More Than a Passing Trend Part II Response

Well, after watching the video "Social Media Revolution" on the Fisch Bowl http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-than-passing-trend-part-ii.html
I realized that social networking has become one of the top advertising, entertainment, and news tools ever. It has evolved to the point where you don't look for products but they find you on the internet. Because of this change you don't look for the news, but the news will always find you on a social networking site. This growth has made it so if Face Book was a country, it would be the fourth largest in population in the world. That's big... When someone watches an add on the TV over half the people watching the add wont trust it. But on the internet over half will trust the said add because it was most likely placed on a social networking site by a friend. so our peers influence what we buy? Yes they do in fact most of the products bought are shown to us by peers. 24 of the 25 major newspapers in the world are now experiencing record drops in purchases of the paper due to social networking. Social networking will wipe out the press in the future and the major press companies will go virtual. Because almost 1.5 million pieces of information are placed on the internet daily. its very obvious that the news will find us.
Social networking has become the future in sharing information.

The Thought Of The Day,

"If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either."
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/05/thought-for-day.html

Organization, the one and only think keeping most students regardless of age from failing school. No joke because I was there. On the edge of failure just from putting my folders away in a different manner. Studies show that actually being able to find your homework can make your grade increase on a major scale for obvious reasons. But that's not the only reason organization is important, you see when a folder or back pack or locker is dirty, you want to keep it that way because most people THINK they know where everything is and THINK they have everything under control, but by second semester when a wave of paper comes from your backpack things start looking down. This is the "Turning Point" in which you ether clean out everything, or it gets so bad you don't even want to try. This is the commitment part of the quote as said above, if you want to succeed, you need to commit to it. You can't get away with being lazy and being organized. you need to have the mind set of keeping things in a fashion that works for you and keeping it that way over the coarse of the year. This whole idea works like a light bulb, you need the bulb and electricity. Without one you don't have the other. A simple quote with deep meaning to get students in a better more organized direction.

The Possibility Of More "Part 1, 2 and 3"

In the article "The Possibility Of More"
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/09/possibility-of-more.html
Jeff Krause, a Language Arts teacher came up with a new idea for teaching class. From the text "As with all crazy ideas, it occurred at approximately 3 a.m. – the time when you can convince yourself that just about anything will work." He said to himself that morning, "What if I gave everyone in class an "A" for the semester so that students don't need to worry about there grade and worry more about being creative?" So his crazy idea he thought of at 3:00 in the morning went to action and he gave everyone in class an A. After hearing this the class didnt quite beleive what they just wanted to beleive was true. I personally wouldnt beleive it but after explaning it to his class, students then understood what a great opportunity this was to be more expressive in class not needing to worry about the outcome of a letter that would decide the future of said students. So by doing this, the class would naturally come up with grade A work. From dance to rap, paintings to power points, more than enough ideas where shared when an assignment came up. But with all good ideas comes big flaws, what if a student took advantage of this and slacked off in class but still got an A? well, its one of the risks he had to take. Many interested parents talked to him about this idea but none of said parents came at the idea in a negitive way. After long months of work, lots of the students with the work they have done without the fear of a grade would have received A's in class anyway! the plan worked and the students proud of what they had accomplished that semester.

Michael Mesch "The Machines Are Us" video response

So after watching Michael Wesch's Video, I began to wonder about an article my class and I read before hand. It was about how technology was taking over the original ways of writing, but in the video Michael demonstrated how technology is more Flexible, hyper and all around easier to use. So why wouldn't you go with the easier method?
The internet, being the powerful tool we have at our desposal, can be used for anything from entertainment to buisness work. But it didnt teach itself that, it wasnt programed that way. We did it, We made the internet what it is today. As said in Michael Mesch "The Machines Are Us" we are teaching the "Machine" everything that we know. We put our lives into the internet with social networking sites and put what we like into it through subscribing to different and web pages "which are made by us." So the internet is us? The internet is the world combined together into one network, all at our fingertips. All that information, WE taught it to the machine. So if we are teaching the machine and the machine teaches us, then doesnt that mean anyone with the internet is a student and a teacher at the same time?