"Pencil Ban" - What's Next

I have heard some crazy things in my lifetime but banning pencils has to be the craziest thing I have ever heard. This teacher seems misguided in what he's trying to prevent. I'm not trashing his prefession or abilities in any way. I am just saying that banning pencils seems a little bizarre. Pencils can be used as weapons, but so can a lot of other things. A classroom can be deadly if you actually look at it. Pencils are the least of the worries when it comes to danger. Everyone needs a pencil, especially a person who loves to write in their free time. If someone bans pencils, they ban a writer's ability to follow their hearts and passion. The goal of a school is to help students follow their passions to a successful career. Aren't they stopping writers from doing this by banning pencils? I think the teachers just got a little carried away with this. I mean what's next, banning costumes on Halloween because they "might cause us danger" or because the accessories "can be used as weapons." Or should we start eating without forks, knives, and spoons because they can cause serious damage in a restaurant. School without pencils is like a eating soup with a knife. It just seems silly to ban pencils in a school to me.

-Akash Patel

"Why Does School Have To Be So Boring?" Response

Why exactly does school have to be boring? School is just the same thing over and over again. We listen to teachers, take notes and then take a test on the material we "learn." After the test, most students forget what they learned because they feel like they're done with it. I don't think anyone is really learning. I just think they memorize things long enough to pass the class. So what does the honor roll mean? It just means a student is able to memorize well. There are students that don't make honor roll but they are able to do well in the classes that apply to their future careers. There might be a class that a student does not need in the future and that's the reason they can't make honor roll. Honor roll just means you're good at knowing what the school wants you to know. If you miss the honor roll by a few grades, you are good at what you are passionate about. If you don't make honor roll by a long shot, you aren't trying to do well in any of the classes. We need to start learning. And if we want to do this we have to follow what we're passionate about.

Why Does School Have To Be So Boring? - Link

-Akash Patel

"Should we be good at school" response

Schools have always been taught the same way, but why is it that we can't remember half the stuff we learned throughout our school career? I can't remember anything that I learned in elementary school or middle school right now. Why are schools still teaching us this way if almost all of us can't remember anything from previous years? I think blogging and social media can help with learning because they supply us with resources for certain subjects.This article addresses this problem. I think we should be taught in a new way. We need to be able to learn something in a way that is memorable. If something crazy happens, I know I'll remember it in the future because something bizarre will always stay stuck in my head. When we are able to to make learning fun and exciting, we wont have to worry about students forgetting how to do things. Students will definitely remember how to do a problem if there is something fun about it. Even in calculus we made finding derivatives somewhat fun by making catchy phrases. If calculus can be fun, anything can be fun. Learning isn't supposed to be about knowing things for a short period of time. It's about getting some sort of information and keeping for as long as you live. If you forget how to do something after such a short period of time, you didn't actually learn it. All we have to do is change this boring way of schooling and learning.

Link to blog 4 edu article: http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/

-Akash Patel

AP Statistics

AP statistics is something we have never seen at this school. I think it would be a great class. There are a lot of people who don't take AP Calculus because they think it will be too hard so they tak regular Statistics and regular Calculus. Statistics is too easy for some students and they want to take a class that is a little more challenging for them. AP statistics would be a great class for the people who don't want to take AP Calculus or the people who just want another challenging math course. Mr. McNeill found an ebook that shows what AP Statistics would be like. This book looks pretty interesting and I recommend checking it out because this class would be a great addition to our school.

-Akash Patel

"10 iPad Apps for the Classroom" Response

Having a iPad for classes would also make class easier for the students here. This article shos the useful apps that a student could use in a classroom. The one that really caught my eye was the calculator. This specific calculator included the trigonometry functions and their inverses. I have seen many students who use calculators without these functions because they don't want to throw money down for an expensive ti-84 or 89. This calculator will definitely be useful for students taking calculus or pre-calculus. The science apps were also very useful. The english reader app would make looking at books easier for all the students. Also, the note taking app will definitely help students keep track of notes rather than losing them in their notebooks. I definitely think we should have iPads in the school because it would make the lives of our students easier and it would help them stay organized.

-Akash Patel

"History of the Jetpack"

This was one of my favorite things to look at so far in this class. The jetpack has been something that has amazed me all throughout my childhood. Toy Story was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. The fact that Buzz had a jetpack made me want one. (Even though he couldn't actually fly until he got the rocket strapped to his back at the end of the first movie.) Toy story was actually listed in the "Visual history of the jetpack." It amazed me that we have been able to make a jetpack so early. Older versions of the jetpack have been modified to the modern version. This one can let a person fly for thirty mins! There are still going to be field tests on this jetpack but it is still amazing how we have the ability to fly the way we have always dreamed of. I highly recommend checking this out.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2030642_2209302_last,00.html

-Akash Patel

"Morning, Friends. Who Can I Help Today?" Response

I like the concept of helping other people and doing it out of kindness rather than for fame. This person in the article was helping whoever he could. He would always put this same message up every morning on Twitter and help out whoever he needed to. I thought that was amazinng. There are really people out there who need help with things or who really need someone to talk to. Having the option to get help from a random person who is willing to listen and throw out support is just awesome. I know if I ever needed help with something, someone like this would come in handy. This is similar to the man who gave out his phone number on youtube. There were people constantly calling him to talk about their problems. People just need others to listen so if there is someone online who is ready to listen and help, a lot of people will jump at the opportunity to talk to them.

Link: Morning, Friends. Who Can I Help Today?

-Akash Patel

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching' Response

I completely agree with this article. I know that I forget a lot of things that I learned in school. Every year I have to review what I learned before in order to pass the class they I am currently in. Then there's the things that I know without even trying. Growing up, video games have been something I have been passionate about. I can answer a lot of questions about games and game consoles and I can keep a conversation going about game without even trying but when somebody tries to talk about a school subject, I have to think about the right thing to say. We should focus more on coming up with ways to teach students in a way that they will remember the material rather than throwing it at them and making them remember it for a year. This is a great article and I recommend checking it out.

Link: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2032

-Akash Patel

"Blogger's Cafe" Response

I think the blogger cafe is a great idea because it gives bloggers a place to just talk and throw out ideas. There are many blogs out there that have great ideas, but people don't realize it. By copnnecting a group of bloggers, we have the option to see the thoughts and opinions of different people who share similar passions. So far this idea seems great. I would love to participate in a group discussion where bloggers get to share ideas and just talk for fun. There are chances that a person could get embarasses as this post pointed out, but we as bloggers should be respectful of other people's posts because we wouldn't want anyone laughing at our posts and saying horrible things about them. Trashing someone's post is like trashing somebody's entire train of thought. As long as everyone stays respectful, this cafe would be great.

Link: http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2010/11/november-bloggers-cafe-update.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thenerdyteacher%2FIZyg+%28The+Nerdy+Teacher%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

-Akash Patel

Why do I have to study [Fill in the Blank]?

Link: http://learningandlaptops.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-do-i-have-to-study-fill-in-blank.html

"Why do I have to study [Fill in the Blank]?" Response

This article was fairly interesting because I too think some classes are pointless to take. I think we should all be forced to take all these classes earlier so we get a feel for what we want but when we reach high school we should be able to pick our own classes. This way we can do what we want to prepare for our future careers. Some people don't need english or spanish or history for their future job. Other people really need these classes. I want to go into computer science and game design because I am a video game nerd. I would love to be able to do some programming and design for the games I love to play. I just think I would need an english class for programming because in most games, there is slang and grammatically incorrect phrases. Some people think history is useless but I think we could use history to make a game that reflects some history in it. Growing up, I always thought Genghis Khan was an amazing ruler. His violent ways aren't something I support but his tactics to conquer were amazing. A game that gives you a choice on whether you want to be good or bad gives you more options. That's how a game called Fable works. It gives you a character and a story line but you choose the paths that you take in your journey. History can easily be incorporated into programming. There are many classes that people don't need so I think students should be able to pick the classes that apply to their future career. But if there are people who don't know what they want to be, they should be given some options by the school so they can find their passion.

-Akash Patel