Optimism is important

Mr. McClung's blog post about being an Optimist is rather inspiring and truthful. I for one was labeled as a "trouble-maker" and "worthless trash" by some of my teachers, and yet I have succeeded on graduating highschool with a C average; however, I qualified and received a Bay Area Scholorship, got into South Alabama, and have made the Dean's list 3 semester's in a row. Despite what I was told about my future by some educators, I have overcame their expectations. This post goes back to what my previous teacher, Dr. Juarez, taught me about Education as a practice of freedom dreams. If we continue to fill in these simple roles of what a student can or cannot do; we continue a cycle of neglect, racism, and mistreatment of students that has been going on for many years.

Brave things; why I love teaching; and why my school is unique

After reading these articles, I feel more excited to graduate and get out in the schools. I know that there will be some low spots and then some of the greatest high spots; however, As the teacher who wrote the 10 reasons as a reminder of why she loved teaching, so shall I. The closer I get, the more anxious I get to hurry up and do what I want to do. As such I have decided to add my own spin to these articles.

Brave #6: I would push for every student to have a computer provided by the school while they are in attendance at class. Technology is a rapidly important tool that needs to be used in everyone's daily life; however, not all children are fortunate enough to have access to these advancements. I would want everyone to have an opportunity to advance further.

Reason I love teaching: The love and care I receive from my students because of all I do to help further them. Throughout my life, just the look of appreciation I receive from anyone I help makes it all worth it in the end.

One thing that would be unique about my classroom is that all of my classes would be interlinked; I would have them keep blogs and respond to other students from other classes. All of my students would gain the opportunity to communicate with those from other classes

Response to Dr.Stranges "From the 3R's to the 6C's"

All I have to say is about darn time. Finally, someone who breaks away from that simplistic approach to American education. Even while I was in school, I hated teachers that only cared about what you had to know to pass the tests. Not very often would I have an instructor that would incorporate other classrooms, or one that would challenge you to be creative. It was always "Do this or do that or you can just fail." At times it made school seem like a prison almost. Many of the teacher's I had flipped out when you "wasted" class time with "unimportant" questions; instead of using them as a tool to teach from. Technology is always changing, and so is it's usefulness. Much of it is still Greek to me, but I am gaining more and more knowledge as I advance.

Response to "No "Burp Back" Education"

Wow, just wow. Dr. Strange hit one of the most annoying things a lot of teacher's do on the head. I have no idea just how many times teacher's have assigned me this section of reading, and then never used it after the next class period. I have always found that group work, discussions/debate's, and activities that actually make me and the other students think about why it is important, rather than just writting it down as a side note of the lecture, are the things I remember and understand the most.

I have to agree completely with Dr. Strange on this subject matter. Part of the reason I want to become a teacher is so that I can give my students the kind of education they deserve, and not so much of the "schooling" that we all recieve. Most of all though I have always thought we need more dedicated educators that do just what Dr. Strange said.

Blog's being used in Scotland

Sandaig Primary School uses school wide blogging in the classroom. The website has tons of different blogs and assignments that the students and clubs have done at the school. It has pictures and posts about all the gardening work it's students have done around the school to improve it. It has blog posts about the use of laptops for each of its students. Overall it is a wonderful use of blogs as an interactive tool for all students. The link i used was http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot/index.php

Teacher in Missouri uses blogs in science class

Mr. C, a teacher at Noel Elementary in Missouri uses class blogs as part of his Science class. He has his class use the blog to discuss their science projects. He uses it as a forum to discuss the experiments they did in class. His students make videos of their comments about the assignments and reports. He even had them each make their own cartoon characters, and other fun projects. The Link i read this blog story at was http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

Teacher in Colorado using blog's in classroom

The teacher I read about; Mr. Miller effectively uses blogging as part of his English 10 curriculum. He has his students post blog posts about there readings and writing assignment's for the class. He uses them as a discussion forum for the class, and allows the students to converse about the subjects. Mr. Miller gives the students writing assignments and has them blog about them, similiar to the Journals my teachers made me keep. The website I read this on was http://millersenglish10.blogspot.com/search/label/english%2010

"HP Reveals Memristor, The Fourth Passive Circuit Element"

HP recently released information about their perfection of the theorized fourth circuitry element. Up until this discovery, the three primary elements were resistors, capacitors, and inductors. This Memristor as it is called, would allow information to be stored and picked right back up where you left it when the computer is turned off. It stores the current in it and by changing its resistance maintains memory of data. What this means is much less lost data because it is stored in exactly the same place as when power was lost.

This product will also speed up computer even further because this technology actually improves as it scales down. Unlike transistors there is no extra heat when scaled down in size. Also HP has tested the amount of memory these can store, which was roughly 100 gbits on a single die, while currently used flash memory chips is around 16 gbits.

I was amazed when i found this article about this new technology. I am impressed and can not wait til this technology goes mainstream. This will revolutionize the memory systems for computers. I can not see any faults so far in this technology. I have got to hand it to HP for this ground-breaking discovery of theres.

Response to "Google plans to make PCs history"

This article I read is centered upon the GDrive that is being developed by Google. This program would allow anyone to access their personal information from any computer in the world. Instead of using the microsoft windows operating system, all information would be saved on a huge server owned by Google. This could be both good and bad for consumers, and as such is the object of much debate.

Behind this idea lies two schools of thought toward it. GDrive could be beneficial because of the ease of access, less hassle involved in it, and overall would help to prevent data loss due to computer errors or crashes. GDrive could also be bad because everything is stored by Google, and if anything happened to that server then all of our information would be lost as well. Also, there is a certain amount of privacy lost because everything would be ran under Google's nose. Anything could be turned over to the government to be used as seen fit.

I personally like the idea of being able to access my computer from any computer; however, I also see some of the disadvantages to this approach. Not only would it give the multinational corporation more power, it would be most likely a violation of our rights. Ultimately, I believe that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Response to "Changing the way we think"

This article is intriguing because it asks the question of whether current technologies, like Google and other search engines, are causing us to actually lose intelligence. Information falls upon both sides of the fence in this debate. Use of modern day search engines causes us to not have to look through major lists of sources, and allows us to find major sources rather easily. Irronically, because of this benefit our brains actually lose connections over time because we are not using it as much.

Today, many people use the internet simply for online sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.; instead of reading other materials. Onliine reading does not encourage reading off of pages, however different forms of literacy are bound to show up as technology and people advance's forward. Today's online social networks are being equated as a defining part of our culture.

Overall, I felt that this article was interesting because it challenges your own way of thinking. Before reading this article, I never even thought about how use of technologies and search engines could affect your brains compacity. I happen to fall on the side that argues for these programs because I happen to believe they helped maintain brain cells for me. The ease of finding sources they brought around allows me to easily gather books and articles.