there’s no glory in being baited by an uppity visitor. If it’s a baseless insult, ignore it. If it’s a legitimate critique, handle it objectively.
5. Chill out. This is one that I need to put into practice more often. I admit I’m far too paranoid when it comes to what I’m putting out for public viewing. The truth is that as long as you’re sub-celebrity-status, you’re still considered a mere mortal, prone to mistakes like everybody else. So don’t worry so much– it takes all the fun out of blogging.

I think that these are very important to remember while writing your blog if you want to make a good point. I can relate this post to my English class because my teacher, Ms. Smith, taught our class all we need to know about how to write a good blog. She told us we should always like to the post we talk about, to state what matters, and to relate it to our class the world and us. I think that blogs are a very good way for us to express our feelings about important stuff. It also teaches us how to right well and with more detail. I am glad that we have PLNs because they are helping my grade out a lot and they are kinda fun because you can write about whatever you want to pretty much.

PLN 2

Today for my PLN I read an article from the Denver post called Teen traffic deaths down in Colorado, and what matters from this is that teen car accident deaths are down and that means that they are started to realize that they need to drive responsibly. It stated that

Last year, 43 teens were killed in motor-vehicle crashes in Colorado, a 34 percent drop from 2006. In that year, 66 teen drivers and passengers — ages 16 to 20 — were killed, according to data compiled by the Colorado Department of Transportation. Colorado teen motor-vehicle deaths are down 60 percent from a high of 107 teens killed in 2002.

Still, safety officials are concerned about teenagers consistently ranking among those least likely to buckle up. Of the 43 teens drivers and passengers killed in Colorado last year, 27 (63 percent) were not wearing seat belts.

That is a pretty big drop but still more than 60% of the ones who died last year were not wearing seat belts. Even though it is a small number maybe if they were wearing their seat belts they still would have been here. I think that we should enforce seatbelt laws a lot more and make it a lot harder to get away with not wearing your seat belt. This relates to my English class because a couple of students and I did a PSA about teens and distractions while they are driving. It was about how it causes a lot of the accidents that teens are involved with. If they would eliminate distractions and focus on driving maybe that number would be a lot less.

PLN 1 Semester 2

I read a blog by Jeff Utecht called Why time in the Hallways is Time Well spent and what mattered to me is that kids can learn from one another. In this post he talks about how kids are talking about school work and things like that outside of class. Like sharing with each other what you are doing in class. I think that this is good and that the students can learn from each other. Especially if they are talking about the same type of class like math or science. They can share ideas with each other and learn from that. Sometimes I will find my self talking about school with my friends, it is not always positive but at least we talk about it. In the article he even said that teachers talking to each other can learn. Like new ideas for class or what other teachers are teaching. So it is a good learning experience to talk about stuff like that and that is why time in the hallways is time well spent.

Goals for Second Semester

In this semester I want to get an A or at least a B. I will do this by staying focused on getting all my assignments done. Last semester I started off really bad and I wasn't getting most of my stuff done. I know how much that it can affect your grade and I will do my best to do a good job on all of them. Also if I need any help I will figure out a time that I can come in for help in stead of trying to just figure it out in class. Last semester I was disapointed in myself because I got a C as my final grade and that was my lowest grade. This semester is a brand new start and I'm glad because this time I can start off strong by getting all my assignments in and doing a good job on them.