Jaxonenglish

McKenna talks about how people are texting more than talking on the phone. She stated that texters are more lonely than talkers.

Gaming becomes a huge topic that goes on throughout life. Many people would talk about their games, for example Farmville and helping out by sending things and other related subjects. Also as you go on it slowly goes and connect yourself to other games and topics that are going through.

Jesse Schell talks about how video games was once fantasy base and now has penetrate into reality.He gave examples of how life would be like if it was a video game and how we would benefit from it. Games have grown into technologies and it will keep on growing.

Facebook can useful for college students and teachers.

This article talks about how keeping a running log of your running activities can be helpful to see your progress and get a better idea of when problems and injuries start coming up.

interesting...I like they way they express you can be anyone on face book and how it has taken away from being social. Friends don't need to make new friends in person they can just add them.

This is a short article and picture about google sky and how it works. if you don't know what google sky is maybe you should read this article; but to give you a little info its just like google earth, actually it is linked off of google earth. an exploration of the universe with intense amounts of zoom!

In the article Myspace, Facebook promote Literacy, Debra Lau Whelan talks about how social networking sites can help you gain more than just friends. Social networking sites offer e-safety, "Staying safe, keeping personal information safe, protecting yourself and your belongings, making sure that we don't participate in bullying or other antisocial behavior, and helping out other people who might be affected by these issues, is a key part of digital citizenship." Responsibility becomes a central role on these sites because their safety is at risk. Kids are able to control childish behaviors or prevent themselves from making rash decisions by using safe tactics on the internet. These sites broaden horizons for the users, letting them talk to people they may not have talked to otherwise, creating a variety and diverse web culture, driving away from cliques on school playgrounds. "Collaboration, discovery, and becoming a team player are all encouraged because these sites promote working, thinking, and acting together." Social networking sites allow users to create groups online to help find other people with the same interest as you. This allows communication on a topic that many people all over the world share a common interest in. Diversity brings new ideas and helps these users see things in a different point of view. These teens are not trapped in just with their classroom but they can't interact with people all over the world. Teens messing around on the computer on social networking sites is not just leisure time wasted, "Being able to quickly adapt to new technologies, services, and environments is already regarded as a highly valuable skill by employers, and can facilitate both formal and informal learning," Computer skills are adapted from using these sites, making it easier for teens to perform computer tasks in the future at work. This article gave me a new outlook on Facebook and social networking sites. I always thought that these sites w

In the chapter "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" from Marina Umaschi Bers book, Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, the author claims that online games, such as Zora, help our youth engage in community and civics. Zora allows it's players to create their own individual avatar, with physical, mental, and emotional traits that the players choose. Bers argues that Zora is a great way for children to think about their identity and civic life by making choices that will show them how to acquire certain sills and attitudes to become good citizens. Like many other researchers, Bers agrees that it is easiest to learn by doing, and games like Zora are helping to improve the youths social awareness. This chapter describes engagement in society not only by voting and being political, but by forming communities and volunteering.

In "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" by Marina Umaschi Bers, Bers discusses a scenario that is being used all across the country. Zora is a three dimensional multiuser environment that students use to think about identity and civic life. Students make avatars and are in charge of everything going on in the city or summer camp. This came to life after identity construction environments (ICEs) were found that creative things to do on the computer make children learn better. The students work mostly with different civic identities like police, Jewish people, etc. along with real life, controversial community related issues which the students try to solve. Many of the tools used in Zora can then beused in real life and the moral values can be used both on the computer and in real life. Zora is different than traditional learning because "Children are put in the role of producers, instead of consumers, of information, knowledge, and habits of mind."

Sara Corbett's New York Times article Learning by Playing, focuses on a New York City non-charter public school that uses an educational program called Quest to Learn. The school uses video games to help teach kids and sometimes the kids make video games. Quest to Learn was created by a game designer named Katie Salen with the intention of making schools more appealing and relevant to kids today. Classes often combine multiple subjects into quests, "where the quests blend skills from different subject areas" (Corbett). Teachers do not do as much instruction as they do guidance. The article talks about how most kids who drop out of high school simply found it too boring. Schools today do not permit the use of cell phones and internet use is only allowed to do school related work, which cuts students off from the world. According to Katie Salen, "there's been this assumption that school is the only place that learning is happening, that everything a kid is supposed to know is delivered between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and it happens in the confines of a building" (Corbett). Kids today do so much more interesting things outside of school.

Seeing No Progress, Some schools Drop Laptops I found this article in an old edition of The New York Times, Seeing no progress, some schools drop laptops. In this article the author addresses the fact that in most schools having laptops given to children at such a young age was of no academic successes but instead has been making it a hassle for teachers to be able to teach their students properly. This article is aimed towards laptops being banned from elementary schools and high schools, due to the facts that studies have been done on the academic success that should have been brought on with these laptops were non- existent.

Its is really entertaining.

It's about a group of expert holding a meeting and talked about copyright from various areas.

COD!!!!!!!!!!!

The article "Being smart about technology" by Elizabeth Marcoux, a librarian, wrote this article about a seminar she had attended regarding technology use in schools. She had talked to technology directors from three different school districts. The article points out the different views of the educators and the views of the educator's administrators. They "viewed the similarities and differences between what I will call "traditional" approaches versus "21st century"

Kids performing a flash mob!

A short film by Sara Snyder and Stephen Molldrem-Identity formation, what defines gender, gay identity.LGBT Ideas for filming- Some parts shot in gray & white, then other parts in color as they talk and dressed up. The music is calm and you can hear their voice over the music.

In the article "Identity Management: Multiple Presentations of Self in Facebook", by Joan Morris DiMicco and David R. Millen, the authors primarily address the concept of social networking becoming increasingly popular. They wanted to study how people maintain their self-presentation while also maintaining social relationships in heterogeneous networks. Otherwise known as maintaining a professional and social persona in one network.