PLN #2

Dear Will Richardson,

I believe that students have reached their limit, not schools. Schools are able to cooperate with the standardized testing, but there not the ones taking the test. The more competition between the schools will just cause the students to be pushed harder to learn material over and over so they'll get high scores on Standardized Testing. Finally, there is the school reform acts which aren't really helping schools. The millions of dollars they're pushing into the school system won't help education at all. They're just some new acts to satisfy the American Public. I believe that we really should concentration on subjects they like before they get to High School. If we let student's be naturally curios instead of pushing them towards the schools goals for education. With the students finding what they're interested we will have more intelligent people in they're jobs. Before they're even hired they'll know everything possible because they will have almost 13 years to study that area.

PLN #23

“How Cognitive surplus will Change the World“by Clay Shirky matters because he talks about the importance of cognitive surplus, the ability for the world’s population to volunteer and collaborate on a large scale, sometimes global. This article matters to me because cognitive surplus would give me the ability to receive a lot more accurate information. If your studding the earthquake in Haiti, then you cannot just use Wikipedia because it inaccurate and it’s only one source. A scientist does a number of trials for a science experiment so he can get accurate data. “How Cognitive surplus will Change the World “matters to education because schools would be able to excess boat loads of information by just typing in one URL. This would save teachers and students time because we wouldn’t have to verify if the article is true because hundreds of other people wrote the same thing or not. This article matters to the world because it would a revolutionary way to make sure news is true while searching it. If 20 News channels saw theirs should be be snow and someone built a engine to put this data together there will be snow. “How Cognitive surplus will Change the World” matters because it’s a revolutionary idea to modernize collecting data.

PLN #22

"Education Reform is Re-establishing, Redefining and Retooling” by David Warlick matters because it’s talking about how a school is the equal of a factory. This article is the same concept as the RSA animation “Changing Education Paradigms”. This matters to me because I won’t to be interested when I learn, but instead I am forced irrelevant equations, writing styles, and famous dates. I know the majority of the stuff we learn is important, but it’s not interesting. School is about as boring thing as a factory. Do everything over and over again until you graduate. This article matters to education because the school system isn’t meeting a student’s standards. Schools need to raise their standards along with students. Without coming to a median, students will find school as not necessary, and the rate of drop outs might increase. This article matters to the world because it’s not only affecting American, other world powers must be realizing this too, but will they do something about it?

PLN #21

"Changing Education Paradigms" by Sir Ken Robinson matters because it talks about how every country in the world is reforming public schools. There are two reasons Economics and Culture. This video matters to me because we’re trying to fix current problems with past solutions. Our current school system is based on era that’s out dated and not suited for our time period. Without a sensible solution students will continue the boring day of being forced to learn reading, writing, history, and science. Some of these subjects don’t even suit students. This video matters to education because all schools are just putting students on an assembly line and shoving in standard subjects, sometimes against the students will. “Changing Education Paradigms” matters to the world we need student’s who are learners, not people who can memorize information and barf it up on a test. Students need to be learners, but also students need to want to be learners.

PLN #20

“Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution? Well…Maybe” by Will Richardson matters because it talks about how students would eventually teach each other even in elementary schools (teachers would just be a supervisor). Letting students teach students in a classroom in just not within America’s reach. This article matters to me because I would like to see student’s teaching other student’s so kids would be on the right level. Student’s being the teacher can result in not enough learning, learning something that’s not true or not learning at all. How will student’s play they can’t take their teacher, who’s a student, seriously. “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution? Well May…be” matters to education because this would put peers in the teacher’s seat and let them drive the class. With a student teaching other students they all learn and they develop public speaking skills and organization. This article matters to the world because this would be a bad idea because teachers would lose their jobs and there wouldn’t be a degree for teaching. Colleges would lose a course and if students would be the teachers then they wouldn’t get as much useful information. In a college course I would fell more confirmable with someone who has real world experience. A revolution would be nice, but do we need it?

PLN #18

“Tis’ the Season for Technology” by Gary Stager talks about how schools are mobilizing for the new technology phase in America. Only once in America’s life time, did students have more technology in their house than the schools. “Tis’ the Season for Technology” matters to me because know I will have tools at school that aren’t regularly available at home. Sure I have a laptop but, I don’t have access to a teacher to ask questions to. This article matters to education because schools are going overboard with the holiday sales this year. There making IPod labs! What educational benefit does this offer to the students? Sure they can take video and record sounds, but really!? With the ever dwindling school budget we need to conserve it for the old stuff like books, paper, pencils, the huge monitors, and projectors. If the school still has more money left over then why are we complaining about the schools budget? “Tis’ the Season for Technology” matters to the world because technology is becoming a virtual part of our lives.   It seems that technology and education go hand and hand.

PLN 19

“Boys and Boredom” by George F. Will matter because the human race is the only thing on the planet that can sustain boredom.  That is why so many of our preteen and teenage boys look to audio and video entertainment. This matters to me because “Fifty years ago, the onset of boredom might have followed a two-hour stretch of nothing to do. In contrast, boys today can feel bored after thirty seconds with nothing specific to do.” To tell you the truth I was bored from reading this article by the bottom of the third paragraph. Why can’t I focus on one specific thing? These matters to education because in a technology advanced classroom, such as my English 9 class, won’t kids wonder off and play computer games. I have seen people do this and I have done it quite a lot myself. Could this be another reason why America is falling behind in reading, writing, math and science against other countries? “Boys and Boredom” matters to the world because I have seen this only in countries that are super powers, which makes me think, why is only affecting only those countries? I believe the answer to be that in a super power country people have money and time for luxuries. Boredom is known a part of the human race.

PLN #17

“What if?” by Karl Fisch matters because it talks about the fact that cell phones, iPods, and other electronic devices used for entertainment are frowned on by schools. The truth is that these can be used to excel students learning and prove helpful in classroom settings. For example a student can us a iPod or a iPad for background music for a presentation. This article matters to me because today I used my phone to write down my homework, but I had to ask for permission to us it, why? Cell Phones can be for good reasons like a bunch of people have iPhones which can access the internet and be a useful device in classes where you don’t have access to a laptop. Personally I don’t think schools ever gave iPods, cell phones, mp3 players, etc., a chance to be useful in the learning environment. “What If?” matters to education because every day student brings iPods and cell phones to school. Scene the school systems budget is getting smaller every year what if the school system took advantage of the technology that students have in their pockets? This article matters to the world because corporations don’t like people using Facebook or Twitter in the work space, but I can be used to contact other countries, other companies, corporations or in your own building. Instead of spending thousands of dollars for a service that is free through Facebook or Twitter, to contact other workers with reminders, information etc in order to increase productivity for products the company makes. Why won’t society cell phones, iPods, iPads, mp3 players, facebook, twitter, etc, a chance to be used in a professional learning or working environment?

PLN #16

"All eyes on Colorado Senate race" by Kevin Simpson, Allison Sherry, and Michael Booth matters because everyone is talking about the race for the senate seat in Colorado. Whoever will be elected is probably going to make a splash with their senate seat. This matters to me because I was learning in Spelling and Vocab. today and my teacher talked about freedom versus safety and I am wondering is that how these two men function, one if fighting for our freedoms (Michael Bennet) or our safety (Ken Buck). Also, If I influence someone else's vote there are making a vote off of my assumptions that I have only got from commercials or short little articles in ads online. This article matters to educations because either of these people could affect the school system for good or bad. I don't know their views on education but these two men will have a lot of political power compared to a principle who wants to avoid whatever they want to inflect on the school system. These matters to the world because as of the senate they can vote on how foregin affairs, which we have already screwed up, with other world powers or for new laws that may restrict our freedoms or give us some back. Micheal Bennet and Ken Buck are going to make a splash in our country and ourselves.

PLN #15

"School Would Be Great if it Weren't for the Kids" by Alfie Kohn matters because it stats that we should be blaming the students for the majority of drop outs and bad grades. Students are to blame, we are given the material and what we need to do to succeed but we just blow it off or don't put in the work ethic. This article matters to me because I know this is the truth and saw this in my self. It seems that blaming students for poor grades would be a great American past time, it should be like screaming at a baseball game. Instead the people that actually accuse the teachers wouldn't blame their kids because they're their little angles.
This article matters to education because everyone thought teachers need to up thier game, but the students need to carry thier own wieght too. The majority of Students always have blown off work or saved it for the last minute because we are too lazy to do it or we forget. Students do need to be blamed from a educational stand point. This article matters to the world because I think this idea has only struck the US, and everyone is just watching us for our next move against this very persuasive argument. Bennet and Buck are being dismal against each other with all the attack ads on the web. The world might soon follow, but will teachers, students, principles, etc, submit to this idea or just blow it off?