10-26-11

Computers and the Human Race
 Humans have always been shaped and changed by the technology around them. When computers came along there were lots of changes. All kinds of technologies have come up from simple calculating. We have changed the way people talk to each other. The way that money flows through business is vastly different than it was before. Even the physical makeup of people is different than it was B.C (before computers).

 "Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

10-24-11

Everyday you learn something new. Today we watched a TED video called Weird or Just Different. The speaker, Derek Silvers compares things from 2 different sides of the world, like how in the US streets have names and in Japan blocks have names. I never knew that, which is probably important to think about, because in the discussion we had about the video later the class talked about how some people are "in a box" and don't care about other perspectives on things. I do have many Western Ideals but I never thought myself to be "in a box" until now. I never really thought too much about how simple things work in other places just complicated things, like the form of government, or the views of leaders. I would love to actually be able to go to some other place just to be able to see these differences, and get out of my box. I don't understand why others wouldn't want to get out of their box. It is so interesting to see the way things work in the rest of the world, and be able to understand other people. If we want to fix global problems we have to work together as a whole planet.

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars"- Les Brown

10-21-11

Everyday you learn something new. Today I learned how much I despise Windows Movie Maker. Trying to do some simple video editing caused it to constantly crash. After about an hour of complete failure I decided to just  try to find a new software to do the editing with. I figured that might take forever but it didn't. In 10 minutes I had a program that was 10x better. That made me think about the vast amount of technology that is out there. If you need some kind of program for something it is probably out there on the internet somewhere. It might not be the best version (ex. OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office) but you can get anything, even complete operating systems, like Ubuntu or Fedora.    

Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars. - Les Brown

10-19-11

Everyday you learn something new. Today I finally found my real opinion of what The Secret Lion is. I think it is a problem that the kids have with authority. I really enjoyed the discussion we had to talk about it but I wish it would be a little bit longer. I also decided that I think that it is a good idea to do blogging on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Its easier to write about your day when it isn't over. Lately I have felt a huge interest in the way that society works, the way that people interact with each other and the different affects they have on the person. I hope to base a future project around that. I also wanted to say that I put that quote on my blog because it has been my favorite quote for years and it seemed really appropriate in this class, my schooling, and my personality. I was also curious to find out more about are next project as well, anything you could tell me would be great! Thanks for all the nice things in my conference!


"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars." - Les Brown

10-17-11

Everyday you learn something new. Well I have to admit that today was pretty shocking. It was actually pretty scary to hear people treating Advanced Language Arts like it was boring. Everything started slow but it's still a lot better than normal classes. In my technology research I found a lot of amazing new things. This video, Did You Know 5.0 was created in Iowa to inform people about the rapid expansion of technology. There is one section that discusses how we've gone from VHS to Blu-Ray and the file size of any simple movie has gone around 500mb to almost 40gb. I always thought that the purpose of creating new styles of movie presentation was to make them smaller, not bigger. Instead it seems the entertaining things become larger and the capacity of computers grows with it to keep up.

I also watched this episode of Criminal Minds witch made me think about how the things from Social Networks are like an archive of our lives. I watched a video a long time ago about a program that takes all your Facebook posts and saves them and a program that will take a pre written message and put it on your twitter if you die. Nobody knows every single detail about the day of their ancestors but their descendants can look through these archives and learn everything about them. The Internet Never Forgets.




"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

10-14-11

Everyday you learn something new. In my research laltley (which I've finished by now) I've been finding a lot of statistics to combine with the more opinion based information in my research. I am really excited for our final analyisis and expert review. It was great to hear we are still doing them. Today something else about technology popped into my mind about how nobody remembers phone numbers anymore. I can only recite 4 numbers by heart, mine, my parents, and 911. I don't really find that as important as the math thing from before but it is something to think about. I was also beggining to wonder about our next project. I heard it was a service project but I dont know much else. In my quest to learn more about technology I decided to Install a Linux based OS on my old computer. Its been pretty difficult so far. Ill have more info soon( when i figure out if I completley destroyed the computer or not).

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars." - Les Brown

10-12-11 (Mental Models)

Everyday you learn something new. When I first watched this video I just found it completley random. It seemed like these two guys were just jumping around on their couch. It took a lot of trying to figure out the lyrics and the meaning of them. I think mental models are the way we perceive the world and judge things. They are very liquid, changing based the world around them. Some people like those mentioned in the video try to change the mental models. Mental Models are the way we perceive what anything means, like the word models at the beginning of the video. Mental models are very important otherwise nobody would be able to perceive anything.
"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars." - Les Brown

9-7-11

Everyday you learn something new. Today I learned a lot about the value of Time Management. After being sick for 4 days I had a whole load of extra work on top of my normal amount of homework. Without being able to use my time wisely I probably wouldn't have gotten it all done. I also learned a lot about this interesting program called IB. I heard it was kind of like AP classes but they teach you something more, like AP for AP kids. But then I heard it was the same as AP classes. The only difference is you get a special certificate when you graduate. Then I heard that the credits aren't even accepted for college. I was interested at first but now i don't really know what to think.

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

10-6-11 (makeup for 9-26-11)

Everyday you learn something new. Throughout my research for my computers project I have found a lot of things about Computer Optimists and Computer Pessimists. Apparently this is actually a huge debate that people have been having for many years. Computer Optimists are the people who find that technology is good for our society. They see that computer technology can be used for something good, like easy connection to information. Computer Optimists see all the good things we can do computer technology but they don't see the downside of these things. Computer Pessimists look at the downside of computer technology. They see humans becoming totally dependent on computers. Computer Pessimists think that computers are replacing our ability to use logical reasoning. I feel that I personally am a mix of both. I play games on computers, I prefer to type things, I'm typing this on a computer right now. I also feel that society is becoming too dependent on computers to the point that they will eventually have drastic affects on the Human Race.

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars." - Les Brown 


RIP Steve Jobs   :-(

10-5-11 (makeup for 9-28-11)

Everyday you learn something new. Throughout doing the computers project I have found the style and design of the project extremely interesting. The design of of the projects seems like a blank canvas. There is a skeleton of an outline and then a way that we are supposed to do the project that is rapidly changing. When we were first introduced to this project we were supposed to create, a 2000 word research paper, embedded technology, 1 fiction novel relating to the theme, an expert review, and a final electronic presentation. I am confident we are not going to be doing a 2000 word research paper considering we only have 1 week and 2 more days left in this project and nobody has even thought of a research paper let alone attempted to write one. I also doubt we are doing an expert review, at least if we are then I'm going to be way behind. We seem to have incorporated the rest of the required items into the project design so far, but like I said before the design is a skeleton. Right now it is a shrunken skeleton without arms. I said before that the Media Triangle was missing something but I guess I wasn't really thinking of the Media Triangle, I was actually thinking of the project design itself. I feel these projects should be something bigger, for some reason they feel extremely small. I also think they need something to put all these artifacts, articles, and little bits of information together to somehow prove disprove or put more information behind your driving question. The information we find needs to be put to some kind of final conclusion for us to learn more. It also seems like our projects are too virtual. I am a very hands on kind of person and it feels like we cant touch any part of our project. Even if it is just a final analysis paper it is still somewhat physical. I think that we should have a final mini-project to summarize the rest of the elements from our projects, that way the people like me who want something physical can have it and the students who don't wouldn't have to make a physical project. I also think we should incorporate the expert review into the project, it sounded like it could be very interesting. 


"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars." - Les Brown    

My Computers Symbaloo- http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/computerswebmix

10-5-11

Everyday you learn something new. Today I found out that the computers we know of today have their roots in the 17th century. The first computers were made by astronomers and mathematicians for timing and problem solving. As I continued researching past the origins and into the social effects of computers I found that even in the 80's before computers were what they are now people already had all kinds of predictions of the harm they can bring. Many said they would take away our values of culture. Others said they would take away our values of logic. I find the part about logic very apparent in today's society. If you found a person out on the street and gave them the a random problem eg. 2x+4x+34+61-12=500 and the option to use a smartphone to help them they probably would use the phone's internet to find out how to do the problem and then use the calculator to solve it. My science teacher always says that physics takes the path of least resistance. The same seems to hold true in psychology. I personally value the ability to do something like that without the problem without the aid of computers or calculators. even as I say that I know I am the same way, except I find that I prefer typing over writing because I don't have good handwriting and find it easier to type. Psychology takes the path of least resistance. I do still however value the ability to write even though I prefer not to use it, but as a society people don't even value these abilities anymore. I also saw today that the simplest things can interest people. I leave my water bottle on my table during class and my friend was looking at it and messing with it. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was just "really intrigued by it". I have never thought about how something so simple can be so interesting to someone. My literature group in Language Arts is innovations and later in class she told me how the water bottle was innovative. That simple water bottle was so interesting to someone and now that I think about it, extremely innovative. And they said bottled water would never take off!

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Stars." - Les Brown    

My Computers Symbaloo- http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/computerswebmix

10-3-11

Today in Advanced Language Arts we began the day with our usual class discussion. The discussion gave me lots of new ideas for my blogs. I thought they had to relate to Language Arts. Apparently we are able to post about other things we have done and learned about throughout a day. Hopefully I can use that to improve my blogs in the future. We also did more work with the Media Triangle today. I like the Media Triangle but it feels like it is missing something.You look at so many things about the artifact but never really see what it is and what information it holds. I also feel that for our analysis of artifact we need to do more than just the Media Triangle. In the computer lab today I found that using Sweet Search doesn't have quite the advantages it seems to have. I got a lot of results for websites trying to sell books, research projects from other students, and even Walmart. I eventually found a few usable resources but not until I tried using Google. I found about the same results with Google Scholarly. I also learned that I need to make up my blogs from last week but I have no idea what I am supposed to write about. Any ideas or feedback would be great. 

10-1-11(Movie Post!!!!!)

For my Mystery Box movie I decided to watch Limitless. Limitless present itself to be about a miracle drug that can make a person ulrltimatly more intellegent than the world around him/her. The main character, Edward Morra (Bradley Cooper) states "It gives me a 4 diget IQ." The movie also seems to state that orginization of the mind and the ability to recall all These tiny little bits of information and convert them into something useful. From the Mystery Box perspective Limitless seems to be about Edward Korea (Bradley Cooper)'s struggle to fight against all the bad things in his life. He is fighting against poverty , living in the slums of NYC. He also reveals early in the movie that he has lots of relationship issues. It is also made well known in the movie that Edward suffers from drug use. Although Limitless presents itself to be about a miracle drug but it is really about a man suffering through the hardships of poverty and drug use.