STL High School Sports Forum

http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=14

On the Saint Louis Post Dispatch's website, there is a special place dedicated to prep sports. There they cover high school games with stories, pictures, and video. On the site there is also a place for others, like fans and players to talk about the high school sports scene.

The forum can provide for some interesting talk about some young talent coming up in the St. Louis area. However, this is also a breeding ground for disputes and interscholastic fights. Regardless, it is still a great place to hype an upcoming football, or baseball game. Playing sports in high school, what people were saying in the forums were always a part of our daily talk. With this ability to spread word about young talent, it gives fans the choice to show their opinions and comment about a game that might not show up in a newspaper.

Alan Jackson, I Still Like Bologna

I was driving to school this morning, flipping through the stations and stopped when I heard Alan Jackson talking about cell phones and laptops. If any one likes country music, you should listen to this song. The song talks about how we are in a new digital age and it shows the good and the bad side. He says even he can't live without a cell phone or a laptop these days. He states how useful they are, but he also talks about the negative, being everything else we take for granted. The simple things in life are being ignored because of all this technology!

Also check out Welcome to the Future by Brad Paisely! (thebullrocks.com/bradpaisely)

Tyler J. Immethun

Twitter in our Lives

We all know how much social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have had an impact in how we connect to one another. I think this is great, but I'd have to say that Twitter is quite different. I would say it's like Facebook, but with a bunch of things take out of it. So all you have are just updates on what you are doing. It seems to be getting pretty huge very quickly just like Facebook. Though it seems like a lot of the people that register on Twitter make a few updates and then never go back to the site. I find it kind of stupid that people will post meaningless things about what they are doing. I do find it cool that some companies are using Twitter to make updates on merchandise and upcoming releases on albums, games, etc. Twitter can be a cool website at times, and I hope that the creators keep working on it.

Here is a video that I found very funny that is related to Twitter.

New texting ban takes effect

I relize this does not directly apply to the chapter we just read, but i find this law interesting. Bauerline does say how so many kids have cell phones and rely on them for more than is needed. Cell phones are todays way of talking, either by call or just a short message. This is carrying over to doing this while driving, which is unsafe and has caused several accidents and injuries. There is a new law stating that anyone under the age of 21 can NOT send, recieve, or read a text message while driving. What i dont get is what makes 21 year olds more responsible or equipt to text and drive. They have the same percent of getting in an accident than someone who is 20 or 18 texting and driving. I relize it is dangerous but why do they put a limit to 21 and not just in general? Baeulein states that we are too depenedent on technology (by multitasking or on all the ipod,tvs,or cell phones we own), and apparently this is somewhat true if it is affecting the roads to the extent of making a law to prevent this. Check the site out for more information on the law at http://www.missouriaccidentlawyerblog.com/2009/08/new_texting_ban_takes_effect.html.

Where/who do 3yr olds learn from?

As I was on the yahoo page I noticed this video/article clip about a little girls reaction while at a baseball game. The father who is in the stands sees this foul ball coming and makes a great leaning catch over the railing, everyone cheers like normal. His younger daughter sitting next to him is reaching towards him with the face of "let me see daddy". So of course he gives his daughter the ball, right away she throws it over the railing without even thinking. The crowds gasp was the only thing that startled her making her think that she did something wrong.

I thought about Bauerlein and what his reaction would be to this clip. I believe he would say that this three year old is addicted to watching TV, and has learned bad habits from watching ignorant people at baseball games throw the balls back.

Now think about it how often in a baseball season do people throw the baseballs back after catching them, hardly ever. And seriously how often do three year olds watch baseball games on TV? By reading the article the dad mentions that he plays catch with his little daughter at home, and that the reaction after receiving the ball is to throw it back. So really she was doing what she was taught.

So there was no excessive viewing of baseball games on TV. This little information about the little girl playing catch with her father is the little type of information that Bauerlein leaves out of every little statistics that he talks about.

Are Books Truely Necessary?

While browsing Business Week for another class, I came across an article that just happens to be written by Don Tapscott - the author of Growing Up Digital. In this article Tapscott discusses an interview he had with a young man by the name of Joe O'Shea. Joe is currently 22 years old and is studying at Oxford. Tapscott says that he and O'Shea talked and shared similar views about the "Net Generation." O'Shea's most shocking statement was that he "doesn't read books." He says that he no longer has time to read books cover to cover with all of his school and social work. Instead, he uses Google Books to find information that is relevant to him. All he has to do is type in a subject line and Google Books does the rest for him. These search results include what books he should look at - down to the page and paragraph. So instead of having to read an entire book to find a small piece of relevant information, Joe spends ten minutes on the internet to find what he is looking for. I believe this is relevant to our class because it presents the other side of Bauerlein's argument. Although kids aren't truly reading as much these days, they are still obtaining the same information online. And besides still finding all the information they need, they can do it much faster than anyone could ten years ago. This shows that while Bauerlein does make a valid point about kids and reading, he leaves a BIG part of the story out.

This article can be viewed here

Get Schooled

If any of you were at a T.V on Tuesday, you might have noticed a huge airing of "Get Schooled" on over twenty networks. This is Obama's latest push to get kids to do well in school. What I find incredibly intellegent, is the way that Obama chooses to get out this information. He doesn't write a book, or give a huge speech over the subject. Instead, he brilliantly focuses on things that kids of this generation know and love. Not only does he use a huge television airing, he also uses the access of advertisements on Facebook, Twitter, and even has created a site over the subject. Now that is the way to reach kids and push them for a better education. What I found even more brilliant, was the use of popular celebrities to push his point. People like Kelly Clarkson, Lebron James and even Obama were featured in this show. They use people like Ashley Tidsdale and Lil Wayne to simply advertise this educational drive. The networks they used to broadcast "Get Schooled" also related well to young adults, preteens and kids. Using popular stations like MTV, Comedy Central, and other local channels that are almost religiously watched by kids. This was a great idea. Whether people got the message or not, Obama used things that our generation can relate to. No books, no tests and no lectures. Now that is the way to reach kids.

A Bookless Library

If found this article titled, "Welcome to the Library. Say Goodbye to the Books." and found it very interesting because it is sort of on the cutting edge of where technology may be heading. It is a about school is Massachusetts that replaced their nearly 20,000 books with a completely digital library. The new digital library includes flat screen tvs to project data from the internet, new laptops and even a coffee shop where the reference desk was previously located. I think it's a pretty drastic change to make over the summer but it really shows where technology may be leading in terms of libraries and schools. I think there are definite pluses and negatives in this. I like the idea of adding more technology to a library because I almost always do my research on the internet through online databases and news journals but it is also nice to have books and hard copies to use and look at. Many of my teachers in my high school classes required both internet sources and actual book sources when doing papers so it could make things dificult if teachers still required that. I think it would be interesting if they did some sort of poll at the end of the year to see what both students and teachers think of the change.