a 4 Awesome

As a future elementary school teacher, I believe that preschool is very important for a child’s development and ability to succeed in elementary school.

This YouTube clip is perfect for every person who uses Powerpoint!

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”- Alvin Toffler

This quote is true on so many different levels and definitely relates to the path education has recently been taking. There are so many different technologies being developed. By the time you learn one way to do something, there is going to be a more efficient way to do it. Therefore you will have to unlearn the method you already learned and learn the new method. This will keep going on.

“Even the state wants us to be ourselves.  It wants subversive and potentially dangerous people to reveal themselves through their habits and social connections, not slink away in the dark to avoid obvious surveillance.”  (“Naked in the Nonopticon” by Siva Vaidhyanathan)

I agree with this quote because if we have nothing to hide: why try?!   The ones guilty of dangerous acts are the ones who should be scared.  This thought is however different from the Facebook executives allowing information that is neither here nor there the business of others.  The actions of normal citizens are not a danger to society.  As if one person’s love life affects the entire community.  There are private matters that should not be broadcasted.

In the view of a teacher and parent if children do not want the public at large to know something then they should not put it where it can be found.  Guardians can use this mode of the information highway to make sure children are alright and are not doing anything to harm themselves.

After reading “A Rape in Cyberspace: or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society” by Julian Dibbell questioned what a society really is.  To me a society is something that consists of citizens and a hierarchal government.  It has rules and laws that govern how the citizens interact within their society.  

Can this happen in cyberspace?

This article opened my eyes to the possibility of just that.  Every aspect I believe constructs a society is described within this reading.  It’s a little scary that a fantasy world can mimic such a complex idea such as a society.

What’s next?

After watching the YouTube clip “Will Video Games Become Better than Real Life” by David Perry I started thinking about the way video games affects my five-year-old son.  He loves playing video and computer games.  Not only does he enjoy them but it comes naturally for him to manipulate the technology put in front of him.  He is given a time limit on how long he is allowed to play these games and when the time comes for him to stop he throws a fit.  He gets so upset that someone would think I was ripping him in two.  It’s scary as a parent and teacher to think that our kids are becoming mentally attached to technology.  Children are losing touch with reality.  They are being numbed by the violence in these games and because of that they are no longer fazed by a devastation that happens within reality.  As guardians and mentors for our young we need to stay on top of how often this type of technology is used and what ratings they are.  Video and computer games can be very stimulating and educational if used in the right way.

I was never interested in comics. There were times when I would get the sunday paper, I would read the “funnies” section but I never got into that genre of reading. I really liked this reading and how it was set up. I didn’t realize how much really goes into making comics and how much more meaning they have. In the beginning of the reading it shows pictures of objects such as a face, flowers, and many other things saying that the pictures are really not the images we see. At first I wasn’t sure where the reading was going with this but then I realized after reading that they are only icons or images that resemble the real thing. The look like the real faces and flowers but they truly are not.

This was a great reading for me because I got a chance to understand how comics work and all the hard work and thought that are put into them. I didn’t realize there was an actual theory behind the detail of pictures and the text that follows. It’s really interesting to know that comics aren’t just pictures and words, there his hidden meaning and purpose. Out of all the readings in the class I found this one to be one of my favorites and I feel that I have learned a lot about comics.