PLN 3

Dear Mr. Fisch,

            Your article The Learning Studio attracts to me, because I feel that this is the way that students should be learning today. The methods used by the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia in “The Learning Studio” such as working with groups with a lot of projects in every class that you use. Also what I think is cool is not being lectured then tested directly after the lecture. I think that these ways of learning and teaching would really benefit the students today because if students work together and think as one with their peers today, they will learn this skill now and could use it in the future. I also agree that the lecture and testing style of teaching is not effective because I am a student and I know that when being lectured, all that the information the teacher is saying is doing is going through one ear and coming out the other. Then after not fully understanding the lecture, students cram for tests, which don’t help a student understand the material, and then they just forget about it after the test is over. This learning studio should be the classroom of students today because it would be more effective in getting kids educated and prepared for the real world.

PLN 2

Dear Mr. Karl Fisch –

In your article “Dear Denver Post: No More Horoscopes”, I strongly agree with your negative feelings towards the horoscopes in the Denver Post news paper, and I support your idea for replacing this portion of the paper with science articles. Your statistic about one fourth of Americans actually believing in Astrology shocked me and made it even more evident to me that horoscopes need to be replaced by articles that are logical and supported by science. Isn’t the purpose of the paper to educate readers? I could care less if people looked at horoscopes, but to take away newspaper reader’s source of knowledge and replacing it with garbage makes me slightly angry. If people know more about America’s and the world’s problems, then people would be more knowledgeable about the issues and more inclined to help fix the problems. In the future, I hope to see this change made to not only improve the newspaper but also enhance the knowledge of its readers.

PLN #1

Dear Mr. Richardson, my name is Riley D. I am a freshman at Arapahoe High school. I am extremely impressed with your speech, and I completely agree with it. I believe that the learners and the students of this era are not using their skills of learning and performing to their full potential. This is due to the fact of how teachers and schools are cheating education in such a way for a beneficial salary. If we can teach these students correctly, and let them explore their imagination, these kids will sprout wings and fly. We will definitely see a more successful, fulfilled future ahead of us. I agree with the aspect of focusing on a different education with all of this new technology and budget cuts, instead of focusing on what is better. The best does not always fall on top.

Thank you for your inspiration,

Riley D.

PLN 18

I read “Teen beaten at party died from lacerated heart,” written by the CNN Wire Staff. 18 year-old Bobby Maurice Tillman from Georgia was stomped to death outside a home where a party was being held. The police say that if he was not stomped causing a broken rib puncturing his heart, he possibly could have survived. This matters to me, because whenever I am going to a party from now on, I want to know everyone that is going to be attending. So I know for a fact that I will be safe. This affects the world and society, because you never know who is going to be lurking out there. You just can’t assume that he is a nice guy. Bobby got beaten down by four men, Horace, Emmanuel, Quantez, and Tracen. Quote from Bobby’s mom, “My son was beaten by four cowards.” These four murderers are going to have to live for the rest of their life knowing that they murdered a poor innocent boy. This matters to education, because I believe in our schools we can teach students how to stay away and act in these situations. I believe that if we do there would be a lot less deaths in the world. If we do, people like Bobby Tillman would not die.

PLN 17

I just finished reading the “What If” post by the Fischbowl and I believe I can connect to their ideas directly. Yes I agree that a lot of kids can misuse these new technologies in order to distract them from their work. But I also believe that most of the kids are looking into the future for a future job and or career. In order to have these future dreams, we need to learn how to use the technology that we have now to our fullest extent. I think that it would be pretty sweet to know all of the stuff that you can do with your IPod or computer to corporate stuff like movies and music. This matters to the world, because a lot of kids do not get the chances to use these devices, and not only that, not even use these devices they way they want to learn them. Like the exact details. This matters to society, because the U.S in its current state right now is in a technological up rise, and I will bet you that over half the people that live in the U.S. don’t know anything about it. I believe that we need to start being even more technologically based with our students, then we will start to see the grades go up.

PLN 12

In CNN’s article, “U.S. swimmer dies during event in United Arab Emirates.” A 26 year old power-house named Fran Crippen from Pennsylvania died while competing in a 10-kilometer marathon swimming world cup. They are still under the investigation of how he had died. Even though I don’t strongly know this guy, it still affects me as a loss. It’s as if though I have lost my long-lost cousin. This matters to the world, because no matter where you are or what you’re doing, even if it is something as simple as swimming. It can still be dangerous. This replies to education, because we need to teach our kids how to stay above water, even though some people might not want to swim, water is all around us. Even though that we don’t know what happened to Crippen, it is still a huge tragedy.

PLN 11

I read "2020 Vision" by Karl Fisch. In this he talked about what the future has in hold for us and how drastically education shall be changed in the future. This matters to the world because all these changes are happening in the world and in some of the things he talked about, environmentally the world will be altered. This matters to me because I will be growing up in this world of change and I will be a part of it. When it talked of all the electronic advancements, it is scary some of the things that now seem like dreams that will be probably a reality in the future. This matters to eduducation more than anything because it talked about all the changes that teachers and students deel with. He said that by 2017 there will be no grades and the only thing recorded will be student advancement instead of performance. Free laptops and other things will be given out for free and the whole educational program we have today will be old fashioned history!