Technology Commercial Review

Hello again... Well I do not have much to discuss about myself... However, I did see a new technology commercial this week that I thought was interesting... Microsoft used a four and a half year old girl in their new computer advertisement to demonstrate how easy it is to use their features and products like uploading digital pictures... The little girl shows the television audience how to upload, enhance and fix, and send digital pictures to people, in this case her parents... While this ad was very cute and actually a good demonstration to those people out there, who may feel intimidated by the fast moving technology world, I can't help but wonder if this is a good example or a bad prediction of the future to come for the younger, much younger users and viewers.
When in truth downloading, uploading, or anything to do with a computer is not always as simple as a commercial portrays. Just because it shows a young girl doing it viewers should not be fooled. Everything new must be learned and everything new must be tried several times before it can successfully be mastered. I do not know how much I like a young child portrayed as a computer teacher, when she was probably being instructed during the entire acting production of the commercial. Children should be exposed to technology because they are the future and so is technology, but I don't think children should be used as bait for computer buyers out there who think it is as simple as this ad demonstrates... I don't know, that's just my opinion I might be a little dramatic here and taking this ad a little literally, but it is just what I think... Any other thoughts?

Wall-E Review

Hey all! I know I am going to get a little off topic, but I just had to share with you a movie that I saw just this weekend and while it was a children's movie I thought it brought up a really interesting theory regarding advancing technology for the future. Little Wall-E was a robot that was created along with many other robots to clean up after humans, they pretty much did everything for humans. So, this inevitably enabled humans all they did was sit in chairs that moved on their own and watched a t.v. all day that just appeared in front of them. All the humans were very overweight because they did not need to get up or do anything for themselves because robots did everything. I won't go into too much more detail about it because I think everyone should see Wall-E the movie it is awfully cute and interesting how they viewed humans in the future. I recommend everyone watch this movie and see how their views reflect the future. It is interesting to think while this was a innocent, fun children's movie will our far distant future look like this with robots and us not having to do anything? I don't know just something to think about... Till next time :)

Teachers and Blogging

I decided to do some research in regards to teachers and blogging. Do teachers like to blog? Does it make communication between students, parents, and peers easier?
For the most part I have found positive articles and reviews about blogging. One teacher Jeff Utecht, who is a big believer in blogging in the classroom explained in his article Teachers as blogging models that teachers "must model good blogging for your students. You must read blogs, reflect on what you are learning, and link to other sources. That as a blogger your actions speak louder than words." Jeff saw great results in the classrooms he guided through the blogging process. Children were beginning to create amusing and informative webpages, that they were able to add to as they learned throughout the year.
On the other hand, I found an article that was not as positive with its blogging results as others were. Teachers speak out of turn was an article by Greg Toppo from USA Today. He investigated some of the more negative results that have happened as a direct result of blogging, including loss of jobs and teachers and students being ridiculed because of some of their blog posts. Greg says that while most teacher blogs are being used to talk about different classroom successions and failures and discussion follows. Other teachers are taking their blogs as an opportunity to rant and rave about the "unflattering details" that go on in to public schools, like lack of funding, vandalisim, and accounts of chaos about children. This has resulted in a lot of new and up in coming teachers losing thier first time jobs, because of the free speech they used in their web blogs.
While I think web blogging is good and becoming a more technological advancement for teacher communication I cannot help but wonder how much blogging will end up doing more bad than good for teachers. I just hope that with some of the negative results that has happened to teachers blogging in the past, future teachers will become smarter and more sensitive in what they say on the internet. It is very important to remember that everyone can read what you think and write and you should think before you post.