What We, The Learners, Need To Do

After I read Will Richardson’s “Footprints in the Digital Age”, it made me realize that while we “suppose” teachers are supposed to teach us everything we need to know, but I was wrong…we are learning so much by just using technology.

            In this 3-page article, Richardson covers a lot of topics.  He starts out talking about how will we be searched when we are older? When people type in a first name, what will come up about us that we did not even know was on the internet? He goes into how we, the learners, teach ourselves everyday by just using technology and also how our teachers and elders need to set an example for us by using technology more often and try to influence us.

            I could really envision this and relate this article to me, because Richardson says, “Many 7- and 8-year-olds are busy exploring Club Penguin or Webkinz, … and adolescents preen themselves in front of their ‘friends’ on MySpace or Facebook.” I could relate this to me because I used to be one of those 8-year-olds having a Club Penguin, and without realizing it, that is going to be on the web for the rest of my life. I also have a Facebook and that is going to have all of my information forever. This is just odd to think about to me because it seems like everything in life fades…but to know that this will not fade, is really different. This article also taught me that no matter how good of a child you are, you still have to be extremely careful of what you put on the web for the certain reason that it will ALWAYS be there forever.  Also, in this article, I learned that because of this reason, celebrities are found every day on the internet. For example, when Richardson brings up Laura Stockman, a 10 year-old from New York who helped raise money for many charities whether it was for the poor or animal shelters all because of her grandfather. She became well-known after she connected with people through the Net to help her with her many fundraisers. This made me think about how Justin Bieber turned into one of the top 10 celebrities (maybe of all time) just because he posted videos of his music on YouTube. Personally, I think this is so awesome how people’s talents can be viewed and make them so well-known! It is inspiring.  The questions that these brought up for me was How did we even think about bringing such big technology into the world? Who found out that we can learn from just doing blogs? This is so great because it really shows us how people think “outside of the box” with pretty much everything in the world. This article alone can continue into so many different topics.

            All in all, the web is teaching us everyday and we are learning more than we thought was possible in the 1900’s.

Innocent Kid's Show Turns Into A Huge Celebrity Controversy

            The Daily Beast posted "Katy Perry Sesame Street Episode Pulled for Being Too Hot"
In this post, it showed Katy Perry with a ''scandalous'' dress on while she aired on the children's show Sesame Street. In the video, Katy Perry sung to Elmo a different version of "Hot and Cold", but changed the lyrics around to fit the setting; Elmo did not want to play with her. What was so scandalous about this dress of hers was that it was a tight, skimpy, green dress that was too low for the parents' likings.

In this article, it claims that many parents complained about how the “…cleavage was too much for some parents…” The Sesame Workshop explained that they put Katy Perry in the show in the first place to get more views from children and adults as well. Therefore, the workers did not think about how the children would look at her, they just cared about how the adults saw her.

This article made me think about topics such as why do people even make clothes like this? Why would somewhere wear something such as this in public? An even crazier thought was why wear this when a person makes a guest appearance on a children television show?  I think this was became too out-of-hand and should have been taken care of in the beginning before it even became an issue.  Katy Perry is a famous singer and has a choice in what she wears; and even if it is not her choice, she still has a say in what she is wearing. I am a fan of Katy Perry; I think she is a good-choice-making celebrity (unlike most celebrities these days) and she cares about what the public thinks of her. If she had any idea that parents would get angry at all at this, she probably would have stopped it. On the other hand, The Sesame Workshop should have been watching out for actions like this taking place with the parents; therefore, they should have also put a stop to it before.

Young children are very impressionable and they want to look and dress like the people they see on television.  This was an opportunity for Katy Perry to show how fun a t-shirt and jeans can be and everyone would have been happy.  The song she sang had a great message about friendship and playing nicely.  It would have been received well and seen by millions if she would have dressed appropriately.  Then again, the children don’t look at what she is wearing, they only care about what she is doing, and that is simply just wanting to play friendly with Elmo.   

This can connect to average people anywhere, any age because it is just like doing something before thinking. We need to think of the consequences before even attempting or starting to do something.

Google: Helping or Dumbing Us?

In Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, he talks about how Google and the Internet are impacting our entire lives.  This article is about how the Web can distract us to the very extreme that our brains are changing.  This is happening because we can get any kind of information we need within the click of a button.  Carr also talks about while we are reading a long piece of writing nowadays, we get distracted or bored to the point where we either start doing something else that interests us, or simply begin to skim the writing.  

In this article, there is a part that says “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” This quote shows that we can do anything we want so quickly. I also love this quote because it is comparing the past to the present. The past being so hard-working, and the present being so quick that we just glide right along.

This article also says “…not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today that we did in the 1970’s or 1980’s…” This part really made me think how much I text each day. Personally, I receive/send an average of 382 texts per day. Text messaging is (for the most part) all abbreviations, which is “dumbing” us down in my opinion. I believe that Google has both the impact to dumb us down but also to help us. It is dumbing us down by not letting us use our resources like we did a few years ago even. I found this article very hypocritical because while he was talking about how we cannot concentrate on long writings, he wrote a 7.5 page paper, which I found difficult to read. Therefore, this article was very true in the sense that we get distracted awfully easily. I found myself dragging on and even at one point I ended up reading a magazine at one point in the middle of the piece. This article made me kind of sad in a way because it showed and made me realized how much we do depend on the computers and technology and that we are not as independent as we used to be even 10 years ago. This article makes me think why can’t we use the resources and use our brains to do stuff? Why are we so lazy now?

All in all, I’m very glad we read this article to make us think about how to be smarter than the internet and use our brains so that we are intelligent.  The world should care about this because it is our future.

Think!

A Denver Post entry, "Cops: DUI suspect busted after lying about ill son" by Kieran Nicholson, makes people think about how careless and thoughtless some people can be. This article also makes us this about doing the right thing. This article about a drunk driver, Eric Repasy from Utah who claimed he was speeding and swerving around 7 p.m. on Wednesday night because his son was dying in the back of the car and he was trying to save him. Mr. Repasy posted a bond of $1,000 and spent the night in the Jail in Eagle, Colorado. The release of Repasy said that this story was completely a lie and that he was under the influence of alcohol.
This small article had a big meaning to me. Why do people even drink? If you really think about it, there is no benefit from it. You can have even more (and legal) fun without it. Drinking can hurt the people you know...and the people you don't know! This article relates to our world around us because case’s like these happen every day in the world; careless, unintelligent cases.
All in all, I hope Repasy learned from his mistake and I also hope that the reader’s who have read this article also learned from his mistake.

Technology Today, How To Use It Correctly!

A Vision of Students Today, by Micheal Wesch, makes everyone think hard about whether the world is changing in a positive way or in a negative way. In this video, the students from Kansas University all hold up signs telling proven statistics about our technology-how many hours a day they are on their cell phones, how many Facebook pages they read each year (approximately), etc. Some of these statistics make us think how technology can either help our education with an impact, or the other way around. For example, a girl tells us that she brings her laptop to class everyday, but she spends the whole class on the internet. This shows us that the technology used for education is being abused. Some of the students are using it for different things that do not help them in an academic way at all. An example of how it impacts our learning is that we get information from not only the teacher, but we also get it from professionals through the Internet, that we probably would not have gotten the chance to understand if the technology was not around because we would not have gotten to observe what the professional’s input/understanding of the subject was. My reflection of this video is that I feel very privileged that I live in the years that I can go anywhere and look up pretty much any information that I need within a click of a button. I also feel that we should take advantage of the technology available to us while we have it. I loved this video because I feel that it was very creative, modern, and it grabbed our attention. This connects to what we are doing in class because we relate, use, and talk a lot about technology. The video relates to the world around us because these days, in these times, we use so much technology and we should learn how to use and what to do with it correctly. This video makes me think How did we come up with all this? How can we make the world a better, communicative society?