PLN 31

In the article “If I was a Petulant Child” by David Warlick, the author talks about a presentation he was giving to teachers, and that he was doing it without internet. He says it wasn’t a problem for him, but pictured a likely reaction of a twelve year old.
No Internet? Wait a minute. You want me to talk about how my generation thinks, how we interact with each other, how we play – and work – and learn, what we care about and where we do it — and you want me to do it without the Internet?
I think that this is very true. Our entire generation almost revolves around the internet, if not most of the world. Shouldn’t there be a push to get internet in all school districts in the U.S., at least? This is what matters to me in David Warlick’s “If I was a Petulant Child.”

PLN 30

In the article “Rethinking How Students Learn” by Will Richardson, the author talks about a book that he started reading and shares part of a chapter from it. In the chapter he gave, it talks about how schools have stayed almost the same for over one hundred years. This matters to me because I go to school. I am learning almost the same way people did over one hundred years ago, but our world hasn’t stayed the same for that long. Why is school staying the same when everything else is changing? This is what matters to me in Will Richardson’s “Rethinking How Students Learn”.

PLN 29

In “2txt? Or N2txt?” by Garrison Kellor, the author talks about how texting may be causing young men to lose social interaction skills. Texting removes 98% of nuances in face to face conversations. I think that this may not be true. Plenty of people at my school will just approach and say hi, without really knowing me. This does sound very possible though. I am somewhat like what the author described, but I have been like that for most of my life. This is what matters to me in Garrison Kellor’s “2txt? Or N2txt?”

PLN 28

In “Our boys are falling behind in education” by Dottie Lamm, the author talks about the problem of boys doing badly in school. She says that one problem about this is that most people don’t know or don’t pay attention to this because no studies have been released on it and the fight for women’s rights is still ongoing. I think that in general, this is true. I often times have a hard time writing, with some exceptions. Why is it that no studies have been done on a gender gap, but on almost every other possible type of gap? I would think that gender gap studies would be one of the more prevalent studies. This is what matters to me in Dottie Lamm’s “Our boys are falling behind in education.”

PLN 27

In the article “Being a “Learner” is being Responsible” by David Warlick, the author talks about once in a chat with some people, they started talking about Wikipedia. One participant pointed out Wikipedia has resources on the topic, but no one usually clicks on them. The author points out that most people don’t feel compelled to do so for one reason or another. The author then connects this to video games, how the point is to find a way to make it work, not just following instructions. I believe this is a great point. Most people don’t need to look for more information; they just need to find what works. This is what matters to me in David Warlick’s “Being a “Learner” is being Responsible.”

PLN 26

In the article “Is This Creativity?” by David Warlick, the author talks about a discussion he had about creativity, leading to the question, “What does Ken Robinson say about creativity?” followed by its answer, Creativity is “the process of having original ideas which have value. Then, the author follows up with another piece I found interesting,

As Robinson says later in his TED talk,
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you won’t come up with anything original.”
What we do not want our students saying, is what I friend of mine’s daughter said recently
when ask about the purpose of school. She said,
School is the place where you do not want to get caught being wrong

I have thought this on and off throughout my schooling, though not specifically like this. It does surprise me somewhat, while I realize this is very likely true. For example, in one of my classes, almost all of what we do is reading off a sheet and copying it back onto a computer, then turn it in to see how close you got to the instructions. Although, I don’t believe this applies to all classes. A project in another of my classes recently was to write a story with few guidelines. The biggest guideline was that it needed to have an object from now that didn’t or won’t exist in another time and what that object could be. This is what matters to me in David Warlick’s “Is This Creativity?”

PLN 25

In the article “An Open Mind (In Higher Ed at Least)” by Will Richardson, the author talks about an article he read that talked about the impact on educational resources from the advent of MIT OpenCourseWare. One of the things that I noticed is that Will describes the article as a balanced read, which don’t seem to appear very often, no matter what the article is about. Another part of the article interviews one of the founders of Peer 2 Peer University, Neeru Paharia, who says “Having a degree is a signal. It is a signal to employers that you’ve passed a certain bar.” The article also says, “Ms. Paharia doesn’t think degrees are necessary. P2PU is working to come up with alternative signals that indicate to potential employers that an individual is a good thinker and has the skills he or she claims to have — maybe a written report or an online portfolio.” I think that this would be a great way for people to get the jobs they want (or at least put them on the road to them) even if they don’t have the money to go college. This is what matters to me in Will Richardson’s “An Open Mind (In Higher Ed at Least)”.