Creative Commons

This project has made me a little more aware of legal issues that surround what I give and take on the internet. I have posted pictures of what I have created, and personally I am fine with others taking them and doing what they want with them, but now I also know that the things I will usually find on google images may have some restrictions that I am unaware of. I have taken a lot of pictures off certain websites and posted them on my Facebook page, and although I stated I did not create a single one I am now aware that there still may be some other rules I am unaware of with some of the pictures.

Schools Using Technology or Not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html
The New york times article about the school in Silicon Valley that does not use technology brings up some interesting points about teaching kids. Hands on techniques and interactions with your peers and teachers are very important when it comes to learning, but I dont think that it means that technology cant help the learning experience. Yes technology is a distraction and many things can be done very easy without it, but with certain aspects it helps engage students more into what they are doing. Cutting up food is a good way to capture children's interests in what they are doing, but when math becomes as advanced as trigonometry and calculus, theres nothing you can really do besides write it all out on a chalkboard and ask kids questions, which hardly has any power to really engage any of the kids. But when you do these things out on a computer, even though its the same uninteresting stuff, its implemented through a medium that kids are more familiar and comfortable with, so it cant help but have the effect of pulling kids into it more. There are some things technology cant replace, and there are some things that are hardly effective without, so I believe the right thing to do is promote moderation, give the kids the social interaction they need and enhance what you need to with technology.

digital trouble

Every internet user is responsible for his or her digital citizenship, and as what should be expected some people end up screwing themselves up big time. People underestimate the effect of what they do on the internet coming back to haunt them. Here is a link i found about one women who was one of these people:
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Facebook--115610064.html
Its unbelievably easy to forget the connection between real life and the internet. They can seem so disconnected sometimes, but the reality is that real people are reading and thinking about what you put out, and it can have the same consequences as they would applied to real life situations. She didn't bash her boss to his face or in the office, but in this case she may as well have. Digital citizenship is really just what it means to be a good responsible person in real life, but instead its just on the internet. The internet is a place for freedom, but because of the real world implications people need to think about what they should make public and what they should make private, which is no different to the real world idea of what you should be saying to strangers or co workers and what you can only say to your friends privately. People need to start being aware of these concepts because its so easy to get carried away and to forget that the internet can have much of the same responsibilities to your well being as in real life.

Self taught

I really love the idea of teaching yourself something like what was shown in the video. When you are your own teacher, you know exactly what way is best for you to learn. When you are learning independently, there is no worry about schoolwork or a teacher bugging you, you can focus just on learning what it is you want to learn. Coming from a student who already has independent study, it makes you feel very free just being able to focus on your work. There is no worry about falling behind, about homework, or even about projects. It should be expected that these things will still require you to do some work at home and put together a big project, but its more voluntary then it is in other classes. It's less of "I have to do this to get a good grade" and more of "I gotta do this if I want to be ready to move on to the next step". Also, this system eliminates the demotivating feeling of so much time being wasted on something that will never help you out at all. it's all voluntary, you are learning something that many kids will enjoy and find useful, and it's effective, how much better could it get?
The only downside to this is the fact that to learn, you need to have an interest or motivation to learn, which no school s without kids who meet these requirements. Some kids need to structured school system with teachers and grades because these things are the only thing that will push them to learn at least something that could come in handy in the future.
No system is without it's flaws, but the independent study idea can do a lot of good for so many students if given the chance

Filter Food

The video really brought me to light about the various filters on the internet. I have seen some of these things on Facebook lately and I only saw hints of it on Google, but this really brings to light the whole thing. It is very dangerous what they are doing to the internet, essentially separating people from what they really need to see and hiding so much of the internet from them. The internet is supposed to drastically change the world because it can connect everyone and everything in the world, but now its being hindered by cutting those connections and just dividing up the world for people. Information is one of the most valuable resources the human race can have, and that is why the internet unhindered is such a powerful and good thing because it allows the human race as a whole to evolve faster and helps people rally behind ideas  and causes that are more likely to be good. The filtering needs to stop, because the internet must remain as a source of raw information and connections to the world as it was before.

College Connections

I love seeing colleges trying to connect with their students more by improving the Student Recruitment Manager, but I still have no idea exactly how they are sing it to connect to students. I cant figure out whether this is just an advertisement tool or if they are picking up on what kids may want changed in their college. Its great that they are trying to connect with students by monitoring their web chatter, but to me it almost seems invasive that colleges are looking over every last word i post online. Also, this doesn't read to me as the noble cause the article seems to paint it as, because the focus seems to be on getting more students to join the college, but its not changing the experience of college itself, so I cant really say it is a very interesting thing to look into. This just seems to be changing advertisement techniques to target certain students, which isn't that far off from what google has been doing with its advertisements for a while now.

Class So Far

So far I really like this class, I feel like I am learning allot of new things. I have never done anything involved in filming a video before, so I really like this new experience. Also, the things we learned about searching on google will really come in handy with researching things in the future. Lastly I never really thought about how outdated most schools are when it comes to learning techniques, so this class has given me a whole new view on a big part of this country.