X-Ray Goggles on Robert Walkers Bio Page

While playing around with x-ray goggles on the internet... it really made me realize how easy it is to manipulate anything you see on the internet.  Last week I was able to tell everyone I won the lotto (even though I didn't) and people actually believed me! It really made me think twice about the articles I read online now. This week I changed a bio page of a scientist and made him extremely un credible. Check it out!

http://amandahasiotis.makes.org/goggles/amandahasiotiss-remix-of-robert-walkers-profile-science-20

Grades; the good and the bad.

Lately on facebook I've been seeing a lot of my friends, who are also in college, posting articles about grades. A few articles I've read because I have been feeling down in the dumps about the grades I've been getting. I study so hard all the time for all my tests or quizzes that I have. Sure just like every other student I may forget about something and therefore my study time isn't as great as it could have been but for the most part I study like crazy.  There no feeling quite like the one where you think you did awesome on a test or quiz and then seeing that you failed. It crushes you self esteem. The articles I have been reading basically are trying to help students understand that a couple bad grades are okay. Things happen. These bad grades don't define you. Although it would be wonderful to be a straight A student... it's not always possible.  Students today are stressed out beyond belief, we work we go to school and some take care of their families, some have kids, you never know what other people are going through. "In a report by Counseling and Psychological Services, 51 percent of clients report working, with six percent working more than 40 hours per week. A full-time student takes 12 credits and should set aside six to nine hours to study for each class. Therefore, a full-time student who works a part-time job should spend 48 hours studying, about 10 hours commuting, 35 hours working and a suggested 56 hours sleeping every week. That leaves only 19 hours out of the 168 hours a week to socialize, maintain a healthy lifestyle and attend to family obligations." (https://news.fiu.edu/2015/04/surveys-show-increase-in-stress-among-college-students/86911). How are we expected to pay our way through college while being a full time student and leaving time for us to study and sleep? You see right above here the hours needed. That literally leave no time to talk to friends or eat. Our money is going to school, rent, car, phone, and then they wonder why there is a freshman 15. How can we afford a 7$ salad when there is a 2$ burger and fries.  ( I could get into obesity here but I want to continue with stress.) I've read a lot about suicide in college students because of the stress they're under. "“According to the American College Health Association (ACHA) the suicide rate among young adults, ages 15-24, has tripled since the 1950s and suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students…" (http://www.resilientus.org/college-and-teen-suicide-statistics/). How many more students have to complain, speak out or attempt self harm for us to see that something isn't right? The pressure to be perfect isn't something we should be striving for.  I want to learn and experience new things while I'm in college. I want to make more friends and do fun things when I don't have to work. I don't believe I should be tied up in my house, staying up till 1 or 2 EVERY NIGHT trying to get my homework done and study. And if I am inside studying every night why am I not getting good grades? I've decided... bad grades will come and I cannot let it bring me down. I will keep trying my hardest and life will go on. To students everywhere... Life will go on. It will get better!

Nepal has a female president !

Have you heard?

I just did.

Nepal has a female president!

I hope you're excited.

I think this is a huge deal because of Nepal being such a male dominated area. 

I know its always a big deal when female politicians run for anything in the U.S. 
Her name is Bidhya Devi Bhandari, 54 years old, and was the deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist and that she served as defense minister from 2009-2011.
I was reading up on her background and found out that  she is an advocate for woman's rights and passed a new constitution makes it mandatory that one-third of that nation's lawmakers be women. It also requires that women are part of all government committees. 
An Article says Nepal is a very male dominated place to be and woman are usually working in the homes or out on the farms. This is such a huge step not only for Nepal but for women everywhere. This could open doors for other places to finally take the leap for women to be in big positions in the law or even other jobs.  Bhandari won her election with votes of 327-214. Also, she is only the second person to hold this position since Nepal abolished its monarchy and became a republic in 2008.
Not only is she the first woman president for Nepal, but the first president since 2008!
I also read an interesting fact about her. It said that she was elected to parliament after her husband was killed in a "mysterious car crash". 
Odd...
Anyways, this gives me hope that the world is changing with the times and I hope its all going to continue to get better. 
Im all for change and equality so i'm excited!
woohoo!

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/29/452833992/nepal-makes-history-by-electing-its-first-female-president

"Social Network Sites as Social Learning Resources"

So, another reading, another day.  The thing I took away from this reading that we had to do, was the idea of the meaning of "friend". You can have friends on facebook and on myspace (which they talk about in the article), on twitter and tumblr and so many more social networking sites (SNS).  The definition of friend according to dictionary.com is "noun 1: a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. & 6. a person associated with another as a contact on a social networking website We've never met, but we're Facebook friends." 

We, as a SNS generation has made it so that the definition of friend has changed the meaning to something that relates to Social Networking.  It directly relates to someone we could have never met but still connect with on a SNS.  It kinda blows my mind, you know, the idea that the Internet is basically a whole different world but its such a "normal" resource that we use daily... no hourly... whether it be for school, work or for personal pleasure.  I personally can find that I can be a whole new person behind a computer (in a good way because I'm really shy in person) and have these great conversations with people I don't know, but if i was forced to do this in person I might freeze and not be able to go into the kind of depth I would be if I had a computer, phone or tablet in front of me.  

This reading assignment also made me think of how easy it is for people to get bullied.  Its such an awful topic but I remember being in high school getting lectured on how awful cyber bullying is.  It was a new topic to us because we hadn't really used many SNS before but man, it was a scary thought.  They would tell us stories about people who had committed suicide over comments people say on their pictures or profiles and I just wished I could have helped those poor people out.  I cant believe some people can be so cruel.  I have to be honest and say that I never imagined that computer would be such a huge part of learning.  Since Ive gotten into college, all my homework, reading and assignments have been  online, finding new sites to work on and such so much going on.  Since Ive taken my new literacies class, I have learned so many new sites that I can do cool things with.  I have used thimble, blogger, with known, hypothes.is, pixlr, flickr, twitter (in a whole new way with twitter chats) and so many more.  Moral or my post is, the SNS generation has really changed the meaning of friend and the way we are learning. All we have to do is keep an open mind about the Internet because it can be helpful for everyone. (Which I have learned recently too) Also, do not use the Internet for mean or hurtful things because it affects people beyond belief. Lastly, check out everything that can help you become a better student, worker, teacher or person! We can build our name up and there is so many sites out there to help. 

Confronting the Challenge Reading:

In our reading, "Confronting the Challenge", on page 6 there is a sentence that says "Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued." This part of the reading spoke to me because I cant count the times where I wouldn't contribute anything because I felt like no one would even acknowledge it.   I always think about how there is so many kids out there who don't speak up because they feel that they wont be heard but what if that kid has the answer to world problems like cancer, sicknesses, crazy math problems, who knows! Anyways, I feel it is so important to make everyone feel like their thoughts are welcome because if they're not then we might never have came up with computers or social media which our world revolves around today.  On facebook, your status asks you what you are thinking, on instagram, there's no limit on how much you can write, on twitter... well i'm not sure why there is a limit on how much you can write but you can still tell people what you're thinking! As I've learned in our class, there is so many sites that are out there to help you create anything you need. When I participated in a twitter chat about education technologies, the amount of resources they were talking about was endless.  It is very easy to use these sites to create a learning environment for students and other teachers, whoever the audience may be.   On the other hand, students could be using all these tools to help teachers learn as well. Point is, don't limit yourself and you can accomplish anything!

Commuter Commission Group Project

Hey y'all, check out our group project on connected learning about the Commuter Commission at Southern Conn. State University! #commuterproblems 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qJgdd48nQ7zuWYFcMGDhREsrngsFkANYkwmukDwmkrg/edit?usp=sharing

My first twitter chat

So my first twitter chat was interesting.  I was most defiantly a noob. I've never witnessed a twitter chat before, and it was SO fast paced.  I was waiting for 8 pm to show up so I could participate in the #edtechchat. I had trouble figuring out who was the mediator person but once it got going I saw who was posting the questions.  I introduced myself, but no one said hello back to me.  

It was really hard to keep up with all the posts coming in. Other people were talking about a lot of different programs that they use, some of them i recognized because we used them in class, other I had no idea what they were talking about.  And by the time I went to ask what it was, they had already moved on to other questions.  
Some of the programs they talked about was : Google Classroom (which I decided to go follow on google+ for fun) & Professor McVerry was there talking about thimble and withknown and hypothes.is etc:

I wanted to feel apart of the convo so I just added a quick thought:

There really was so many ideas, some of the questions they asked was:

 I was a learner in this chat because I was getting so much information from these other tweeters, I couldn't keep up! I was looking things up (like google classroom which I mentioned before) and I saw other people asking questions and exchanging info so they could talk more about the new technology being talked about.  I noticed a bunch of different types of teachers talking. Art teachers, tech teachers, English and math teachers as well.  It really opened my eyes to how many people use technology in their classrooms for learning.  
Since this was my first chat, I don't have any advice for if anything could have been done better or not.  I plan to keep looking for other chats just to see whats going on in the twitterverse because I never realized how many people used twitter as a resource.  
It was an interesting experience!!