Connectivism

     Today I saw a video about "connectivism" and how it affects students. The video explained how students are constantly expanding their personal learning network, and many new ways to do so. It was primarily focused on the many new advances in technology that can help students. I agree with this; there are many new tools available, especially on the Internet. Students can use bookmarking sites to keep track of useful information, or even find links to the best professors and institutions in the world. In this day and age, there are almost infinite ways that students can get and use information.

Video Uploaded, Finally

     So, two days ago, Anthony and I finished the editing for our video, and I am putting it in this post. I think it turned out pretty well. We decided to make it about something that was funny to us, and hopefully it is funny to you all as well. It took us a while to figure out the specifics of some parts, but we were able to figure it out. Now, without further ado, I present The Red Ring of Death, a Mersman/Meyer original. Please note: no video game consoles were harmed in the making of this video.

Video Did Not Upload

     I would have posted a blog entry yesterday, but I never got a chance to do so. I had a draft all typed up, but was waiting for our video to upload to YouTube so that I could put it in my post. Unfortunately, I was lied to by the computer, and the video was not uploaded. I will upload the video to YouTube and to this blog as soon as I have a chance. Thank you for waiting patiently for the video and it should be up some time tomorrow.

     jmers593

Video For Class

     My friend Anthony and I are making a video for our class. We are trying to make a pretty funny skit, but I don't want to give away any details until it is finished. After we get all the kinks worked out, I will post the video to YouTube, and here on my blog. We recorded most of the video yesterday, but will be recording the final touch-up clips after school today. We hope that it will turn out how we want it too, and that people will think it is funny.

     jmers593

Symbaloo

     Two days ago, I watched a video that featured an online application called "Symbaloo". Symbaloo is an interactive website that allows you to store all of you favorite sites on a dashboard-esque page, called a webmix. The webmix is a wall of tiles that you can fill with your bookmarks. If a bookmark is not already available, you can create your own tile to put into your webmix.

     This is a picture of my Symbaloo webmix. You can see all of my bookmarks. I have arranged them into categories, such as: Entertainment, News, Blogs, etc. I have even created two of my own tiles to take me to the channels of two of my favorite YouTube vloggers(Located below the YouTube tile).

     Symbaloo is very helpful for organizing your bookmarks in an easy-to-use fashion. With Symbaloo, you can actually see what you are looking for, rather than searching aimlessly through a list of sites.

     jmers593

Social Media in Schools

     Today I saw a video about a principal at a middle school who sent an e-mail to the parents of students saying "There is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site". To me, there are two sides of this argument to look at -- the educational and the psychological.

     Social networks can have a very positive impact on education. Some networking sites have even been created by teachers for the purpose of teaching to their students. In this respect, I feel that any student should be able to become a part of such networking sites.

     However, I do not feel that middle students should be getting on Facebook or MySpace. People on these sites can often see the presence of bullying and abuse. If young children were to become the targets of these people, they could be hurt emotionally, and in some instances, physically. I would hate to see anyone become the target of bullies online or otherwise, and I just do not feel that these social networks, and many others, should not be open to younger children.

     jmers593

Busting More Than Myths

     Jamie Hyneman, from the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters is working with the U.S. Military to create a new type of armor. The armor in development will be used on vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hyneman is tasked with creating an ultra-lightweight armor that can still shield against the blast and shrapnel from IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). If you would like to read more, check out this link.

      http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20053298-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave