Foreign Language App

This article shows an app for the smartphone that instantly translates a language for you. All you have to do is aim the camera at a word or phrase and the phone will automatically translate it for you. There is a video demonstration of the app in the article. There are some people who think that we are becoming too dependent on smartphones and a lot of people won't bother taking a foreign language anymore because there is an app that translates for you. I disagree with this. There are a lot of people who are dependent onsmartphones but this app won't stop people from taking foreign language. This app can come in handy when translating words or phrases, but how is it going to help when you have to talk to another person. It can't translate what everyone else is saying. So even though there is an app that can translate stuff for you, there will still be a bunch of people who want to take a foreign language because they want to be able to speak to a native fluently without having to rely on another source for help. Other than this, I think the app is extremely useful!

-Akash Patel

Open Zine

I haven't blogged at all this past week and this is due to the fact that we have been working on a magazine this week. I can just say right now that my magazine is short and horrible. I feel like I have spent most of this week being frustrated and wasting time. The first day went alright. I got my cover page done and I got some information for my first page. The next day is where everything went downhill. I couldn't log in for 30 mins! I only have 45 mins to work on my magazine and I spent more than half of it just trying to log in. After I logged in, it said I didn't have any magazines. I know I didn't publish it, but why wasn't it showing up on my works in progress section. So I started to work on another magazine and when class ended I saved it and hit save later. After I saved this one, my old one came back up in my works in progress. At this point I was ready to flip a table over, but I let it go and I was ready to work on it the next day. After I finished a page, I realized that you can only have a cover and ONE page. What kind of magazine has one page!? After all of my frustration I decided to give up because now my weeks worth of work is just a waste. I published my first one just so everyone can see what I have been working on, but I think I'm done with that site because I can't take the frustration. Back to blogging for me.

Magazine: http://www.openzine.com/aspx/Zine.aspx?IssueID=15544

-Akash Patel

Passion

Our assignment for this week is to find a passion and promote it. I found this to be extremely difficult. I picked video games for a topic because it's my way to have fun ans stay connected with my friends even when we're physically far apart. The best thing about video games is that it's a way you can meet new people and communicate with people all around the world. After thinking of this topic, it took me a while to figure out how to promote this. I came across Game Battles, which a site dedicated to competitive gaming. This is a great way to challenge players that you have never met before. There are thousands of people on this site and there are also thousands of teams that you can challenge. You can join a team of people that is a thousand miles away. This is how I'm going to promote my passion because I really don't know what else I could do for a passion. It isn't easy to find ONE passion and it definitely isn't easy promoting it, but this assignment sounds interesting and I can't wait to see where it goes.

-Akash Patel

Doing What We're Told

All teachers tell their students what to do, but only a few teachers have a reason why.Every student has to do specific things in their class in order to pass. Some of it seems pointless. I know that every student wonders why they have to do things in a class that are completely useless. Some people are graded on how much they talk in class. I think this is horrible. Some students don't have anything to throw out into a classroom. I know that when I'm in a class that I do not like, I don't talk much because I don't like talking about things I'm not interested in. This goes back to my previous posts. We should just take classes that interest us rather than taking classes that seem useless to us.

-Akash Patel

Laptops and IPads for next year

Laptops and IPads sound great for next year. They can help get information faster and it can help students be more organized. All notes and files for each class can be organized into specific folders so nothing would ever be lost. The only problem could be server problems. At BHS we have had numerous times where our server would just crash and we were left with no riverdeep folders all day. This could happen while we have laptops. Also, the number of people connected to the wifi network could slow it down significantly. However, we do have wifi ports all over the school and I think we are ready to handle any problem we face. This is a great idea and it would be great for students.

-Akash Patel

Useful Classroom Tool

I think wallwisher is the most useful tool out of all of the ones listed on ever web 2.0 tool list because it can benefit both teachers and students. Many students forget test dates and deadlines and other important dates so if the teacher had a wallwisher, they could post all of this important information on the wall for everyone to see. Any questions about subject material could also be asked and posted on the wall for everyone to see. Wallwisher can be great just for reminders but it can also be a learning experience because some people will ask questions that you wouldn't even think about asking. The wallwisher can also be useful for teachers. I know a bunch of teachers who can't remember important dates so this tool can be used to keep teachers on the right track. Overall, I would have to say this is the most useful tool for any teacher to use because it can help the class be more organized.

-Akash Patel