PLN: Week 11- Post 22

I read a recent article titled "CSAP Scores Revealed-SCARY", this post was written by Anne Smith. In this post Ms. Smith talks about how she was given a list of the students in her ninth grade English class' CSAP scores. On the list the students who were partially proficient or unsatisfactory were highlighted and of the 24 students in her class 11 of them were in one of the above categories which is simply unacceptable and quite frankly, scary.

This article relates to me because I am in Ms. Smith's Ninth grade English class and I think it is absolutely ridiculous that my class had such low scores on CSAP. Because of these horrible scores Ms. Smith said she will be working with us on writing format and being able to write professionally.

This article also relates to the world because this is a huge issue for many students who are in middle school. I don't think that middle school students take CSAP very seriously. At my middle school we didn't take CSAP we took ITBS which is another form of assessment and I know my class didn't take those seriously because we weren't being graded for an in class grade so people didn't care. I think it is our job to be able to formally write as we will be needing to in the real world, but we need the help of our teachers as well.

PLN: Week 11- Post 21

I read a recent article from my U.S. Soccer subscription titled "U.S. Under-17 and Under-16 Girls' National Teams End Year with Trips to South America". This article talks about how the U.S. Girls' National teams in both the U-16 and U-17 age groups will both be ending their year with trips to famous South American soccer cities. The U-16 girls will be headed to Rio de Janerio from December 7-16, while the U-17 girls will be visiting Buenos Aires, Argentina from December 7-17. The U-17's coach says he will be bringing 18 girls, all born in 1990, to play in 3 games against Argentina. One game will be against Argentina's U-17 team and two games against Argentina's U-20 group. The U-16's coach says he will bring 18 girls all born in either 1991 or 1992 as he continues preparation for qualifying for the 2008 Women's World Cup in New Zealand.

This article relates to me because I am greatly involved in club soccer for our state and I am also very interested in soccer throughout the world. Currently I am trying out for the Colorado ODP team which is just one step on the road to making the U.S. National teams. I look at the girls on these teams and I hope one day I can be where they are, that is my dream to make the National team and to play in the Women's World Cup. Hopefully one day my dream will become a reality, but we will see.

This article also relates to the world in general because the Women's World Cup is a world-wide event and many people are interested in watching the games and if the U-16 Girls' National Team were to qualify for this incredible event it would be an amazing thing that everyone would be talking about.

PLN: Week 10- Post 20

I read an article written by Matt Slater, this article was titled "The Fight against Drugs in Sports" and in this article one of the worlds leading experts on drugs in sports told BBC that he thinks that athletes will be able to cheat without being detected in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He says that the test for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is useless and will only catch a stupid athlete.

This relates to me as an athlete because the issue of steroids is very much real. I have never dealed with steroids because none of my teammates would ever even think of using steroids and in soccer there really isn't a need, but in sports that make sure you are physically built this is much more of an issue. In sports like wrestling and football it seems like there is a much higher rate of steroid use than in sports like soccer. Though I have never personally dealed with this I still have heard of the affects because I am an athlete and its all over the news.

Also this article relates to the world because the Olympics are a HUGE event in the world and they take place all over the world. As the Olympics take place many people of the world gather to watch these events and to have competers taking steroids to improve there performance is horrible They are setting horrible examples for the younger children who look up to them and I think they don't realize how there use of steriods affects people other then themselves.

PLN: Week 10- Post 19

I read a recent article titled "Sundhage Named U.S. Women's Soccer Coach" written by "Associated Press" and in this article it talks about the Swedish Pia Sundhage being named the U.S. Women's National Team coach replacing Greg Ryan. Americans turned to a foreign coach for the first time after failing to win this years World Cup. Sundhage was the assistant coach for China during the World Cup and she is very familiar with many of the U.S. players. It just so happens that she had coached in the WUSA during its 3 year existence. Sundhage plans to hold a minicamp December and her first games will during the Four Nations tournament in China in January.

This article absolutely relates to me seeing as I am a competitive soccer player and I keep up-to-date with the latest happenings with our new National Team. I find great interest in this team and they are a great team to keep up with. I think what matters from this article is that the switch from Greg Ryan to Sundhage was a good decision made by the organization because of the interesting and surprising decisions made by Ryan during the World cup when he decided to switch goalies before the World Cup semifinals which was followed by a lopsided loss for the U.S. and therefore his contract wasn't renewed.

Also I feel that this article relates to the world because as a nation I think it is important to keep up with what is going on with our teams and especially our national team. This team is such an inspiration to so many young athletes, girls and boys. I just hope that people see the importance of this issue and they take notice as to how it affects many sports watchers in our country.

PLN: Week 9- Post 18

I read a recent article titled "I need Answer's: What will the Home of the Future look like?" written by Vicki A. Davis. In this article she talks about he love for technology and how her dad is the reason she loves it. Also she talks about a meeting that her and her dad are going to the asks the question, "What will the house of the future REALLY look like?" In this article she expresses her excitement for this meeting so she can talk about the student of the future.

This article relates to me because I am currently a student and it is interesting to think about what the student of the future might look like. I also find interest in the building of a house of the future, though I do think it is important to not look to far ahead. In a way this article somewhat relates to what we are talking about in my U.S. History class, but in reverse. In my history class we are talking about the 1920's and the social change that took place during this time which somewhat relates to this because we too are looking at the change that might take place.

This article also relates to the world because as we see ourselves being "pushed" into the future we need to be aware that we still have to live in our time. I think that doing something like building a house that we might have in ten years, today is interesting: however we have things going on right now that we need to worry about first, not what might happen in the future.

PLN: Week 9- Post 17

I read recent article titled "Practicing the Habits of Literacy" written by Dave Warlick. In this article he talks about the future of databases and how he does not know what the future has in store for these databases; however he does feel that if you send students to an online database so they can look up information on political conflicts of the 1950's then they will learn all they need to know and more because they will also strengthen their ability to use technology.

This article relates to me as many others do through the aspect of technology being brought up. In many of my classes and this one in particular I use technology to learn and as Dave says in his article, the use of databases will teach us as students the things we need to know and also allow us to better know how to use technology which I feel is very important as we grow in our education. As our world is going into the technological era we are forced to use technology more and more and we need to be able to maneuver our way through the World Wide Web and other technological sources. For one to be technologically illiterate in this day and age is not a good sign for their future. I feel that if databases are going to make teach us what we need to know then why not use them, though they are expensive.

This article also relates to the world around us in that our world is heading toward more and more technology and databases and it is incredibly important for one to be able to invest their time and money into learning what they need to know.

PLN: Week 8- Post 16

I read a recent article titled "More than Technology and Less than a Wildfire" written by Dave Warlick. In this article Dave talks about a newspaper reporter who had called him in confusion as to what was happeneing to the newspaper's website. One day they had hosted 175,235 visits, but the next day that number had climbed to 878,351 visits. The San Deigo Wildfires had explained the interest. They were used to seeing comments and arguments going back and forth between readers about certain articles, but these comments were all readers asking one another for information about their towns and other readers directed them and shared what they knew.

As I was reading this post I was absolutely astonished at the huge rise in the number of readers of that newspaper and as I read further I saw how awesome it was that each of those readers were coming together and helping each other out. It was interesting to me to see how such a devastating turn of events leads a community to come together and help each other out. This article relates to me and the world in that it shouldn't take something devastaing like this to happen for our community to come together. Reading this article made me think of ways that we as a community can come together. This post can remind us all that we are a community and we all need to help each other out. I hope that this inspiring article will be read by many other people and that it will lead us all to come together and help those in need.

PLN Presentation: Reflection 1

Over all I would have to say that my presentation went pretty well. I didn't feel too nervous and I feel like I did a good job explaining my articles. I think I could have given a little bit more eye contact and maybe spoken up a little bit. Also I may have relied to much on my note cards. Other than that I feel like I did a pretty good job. I made sure that each article I talked about related to me and our class so I hope that the class was interested and that I wasn't to boring. Over all it was fun and I enjoyed being able to explain what I had been reading about!