Have you Always Wanted to be Rememberd in the Future?

The article ‘Footprints in a digital age” by Will Richardson presents being Googled, Richardson says being googled id about when someone enters tour name in Google, that it will be less than impressive.

            Richardson gives a good example of being Googled. He says “the story of Laura Stockman, a 10 year-old from Buffalo, New York.” HE goes on to state “in an effort to honor her grandfather, who died a year before, she decided t do one good deed each day in the run-up to Christmas.” Laura wanted to share her work with the world, Laura and her mom decided to create a blog, “Twenty-five days to make a difference” (http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com). She still shares her work to this day.

            Laura’s blog id a good example of being googled or leaving a footprint in the digital age. As I was reading Richardson’s article I started to realize that I wanted to leave a digital footprint. I don’t want to have to leave a time box in the ground for someone in the future to find. I can just make a profile on Facebook, Myspace, or even Blogger. After I read this I went to go Google and typed in my name I was shocked at what came up. I have leaf a digital footprint have you?

Is there a Reson for going Psycho?

Thursday afternoon, 4 killed in Seattle Shooting. The Article says that a woman in her late 50’s shot 4 people including her self. The 3 dead were 2 girls in their late teens, and a man around the age of 30.

            A 42 year old women, who fled the house was able to talk to the police. “My moms gone crazy” she said as she was running out of the house. When the police got there a man in his 50’s ran into the house. Two more shots were fired and he ran back out, he told the officers that his had shot herself. The 50 year old woman was in serious but stable condition at Harborview Medical Center, hospital. 2 hand guns were recovered from the house. As far as the police know there was no motive for the shooting. 2 witnesses talked to the police. They said “police showed up almost immediately after the shots were fired” said neighbor Bobby Miller. Travis Rowland saw a women run out of the house. “I just heard gunshots. I come out and cops were all over," Miller said. "Just 'bam, bam' and that was it, then screaming.”

This isn’t as important as some issues in the world, but just to think that anyone could just turn around and start shooting is a hard thing to grasp. I have learned from experience. My cousin about 3 years ago went up to his room and came out with a strange look on his face. His brothers didn’t know what to do. He pointed a gun strait at his brother: luckily he missed the heart and shot his arm. He then later ran to the store down the street. And tried to rob the store. The manager had him sit in the car until the cops came. From personal experience it is scary. This makes me think that if this can happen to anyone, what causes someone to resort to shooting?

Google as a study aid

The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr explains, and describes new technology and what its doing to us.

            Nicholas Carr talks about how we can no longer stay focused on long reading, he gets distracted. When I read this sentence I thought, why did you write an 8 page article, if even you can’t stay focused for more than 4 paragraphs.  Nicholas Carr states that “Google is making us think less.” I have to disagree with that, Google is an easy resource. There are bigger problems in the world that we couldn’t even imagine in the 1900’s. Google is there for resources, and as a research aid. It’s faster than going to the library to find it. The average American teenager has 3 to 4 hours of homework a night. We also have sports and jobs to do. We need more sleep to do more stress-free work. Google is here to help.

        There is always breaking news somewhere in the world. Instead of having to find air time, you can put it on your website, and people will a breaking news notification.  You can also get it on your mobile phone too.  Nicholas goes on to talk about how today we don’t read articles or text books all the way through, we get bored and start skimming.  In this article he says “we have to teach our minds.” I think if we let kids in elementary years have phones, literature wouldn’t be learned as well. Kids at that age are still shaping their minds. People older than 12 know literature and are mature enough o know how to use literature.  Carr shows an example: A writer was loosing his eye site. He got a typewriter and learned how to type with his eyes closed. His friend said his writing was tighter and telegraphic.  I don’t think you can put any personality in writing except opinions.  You can have the same exact paper as another and the only way you could tell the difference is from opinion.

      There are a lot of things I agree and disagree with in this article. Google is good and bad, but it is not making us stupid.

Education of Today

The article “New Schools in South Africa Serve the Underserved” by Celia W. Dugger, talks about the struggles South African black students have. The New York Times talks briefly about it.


This article gets me thinking. They talk about a boy that is in a gang and does drugs and gets drunk. They start talking about how Gcobani Mndini, a shy 17 year old, who “just wanted to fit in or belong.” He has found out that he does belong at a private school. He has since turned his life around; he doesn’t do drugs anymore and doesn’t get drunk. He no longer belongs to the gang. This makes me think could this really be happening not just in Africa, but around and in our communities to? Is there a way we can stop this?

Do we as Americans take advantage over what we have? Our public schools are like South Africa’s private schools. Most high school students go on to college. We have teachers that care about our learning and want to help. They are properly trained and know what they are doing. They have good workspaces; and we don’t go to school in old warehouses or shopping centers. Teachers in South Africa are dissatisfied with their workspace.

This gets me thinking, can we help from where we live? America and other big countries are sending volunteers to teach over in Africa. Are education systems this bad in other countries? How do we find out?

What is a student of today?

In Michael Wesch’s Video “A Vision of Students Today” shows what it is like to be a student in today’s world. The students in this video edited a document 367 times and answered the questions themselves.


In the video students made a document and surveyed themselves on it. That brought us the information. The video goes through telling us how long they are on the internet, or how long they sleep. You are probably thinking why does this matter? This matters because that shows us how different technology is. Students bring their laptops to school but when are they actually doing real school work? Back in the early 1900 or even the early 1970s classes weren’t as big as 115 students, and the teachers new most of the students names. The video says that 1 billion people make less than 1$ a day. Imagine how much more business owners make a day? Do we really spend 3 ½ hours on the internet each day, or study for 3 hours? Does a laptop really cost more than some people make in a year? Can technology really save us? These questions have a purpose it gets u thinking about how long we do things.

Are problems that have nothing to do with us, really our problems? “The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.”- Josiah F. Bumstead. Is this really what we do in life?