The World Wide Web

               This weekend we got an article called “Footprints in the Digital Age” by Will Richardson. This article is mostly about the World Wide Web, and how it can have positive and negative effects. It talks how most of the stuff on the web is out of our control and some of it can be bad. It also says how the web can be a positive thing for learning.  The web has a large audience so kids need to watch what they post on the web; there are limits. The article gives a story of how a girl named Laura used the web to help.

            The internet is a very big and a controversial thing. When kids are on it they can do so much. Kids need to have limits on the internet because there are things out there that can scare them and get them in trouble. If anyone puts something on the internet; it will never come off. Even though you can “delete” stuff it never actually leaves. So kids (and adults) need to watch what they put on the internet. One websites such as Facebook or MySpace make people feel safe when they are on their, but they are not safe at all. There are bad people out there in the web that can do really bad things. There was a study that showed 70 percent of kids that are online talk about educational-related topics. Somehow I doubt that. I’m a teenager, and when I’m online I rarely talk about school or education. “Younger students need to see their teachers engaging experts in synchronous or asynchronous online conversations about content, and they need to begin to practice intelligently and appropriately sharing work with global audiences.” This quote reminds me of the PLN’s we do in classes. We are learning how to share our knowledge with the world. This also reminds me how teachers are trying to get younger kids ready for the future and all the jobs that don’t exist. The internet is a very complex thing, and needs to be used right and resourcefully.   

R.I.P. Kenny McKinley

            This week I was browsing through The Denver Post when I found a story on Kenny McKinley’s death. It was called “Police: Broncos' McKinley depressed about injury before death” by Mike Klis. It was about Broncos receiver Kenny McKinley suffering from depression after his knee surgery four weeks ago. He killed himself Monday afternoon by shooting himself in the head. McKinley didn't know what he would do if he couldn't play football because football was all he knew. Investigators with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office said no suicide note was left by McKinley. He was only 23 years old.

            I feel really bad for him. But in a way this was a very selfish act. He didn’t think about how everyone would feel if he did it. Now his whole family, the whole Bronco team, and all of Denver are going to suffer from this. This teaches me that sports can’t carry you your whole life. You need to value your education and learn as much as you can. Most of these NFL players cruise through college using football. They don’t know what to do besides football. Not all of us are going to get great opportunities like professional athletes. We all need to find a real profession that we can always fall back on. If sports are all you know how to do you are going to be in trouble once you quit or retire, and you’re in the real world. I don’t mean to harp on anyone’s dreams, but we all need to be realistic. McKinley didn’t know what to do. So he didn’t have anything to live for. So my question to you is what do you want to do when you grow up? All of you who cost through school and life better shape up and get your act together. These four years of high school are going to go by quick, and we still need to have fun but work hard at our futures.    

Google: Good or Bad?

            For this week’s PLN I got an article called “Is Google Making Us Stupid”  by Nicholas Carr. It talks about how Google and the internet have made everything easily accessible to everyone and how it is making us stupid. Google and other websites have short little articles that are easy for us to read but when we get long articles and books we get distracted and we go off topics. Facebook and texting has also done this to us. This has happened to a lot of people. Our mental habits have been cut and it’s getting worse. Bruce Friedman from the University of Michigan Medical School said, “I can’t read War and Peace anymore. I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.” This has an effect on the best of us.

            I also feel this way a lot of the time when I’m reading a book or an article. I tend to “power browse” as said in the article. I think Google and the internet has done this to me. I have gotten so use to reading short little stuff like blogs and text messages. The internet has made everything easier, we no longer have to go to the library for hours to find information we can just “Google” it. The article said, “When we read online, she says, we tend to become ‘mere decoders of information.’ Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.” We can’t get the same experience as we do when we are in deep reading with traditional text. Even though we have gotten easily distracted over time, the internet and Google has been a positive in everyday life. It has made research fast accessible and it has expanded our mind and in a way making us smarter.

            Nicholas Carr is making valid points in his article but I do not agree with everything he says. He has too much of a negative view on the internet and Google. He needs to look at the positive side and see how Google benefits us.

School is back!

For this week’s PLN I browsed through The Fischbowl and found a story called “Dear Denver Post - You're the Disappointment” by Karl Fisch. Mr. Fisch wrote this about The Denver Post when it said in the paper “Summer is almost over, and the disappointment about returning to class . . .” and Mr. Fisch did not like this. He wrote that most kids aren’t excited about returning to school but the paper should be send negative messages to the students.


What both The Denver Post and Mr. Fisch said give me mixed feelings about returning to school. I agree with The Denver Post because returning to school is not my favorite thing to do, but we all have to do it and we all return to homework, which we dread. But I also agree with Mr. Fisch because when we do return to school we get to see all of our friends, we get to watch our football games, and the dances are always fun. This subject is hard to touch on because everyone has their own feelings on how they view it. For me I am half and half, but I would have to say I agree more with Mr. Fisch only because school brings friends, fun, sports, and new adventures. High school is a fun four years but if we all spend our days dreading over school we won’t be happy or have fun. We need to have a great time, only you can make it great.

Future Students, Fure Problems.

In Michael Wesch’s “A Vision of Students Today” it talks about the students now and the people of the future. It says that students now in college will deal with problems and will have jobs that no one even knows about. Some of the students now a days are overwhelmed by school and don’t have any time to relax. It says that people say technology will save us but nothing has helped.



As I was watching this video, all I could think was if these people are dealing with these problems now, what will I be struggling with? What’s going to help me? In a way this video scared me because I think that my life can be overwhelming at times but when I get older it’s going to just get worse. What am I going to do? It shocked me that an average college student has a 26.5 hour day and this amazes me how these people can deal with this. Knowing that an average college student will be $2,000 in debt by the time they graduate makes me nervous when I go to college. But I do feel lucky knowing I’m not one of the people in the world that make less than one dollar. This does make me sad but I do feel very grateful. This video really made me think and ponder my own thoughts. It just blows me away knowing that when I leave college I will probably have a job that doesn’t exist today and that I’m preparing for that job now. This video left me with three questions that I don’t think anyone could answer; what will I be doing in the future? Where will I be? How will I do in the real world?