PLN11

Karl Fisch's video "2020 Vision" intrigued me. Through the video I wondered about how this would affect my future. I soon realized that the video was not just about the class of 2020, but about the world. The fact that Google might accomplish all of those things, and become worth $1.5trillion makes me want to go out and buy Google stock shares. Another interesting thing that caught my eye during the video was that it claimed Obama would still be president in 2018. My question is, did he loose his second race for office or is he to be only the second president in history to take three terms? I then started wondering, if this is all predicted for 2020, who is going to accomplish all of this? I remembered Mr. Fisch's other video "Did You Know" and how it predicted that most of the jobs that will exist for my class, don't exist now. I had finally discovered how this affects me, it is going to be people my age or a little older who do all of these amazing things. Be it the GCam, Gcast, GPanles, the first working quantum computer, iMagine, or eyeMagine(which I think is the coolest of all because it is a computer screen projected on your retina) people my age, maybe even me, will be accomplishing these great technological feet’s. This could be true because my class is to graduate college somewhere between 2017 and 2022. This gives me hope for the future, but I am also saddened that it can not be my class that has a chance to experience all of these things as we grow up and go through high school. Another thing that the video made me think about is my great grandma Polly. My mom and grandma Paula always tell me how she has lived through the age of inventions, she has seen the invention of the T.V., the microwave, a ton of things that we now take for granted today. I started wondering if I was going to be saying the same kind of thing about my parents, or my children about me. All of the wonderful things this video predicts really make a person think about how it will affect them, but that is the story of Americans, always thinking about ourselves.

PLN10

On Karl Fisch's blog, The Fischbowl, the post, "Who Ya Gona Call" shows exactly what this world has come to. The story about how Ms. Orf found an old friend on Facebook, and is going to use Skype so that he can talk to her business class about being an entrepreneur is a prime example of how the internet can be used. This shows that, by using the internet, as it is today, it is possible to find anybody, anywhere, and then have a conversation with that person wherever they are. I personally think this can be a good thing, and a bad one at the same time. Take pedophiles for example; pedophiles use the web to stalk children and whoever else they want, and things like Facebook are being used as their tools of evil. The web is good though because it can be used to do things for education, like what was described on Mr. Fisch's blog. This all ties back into the digital footprint essay we did for class, the sites on the web that are intended to help us, can have a down side too. I would like to see an age where the internet is completely safe, and yet can still be used to its fullest extent, but that is probably not going to happen for a very long time.

PLN9

On the blog Weblogg-ed the post “Don’t Don’t Don’t vs. Do Do Do” by Will Richardson, talks about the internet policies at schools. He had an experience at a school where the students and teachers were all given an 8 page packet on what not to do on the internet, which basically said do not use the school internet for socializing. He then claims that having blocks on the web prevents students from interacting with other students, experts, and other teachers that would benefit the students learning. He also said that if students were taught from an early age how to use the internet responsibly, they would not sit around and play games instead of learning. I agree with Mr. Richardson, because I do not normally play games on the internet anyway, and being able to chat with other people about a subject we are learning in class would be really cool. It would be like the web cam Mrs. Smith has set up for the kids who are sick, but instead of being at home we could talk with someone from another country, that would help immensely with foreign language credits. All in all I agree with Mr. Richardson, because kids can’t get a full experience with a computer if they cant use it to it’s fullest extent.

PNL8

In PLN8 I am going to compare two of the videos from Dr. Wesch with one from Mr. Fisch. This is hard to do because Mr. Fisch's video and one of Dr. Wesch's deal with the development of technology, while the other video is made of facts from students' lives. Now the only thing to compare is something that all three videos share, and that is the fact that they all share facts about life and how it will be in the future. The video from Dr. Wesch "A Vision of the Average Student" showed us how the average college student lived and gave us facts about their daily routine. While the video from Mr. Fisch showed us how technology and the current students of America would interact. Like how the average student today would have a job that doesn't even exist right now. Then in Dr. Wesch's video "The Machines are Using Us" shows how technology could eventually be bad and become smarter than the human race. The connection between the three videos is that all three of them prove that students use technology that will either help or hinder them in the future, and it all depends on how we use that technology.

PLN7

What matters in the post "This Would Be Really Weird" on the blog 2¢ Worth, by David Warlick, is very similar to what mattered in PLN 2. This blog post is about how women are becoming a larger percent of the work force and losing fewer jobs than men. The statistics that David brought up was that women make up 49.3% of the work force right now (expected to be 50% by November), and that sense December 2007 about 75% of the jobs lost have been held by men, and 25% of them by women. This worries me for the same reasons as PLN 2 did. I am worried that if I don’t do really well in school and go to a great college, I might lose out in the job race to a girl. This is a problem because one, I wont have a job and two, I don’t like losing to girls.

In PLN 2 the article talked about how women are taking more spots in colleges too. I was wondering if that fact directly leads to women having and holding more and more jobs. I want to have the job I want when I’m older, and I want it to be a good job, but if someone else, be they women or man, beats me out for it… well that would just not be good.

I am not saying that women should give up their jobs to men and just go home; everybody deserves a job that isn’t at McDonalds. But this being an all boys L.A. class, I want the guys to start doing better. If this trend keeps up all men will have left is professional sports. But women are even taking over sports, look at Danica Patrick; she is going to be driving NASCAR next year.

The fact that women are taking more and more jobs worries me about my future and what job I will get.

PLN6

On the blog Stager-to-Go the post “Another Radical Obama Supporter” by Admin, talks about Laura Bush’s reaction to President Obama’s speech to the school kids of America. I agree with Ms. Bush on her point of view; it was good for Obama to send a message to the kids of America. I also believe parents should have the right to keep their kid from watching it, but the speech he gave was all about “stay in school” and isn’t that the message parents try to give their kids anyway? I also thought that it is a good thing Ms. Bush approved of the speech. It is basically her accepting him in his new role as the President of the United States. This is good for the country to see that the former president’s wife is in approval, it gives the country a positive look on the future for Mr. Obama. This matters for the future because we are now more accepting of the new president, and maybe he will get some things done and make the country better.

PLN5

What matters in Clive Thompson’s article “The New Literacy” is the fact that technology is good. This article has totally contradicted the movies by Mr. Fisch and Dr. Wesch, because in those videos, it is predicted that technology is bad and will one day take over the world. In this article though, it was found that technology has improved literacy skills of today’s society. People constantly twittering and updating there facebook, it has caused us to write more often. According to the article we are writing far more and with better quality then the generations before us. This is good for the future because it will help our communication skills, and if we ever find life on another planet, those skills just might keep us from being vaporized. It would also be good if the trend continued. Because then the generations after us will be even better than we are personally. All of this adds up to the fact that as, race humans are becoming smarter and smarter, we can just hope that what Dr. Wesch predicted will not come true.

PLN4

There are two things that matter in Dr. Wesch's video "The Machiens Are Using Us". One is that using email and txt gives us a fasle sense of reallity. There is no emotion involved in what Dr. Wesch reffers to as a simulated conversation. This worries me because it will cuase people to use txt and email to convers because they don't know how to relate when face to fac with a person. Seccond and final is that as we try to make the "simulated conversation" more realistic the machines could use that programing to begin to think for it self and have conversations with other machines and humans. Eventualy the machiens would rule our live, because as the computers are programed to be smarter and smarter, they will eventualy out smart the human population and rule the world.

PLN3

What mattered on the Denver Post blog by Howard Pankraz is that the smoke from the California wild fire is steaming into colorado. According to the blog, it is causing breathing problems for some Coloradans. This is bad for people with asma or other breathng condtions and could end up adding to the total death toll of the fires. The other reason that this is bad is that if the smoke has made it to Colorado and is affecting us, wouldn't it be bad for the states inbetween, like Utha and Nevada. We need to get these fires under control before the death toll gets higher and California burns in to the sea.