The Power of Blogs II

For our final post of Q2, we are going to experiment with commenting. The real power of a blog is in the input of the community. Adding your own personal experience brings new meaning to the subject. In this post you will be commenting on one review of someone else from a different class. So follow this link: https://ftb2-2019-20.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-power-of-blogs.html and reply to someone else's post with your own perspective. Read their review and add your own thoughts to continue the thread started by your classmate.You can agree or disagree, rule #1 is be respectful, courteous and kind. Click Reply and add a paragraph of your own perspective to their post.

DO NOT COMMENT TO THIS POST. Follow the link and comment there.

New Year, New You?

Welcome back. Happy New Year. People typically like to take the opportunity to reevaluate some bad habits and try to correct them around this time of year. For our first post of the New Year lets share a few resolutions you are committing to making or discuss how it may have went for you in the past. Are you able to stay committed to a resolution you make with yourself? Or what would you like to change about yourself and how can you?

The Power of Blogs

The great thing about blogs is that they can be about anything and it is a fresh perspective from outside the mainstream. Do you love to travel? Start a travel blog and it becomes your unique view on the topic. For this post I want you to pretend this is your blog. Write a post about a recent experience you had with something you have a strong opinion about. It can be negative or positive. Your post should be 6-10 sentences at a minimum. Compare and contrast what you are writing about with other things similar to your topic. For example: If you are writing about a record from a particular artist, compare it to similar artists or the artists earlier work. Same for restaurants, etc. See examples for ideas. The key is to be passionate.

Ideas: 

1. Movie review - Compare two movies you recently saw and what you like or disliked about them.
2. Book review - see movie review...
3. Travel experience
4. Restaurant review
5. Fashion review
6. Technology 

Examples: 

Travel blog: http://roam-magazine.co

Food blog: http://culinarybackstreets.com

More travel blogs: http://petitepassport.com,

Fashion: http://whatiwore.tumblr.com

Tech: https://techcrunch.com

Gratitude

Thanksgiving is here. It's a time to reflect on our accomplishments and give thanks to some of friends and family that have helped us along the way. You've been through a lot of changes in the last three months. So for this post please reflect on one accomplishment you are proud that you accomplished and one friend or family member that has helped you in some way that your thankful for.

The Internet is beautiful.

The idea for the Internet was born from the launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite in 1957. The US government was worried that the then Soviet Union possessed superior technological capability and could potentially strike the US with a nuclear missile. So it began to prepare for the consequence. The Internet essentially began as way to communicate if part of the country was destroyed.

In 1969 the technology was advanced enough to begin testing it at universities and the first successful test was completed between the UCLA and Stamford campuses in California.

It wasn't until around 1991 that the Internet was introduced for individual and commercial purposes.

Today we see more an more users clustered around the same sites. Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon collectively consume most of our attention and that's sad because there is so much more to it.

For this post I want you to visit this site: https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/ and as part of our exploration of Digital Literacy, find a link to something that you think would help you learn in one of your classes or help you be a better student in general. Explore the link and write a brief description of how you think it will benefit you and your classmates. Please also copy and paste a link to the source in your comment.

Example: I found a map that might help me learn Geography and Social Studies. https://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/5565. This map helps me identify ancient civilizations  in a more precise way than the maps in our book. You can also overlay other options on the map by checking the boxes on the left hand sidebar.

Memes

For our final blog post of Q1 we turn to meme's. Meme's are a cultural phenomenon that evolved with the ability to add text to images and distribute them online...

For this post I want you to put your creativity/humor/culture hat on and design your own meme. Your subject can be about anything but try to connect your meme to a subject your studying or Song Contest. For example here's a school/history meme idea...

Most important, you must respect the guidelines for blogging that we setup in the beginning of the year.

1. NO DEGRADING CONTENT. You may not make fun of, mock or slur anyone
2. Create your meme using correct spelling, grammar and punctuation
3. Never reveal personal information about yourself
4. Never disrespect someone.

As well, do not copy a meme. Come up with your own original idea using the following resource. 

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

There are a few options for sharing the meme on our blog. If there is an option to copy/paste a share link use that. Copy the link (Cntrl or Command + C) and paste (Cntrl or Command + V). Or if there is only an option to download,...download the image and upload it to your Google Photos. Then click Share in the top right hand corner and create a link of the image. Finally copy/paste the link into the comment section. 

Technology and learning development

We discussed in class the importance of non-verbal cues and discussed the impact adolescence has on learning development (see below). We also talked about how technology can negatively impact social development because our focus is  removed from everything else.

So for our blog post using the above chart, pick one element of development under Early or Middle Adolescence and make an argument for or against using a phone in school. Then go online and find an article that supports or negates your position and give us a brief summary of what the article states. 

For example: During Early Adolescence as my intellectual interests expand I need a phone to engage more with what I'm interested in studying. The article I found talks about how 75% of students using cell phones in class are performing worse than those without. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/do-smartphones-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/480231/

Please include a link to your source in the comment as demonstrated in the example above. 

Do not copy my example.