The Shift

Will Richardson’s “Footprints in the Digital Age” informs us on ways to learn being 21^st century learners. He states that people are being “Googled” all over the world whether it be through news articles, blog post, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, or even Facebook groups and most of it is beyond our control. “Network is the New Literacy” is what Will Richardson believes; “This maybe be the first large technological shift in history that’s being driven by children.” This article also questions how educators are teaching instead of a “supply-push” model to a “demand-pull” approach as Richardson says. He thinks we should connect and build networks in order to communicate with people who share the same interest as us. Throughout the article, Richardson converses about a girl named Laura Stockman who creates a good remodel for what a “Google” person should look like. It is up to us educators to take benefit of our technology and to connect with people who share the similar passions as us.

In response to reading “Footprints in the Digital Age” by Will Richardson, It got me to consider networking and Google. It’s a scary thought to think that if any one searched my name they could probably find out a lot about me, but we should not let that keep us from finding out more about people who share the same interest too. One of a many reoccurring words I saw in this article was shift. It is the 21^st century and teachers can’t be teaching us like we’re from the 20^th century because we learn different from how the 20^th century learned. Even though figuring out how to help people create, navigate, and create great networks, technology means that all of creating, navigating, and creating networks. One quote of Will Richardson I like that relates to this is; “The shift requires us to create engaged learners, not simply knowers, and to reconsider the roles of schools and educators.” Instead of stating that we are not the best and it’s because of the teachers not doing a great job a teaching, parents not parenting, and students not wanting to learn ("U.S. Puts Values in Ditch"), this article offers ways we can change and make teaching a learning better and more suitable for 21^st century people. These ideas apply to me because I have been taking "footprints in the digital age" most of my life. I agree that we should find other people online who have the same passions as us and to share our experiences on blogs or YouTube. I noticed when people share a part of there life; they can connect better with others. It draws our attention because it is relevant to out lives and we can connect with other people’s experiences. As we start our blogs about our interests, we should question questions and ask other questions relating to what others have said. Collaborating and working with people who are similar to us I think could be the key to success.                                                                                                                           

16 Year Old Me

Karl Fisch's post about Dear Sixteen Year Old Me by DCMFCanada gave many helpful tips. This video is about Melanoma cancer. Cancer is very common among people today whether it be inside you body, hiding but spreading everywhere like a fire spreading in a forest or outside of your body. Melanoma cancer is caused from excessive sun without sunscreen or from tanning beds. This video showed people who have experienced this or had close ones who have experienced this and maybe it was even fatal. That's why they made this video to show people to be aware of this cancer and to stop it before it's to late.

After seeing this video, it made me aware of how easy it is to get cancer. Melanoma is a tumor that attacks melanin, which gives you your skin and hair color. Even just going to the pool without sunscreen and even getting just one bad sunburn can double the chances of getting this. This is very important to me because this is the second most found cancer in kids and teenagers. Many people my age aren't even aware of this cancer and really need to be educated about this. I never knew this before, but now I can help others who could eventually get this be aware and to stop this cancer before it gets bad. It is so crucial that people are aware because Melanoma is only treatable at the early stage when the tumor can be surgically removed. If people don't know that they have it, Melanoma can spread very fast to parts of the body where it can't be removed making it harder to treat. One of the quotes a lady said in this video that I liked was, "your skin is like an elephant; it remembers everything." This proves that in general; be nice to skin because it will show if people don't. People are so oblivious to this because everyone wants to be tan therefore they don't put on sunscreen. Signs of this cancer are usually shown throw skin and so if should be noticeable but sometimes it can be hard to fin so that can make people more oblivious. The people who were in this video gave tips to wear sunscreen and check every month to see if there are any signs of Melanoma. "Dear Sixteen Year Old Me" made me appreciate all the people in the video who were calm and gave great advise. It helps to see that there is hope even if people do have it. There are many varieties of cancer in the world and this is one step closer to finding cures for even a bad sunburn or a person who has gone to the tanning bed.

The Bigger Picture of Google

The article Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr is an interesting article for several reasons because it shows how over time we have become not as capable as we could be. First, the article illustrates the background of how the Internet came to be. Carr explains why we cannot focus on long paragraphs or magazines because we have so much going on and that since writings are usually in shorter paragraphs, it is hard for the human brain to focus on longer paragraphs. (I agree Mrs. Comp, this article is ironic because it is nine pages long). This article goes deep into how Google and other mechanical perfections affect our lives whether it be good or bad.

As I read this article, the author points out that his mind isn't going--so far as he can tell--but it's changing which led me to think that our brain is always learning and changing. For example, he said, the brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions." The main idea I get out of the article is that we spend so much time searching the Internet and research that it could take hours our days to get what is now accessible to anyone in just seconds. This article also shows that we no longer can take a while and leisurely read content but now it has to be short and to the point be for we loose interest and focus. It's kind of sad how aspects that are popular today have to be fast and not take too much of our time. Nicholas Carr's quote saying that he once was a scuba diver in the sea of words, but now he sips along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski, demonstrates this aspect. The author was being a little dramatic when he 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." Perhaps it is easier than that (at least for me). With some self-control anyone can read even if it is long, but I can understand why some just can't focus. From witnessing my aunt and uncle who have four children all under the age of nine, two of them twin girls at age three, I can tell it is much harder for them to focus on anything because they have so much on their minds and they are a busy family. Maybe if we just make an effort to set those thoughts aside then maybe we could concentrate on what is in front of us better. Another topic I notice while reading this article is that time is everything. On page six, the second paragraph shows how much technology is changing and how we must make the best and most efficient of our time. Why do we always have to compete? In the article, it says that the human brain is an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive. Our brains being not as fast as they could today is partially our fault. The references to Plato's phaedrus by Socrates, saying, "He feared that, as people start to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue's character, 'cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.' Also, because people would be able to 'receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,' they would 'be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.' They would be 'filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.' However, I believe that we are not growing less with our mental capability because of Google because it provides information we would never have access to. It is up to you to decide if we are "pancake people" or not?

Community vs. National Institutions

David Warlick's We Don't Trust What We Can't See  is about the decline of a satisfactory level of confidence on the education system. He expressed and showed his thoughts using infographic on IGad and also created a graphic called Public Schools Compared to Others Institutions on We Don't Trust What We  Can't See. This shows America's community percentage of confidence vs. our national institutions percentage of confidence. David Warlick asks various questions addressing what is really going on outside the classroom; what provoked the unsteadiness of education; and how do we overall inspire confidence? He also says, "We need to sell learning to our students into the 21st century by showing it to them which leads to a previous blog about my opinions of Michael Wesch's A Vision of Students Today. This blog post got me thinking even more. This blog is attention grabbing to me because education is an important part of our lives because it directs us to where we will be in the future.

  What most surprised me after viewing this blog was the Public Schools Compared to Others Institutions. It shows that the military has 78% confidence from Americans following small businesses and the police at 64% and 56% and so on, but after watching A Vision of Students today it makes sense that public schools would only have 34% of our confidence and teens do have a higher chance of to go to jail/prison rather than graduate high school. To me, we don't have confidence now because school isn't relevant to us and it doesn't make sense to learn it if we may not even need it in the future. Another part of this is maybe lack of connection between teacher or parent. This kind of irritates me because I know we have a great military but what happens when very few pay attention to bullying, which causes people to do poorly in school, bad teaching skills, uncaring of both the students and the teacher, and what about stuff that goes on out of school that makes a student do poorly. Why do we not focuss on making school over all a better and welcoming place? When I came to AHS the teachers where inviting, willing, and cared; which really helped coming from a school of 450 students. Like David Warlick said; that we need to teach 21st century learners with 21st technology. I think how David Warlick shows our confidence in education fluctuating over years, is really explained well and gets teachers and students involved. What I also noticed was that the things that were more relevant to our lives had higher percentages like religion. This has changed my perspective greatly on school because I never really focussed about the outside world. I just thought this is the way we have to learn so this is how it should be, but the graph shows that what ever gave people confidence in the high points of this graph is what we should be doing now. So the question David Warlick is asking and I am for sure asking is how do we inspire confidence?

Students of the 21st Century

"A Vision of Students Today" by Michael Wesch was about the students of the 21st century and how they learn and what makes them not learn. Through this video we established that technology is the way to learn for 21st century students. After viewing this video, it made me think about many topics. First of all, I noticed that no one was talking the whole time, but it still made a huge impact and really expressed the main topic of over all saying that students learn better with technology.

Do we really use technology that much? Using technology for this era of children/teens comes easy to most. Watching this video, to me, was like a wake up call of how much technology is in our lives, how much we rely on technology today, and how its has made an impact on our lives. Before, we would wright letters to one another to communicate, but now we have cell phones to talk to close ones or text. Facebook is also a huge communication site that not only lets people chat with friends but also shows pictures of past events and status posts for a person's everyday thoughts or actions. I think what teachers are missing most about educating students is that students today, as 21st century learners, learn better with technology. It seems as though teachers teach students how to learn the way they did when they were our age, but they need to learn how to teach students with technology, after all students do spend most of their time on technology (like shown in the video). Another thing teachers are lacking today is how to make education relevant to the lives of students because when I was reading "U.S. Puts Values in Ditch" I don't believe we are putting values in ditch, but our values have changed over time and now it seems that most students wonder why they are learning this if they can never apply it to their own life. Is school really preparing us for the future? This is why technology should be the way of the 21st century learner.