PLN 6

I read an article called, ""Schoolboys Face Court in Racial Taunting" by Myung Oak which was article on recent racism in a school. I found this article to be interesting becuase just yesterday in my history class we were discussing racism in our world. We all thought that racism is in the past and our society has moved on from that, but I guess not. It sadens me that we still have this type of cruelty in our world.

The three kids who were faced in court because they were taunting a minority student at their school. They were following behind them with their hoods up chanting "KKK". That is just a horrible thing to do and say and I just can not imagine who would do such a thing. I do beleive that we have come a long way in our society and overall world in racism. This just shows that we still have a lot of improvement. Though I have never had to deal with this problem I still see it going on around me.

PLN 5

I read an outrageous article called, “Black Monday: Bloggers on Trial” written by Vicki A. Davis about a class whose blogger accounts and website were ordered to be taken down by the Department of Education and Children Services in Southern Australia. This was a class of young students; ages about 8 or 9 who were using a type of online blog for a project in class. Some parents and other authorities believed that this was a big risk to the children’s safety and wanted the site taken down. I think that this is ridiculous for these kids to have to just delete all of their hard work. The teacher says that he did send out a permission form for the parents to sign giving the “okay” to set up these accounts for their kids. The students never put out any personal information including their names and it was a well monitored project by the teacher.

This relates to me because I clearly have a blogger account I do not think that it is very dangerous at all. Like any information that is put on the internet you have to be careful, but these kids were so I see no problem. We use these accounts for school I find them very effective and efficient. My teacher and these students teacher is always keeping an eye out for any information too personal that is being put on these blogs. Those students obviously had put a lot of hard work into those projects online and they had to take them down which would be very upsetting to an eight year old.

All over the world they are trying to prepare the youth for the future. It is very apparent that computers will be a huge part of this future so why are now they trying to prevent young people from using the resources we have? I think it is a great idea for these children to be getting involved in these online accounts because they will be using computers in the future so why not prepare them now? This whole situation could have been handled better then just completely shutting down these students accounts. They should have set up a more private account, or something rather than just cutting them off from the valuable resource such as the internet.

PLN 4

Today I read an aritcle about how NYC students are now banned from using their cellphones or myspace. This relates to me because I have a cellphone and use myspace and I do not think that it is fair for someone to ban you for using what belongs to you. In school or at least in class we are not supposed to use cellphones or myspace which makes sense becuase it is a distraction to class. This relates to the world because this happened in New York and I assume that this is a problem in other areas as well.

PLN 3

I read an article called, “Student Information Online” written by Jeff Utecht Which was talking about a hot topic lately and that is cyber safety with students. This article was telling which information is safe to put online. This relates to me personally because I have a few accounts that are open on the web, even with private setting you can never be too safe. For me it is just common sense to not put personal information including last names, addresses, school, neighborhood, or phone numbers. Many mistakenly do this and sometimes the consequences can be very dangerous.

This relates to school a lot too because in my English class we do have a blogger account (obviously) which is public to everyone. Our teacher always makes sure that we never put our last names on our work or any other risky information. Putting your last name or phone number online is just not worth risking your life. This is the way it relates to the world because young girls especially all over need to listen to this and be careful about what they put online. Nothing is really private on the internet no matter what anyone says, hackers are everywhere trying to get information on you. In this day and age there are so many pedophiles out there so people have to always be cautious. It is quite unfortunate that this is the type of world we live in but it is something that exists so we have to deal with it.

PLN 2-sem2

For my second PLN I read an article on teen driving by Kieran Nicholson called, “Teen traffic deaths down in Colorado”. This article was about how the death rates for teen car accidents has gone down in the past year. This article really caught my eye because I have been doing a lot of research on this subject for pretty much this whole semester. I chose the topic of teen driving for my position paper for English class. In my paper I talked about the dangers in teen driving with distractions such as text messaging and other dangers like just overall being too inexperienced. Then for our recent PSA projects my group chose to do ours on wearing a seat belt while driving especially for driving and in the article authorities say,

“The number of Colorado teens killed in car crashes is down by more than a
third, but deaths could be even lower if more teens buckled up”

This topic relates to school in a way that many high school students are driving, and they are all at risk for accidents. So is everyone else on the road but teen drivers the most because they are the most inexperienced drivers. At our Arapahoe High School we have the Remember campaign reminding students to buckle up and take care of one another which I think that every school needs to do. I truly believe that this has helped a lot of the students to buckle up especially when coming or leaving school which is some improvement.

This relates to the world because every where in the United States there are teen drivers that are recklessly driving with out safety precautions such as wearing a seat belt. Car accidents are the leading cause of death for young people such as teenagers and majority of those people who died were not wearing their seatbelts. Just think that if all of those people would have just taken two seconds to buckle up they could still be alive today. Though there are improvements and the death rate has gone down it can always be better.

I am Poem

I am an adventurous girl

I wonder how many colors are really in the rainbow

I hear the wind whistling a cheerful tune

I want to sleep on a cloud

I am an adventurous girl

I pretend that my back pack is actually a jet pack

I feel so many emotions at once

I touch the snow and pretend its ice cream

I worry that when I get older my imagination will fade

I am an adventurous girl

I understand that with out laughter life is much more boring

I say anything that comes to mind

I dream that one day I will be a superhero

I try to fly but usually fall

I hope that others can feel my joy

I am an adventurous girl

PLN 1-sem2

For our first PLN for the second semester I as usual went searching for an article that caught my eye and I did. “What Do We Know About our Kids’ Futures? Really.” written by Will Richardson which was another post on yet again what the future holds. It seems that everyone is discussing and almost worrying about the future, our future, that is the future of the children. He was saying how we really do not know what the future holds and I don’t think we can ever really know what the future will be like until we are present in the future. That is how it always has been, if you would have told somebody 20 years ago that 9th graders will have their own laptop in class that person would have probably thought you were crazy. That is a big way that this effects schools, new technology is being put into classrooms to try and inform the young people today to get them ready for tomorrow.
The future is so unpredictable that I honestly do not understand why people are putting so much effort into trying to figure out what the world will be like 50 years from now or 30, or 20 years or even 10 years from now. You can never really know what will happen until it happens. This relates to me very much because I am the future that everyone (the adults) are making a big deal about. I am the innovated and unpredictable future that will change the world. But the problem is I do not think that I have the information needed to really prepare me for that future, and I don’t think that anyone will be able to give it to me.
This goes to how adults are preparing us for this new world that we are entering. What I wonder is how can they teach us something that we have yet to create. How can a teacher give a student a text book on all of the information we need to be successful in life if we are the ones that will be setting the tone for success in our day and age. They will only be giving us information on how to be successful in their time, which will only slow us down and not help us prepare for the future. It is almost a hopeless feeling knowing that you can not really do much to help us for the future, but I see it as challenge. This is the opportunity for us the youth of the world to create our own society, improve the things we don’t agree with, and truly change the world.