PLN week-10 post-19

In an article I read titled; “Is it an English as a Second Language?” by Karl Fisch was talking about how the English language is changing and so are the people that are speaking it. This was a subject I had been thinking about for a while now. In this post were some things that had me shocked, but yet at the same time not so surprised because I could see this coming.

“The issue is: whose English will it be? Non-native speakers now outnumber
native English-speakers by three to one. As hundreds of millions more learn the
language, that imbalance will grow. Mr Graddol says the majority of encounters
in English today take place between non-native speakers. Indeed, he adds, many
business meetings held in English appear to run more smoothly when there are no
native English-speakers present.”

That is just crazy to think that the people who use English as their first language, are out numbered by people who don’t even speak English natively! This language is becoming more known and used all over the world, and maybe used less in the places that actually has it as a first language. He also said that the majority of conversations that are in English are spoken between people who are non-native speakers.

Then it when on to talk about how this language may be changed, and completely different from how we know it today. The people who are adopting this language are altering the way it is spoken too. It has changed drastically over time thinking of the way English was spoken back in Shakespeare time compared to now, so what would be stopping it from changing again? This is a very shaky subject and has causes many debates on this having to do with immigration and the language being spoken here in the United States.

PLNweek-9 post-18

After hearing Berek’s presentation on Friday and him talking about a post that caught my attention I decided to read that article and use it for my PLN. The article was called “Do schools have Birth-control role?” Which was talking about the controversy of schools taking part in birth-control for their students.

Six different Denver schools are already taking part in handing out birth-control pills to students. They say that teenagers are sexually active so it is better to have them be protected. People that are for this idea say that it will drastically lower the dropout rate in schools. I don’t think that this is a wise idea. To me school staff handing out these pills are encouraging teens to have sex. Some kids might now think oh because even my school is basically saying its ok to do these things just as long as I’m not going to get pregnant is a bad message.

I think it is ridiculous to have this going on in middle schools too. Some middle school students are only 11 going into 6th grade and that is way too young to even have a boyfriend or girlfriend I think, so to give out birth-control pills to these young kids is outrageous.

I think that it is the students choice to do these things and their responsibility to be protected, and if they can’t handle that they are definitely not old enough to start being sexually active. Overall teens this young should not be having sex, and schools should not be encouraging that kind of behavior!

PLN week-9 post-17

In this article I read titled “First Impressions” by Scott McLeod on his blog site; http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2007/11/first-impressio.html was talking about encounters he had with some people and his impression of them. He was talking about first impressions have such a huge positive, or negative effect on things.

Obviously the main subject of this article was first impressions. It related to me because he was talking about school receptionists and secretaries who send out a very careless and atrocious attitude about the school. I have also noticed this when I go into schools main offices and get treated rudely. They usually will ignore me for quite some time while they are continuing their conversations about how they can’t wait to get out of there and go home, or how annoying a student was earlier that day. Now I’m not saying that all school workers are like this but when they are it sends off such a negative vibe about the entire school. If they are saying how they can’t wait to leave than it makes you wonder what is so bad about this school that makes them want to go home? Or if they are discussing a student will that be me they are talking about next?

Also just simple things that I see in other places to like stickers or signs saying rude comments like ‘I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.’ This was a quote that Scott had mentioned seeing on a sign in a teacher’s office as well. Though these things are meant for humor, should a person have that at their desk if they are a psychiatrist? These kinds of statements can be taken in the wrong way and are unnecessary to have in a respectable work place. These are some of the feelings that I have on first impressions.

PLN week-8 post-16

In an article I read called “Bringing Your Heart With You” by David Warlick which I found on his web page at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/10/25/bringing-your-heart-with-you/ was him briefly talking about an experience he recently had at a business conference he attended. A speaker there was talking about how workers should love their jobs. He said, “You want your employees to bring their hearts with them to their jobs.” This comment was pretty much the base of what this post was about.

This article related to me and my school because I think that it is very important that my teachers have a positive attitude about their job. When ever I see a teacher that just looks miserable and is being very bitter towards their students I always say to myself, “then why would somebody who hates kids, and teaching, become a teacher?!” I have had numerous teachers and even counselors or nurses, or attendance ladies in the front office who have had very disgruntled attitudes.

When one of my teachers has such a grumpy attitude it affects my learning experience. That crummy attitude will sometimes rub off on me and I will start to think “well if they don’t want to be here, why should I even be here?” I’m guessing that isn’t the attitude that a teacher is going to want from their students. So the simple solution is as Mr. Warlick stated before; bring your heart to work!

PLNweek-8 post-15

The title of a post called "Not Your Parents' Parent-Teacher Conference" caught my eye so I started to read it. In this blog by Karl Fisch it was saying how teachers are frusterated with how conferences are handled. He was saying how it seems like all these parents are focused is the grade and not the actual learning, I believe this as well.

Though my mom was unable to go the conference when she does go she thinks that it can sometimes be a waste of time. Experiences in the past have been my mom goes sits down, the teacher pulls out the grade book name some missing assignments maybe show a project or two and then it's on to the next teacher. All of that information my mom could have found on line or in my binder so that was a pretty pointless "conference". That's is why I was very releived to hear that other teachers felt this same way.

As Mr. Fisch mentioned my teacher Ms. Smith tried something different this year to actually try and make these meetings more meaningful. She had us write up a response to our learning, some goals we would like to achieve (not just grade wise) and a letter to our parents. Our parents would then take this to the conference and this is what they would discuss. I think that this made a huge difference and really acheived the real point of these conferences.

PLNweek-6post-14

I decided to look into a little more on filtering. So that is why I read and article called, "Even More on Filtering" it obviously was going into more depth and discussion on filtering. I recently had a project in my English class where we made our own wikis. I wanted to put a video on our page but because of the filtering blocks I was unable to do so. I don't think that my grade suffered from this but I think it deffinately could have been improved if I had this vidoe on my project. That was just one of those times where filtering yet againn blocked and denied me from education. It wasn't a tragic loss of information but it was quite bothernsome to not be able to add a simple video. This is why I think they should cut down on filtering, but just still continue to block the un needed sites like Facebook, and Myspace. Filtering student computers can be positve, but it can also at times get in the way of learning.

PLNweek-6 post-13

In an article I read called “Are You Ready to Grow? What’s Holding You Back?” by: Mrs. Parsons, it was talking about how there is too much information out there for our brains to understand. This made me think a lot about how much the human brain is actually capable of. Mrs. Parsons was saying things like how the knowledge of this world surpasses that of the human mind. So then I thought well, who put that information there…yes us! The humans with supposedly their tiny minds. Now I don’t think that Mrs. Parson was trying to say that we are all stupid and oblivious to the fast pace of knowledge in our world but there are others who would say that.

I personally think that we have not yet succeeded to come to see the full capability of our own brain. I believe that the human mind is an infinite source of knowledge and can never really be at its full potential. Now that may seem very confusing and I even confuse my self but think about it, how can we really know how smart we can be if we are never as smart as we can be? Wow. Why would our minds have a little meter of how much it can contain and when that meter hits the top its time to empty. No, I don’t believe that at all. The tough thing is that we are the most intelligent species on earth. We can see how smart a dog perhaps, can be, because we are dominant over them, but there is no one dominant over us that can tell us how smart we can be. No one on this earth at least.

I personally believe in God, and with that I believe that he created us and our minds. So, why would he put a limit on that mind? Some people say that technology is now “passing” us in intelligence. I don’t understand where they would come up with that idea. To me God made us, how can we be smarter then him? Well we can’t, it’s the same thing with technology; we created it, so how could it possibly be smarter than its creator?!

Another thing that ticks me off is when people say they aren’t as smart as someone else. Aren’t we all an equal race? So how on earth could someone else truly be more intelligent than another person. Yes they may contain more knowledge, at that moment, but if the other person really tried they could be just as smart. None of us have come to the full capability of our own minds like I said before I believe that our minds are infinite. Is that a good thing? Or a frightening thing knowing that we can be as brilliant as we want! What comes along with that kind of power? Well, I honestly have no idea but that’s what the future holds.