Let me start off by saying I feel like one of the students that this special blog post was meant for, but anyways after using WolframAlpha and comparing the populations between India, China and the United States I realized what Dr. Strange was talking about. I feel like he was giving the facts not as a straight comparison of one countries population to another's, but to say that the United Stated better be ready for smart, technology literate, english speaking students that will be flowing in from those competing with students now and in the future for jobs.
WolframAlpha
After using WolframAlpha I can defiantly see the uses for my students using it in the classroom. When I did my two extra comparison searches I choose to use two things I do a lot which is eat and play video games, so I compare McDonald's to Burger King and Xbox 360 to Playstation 3. When I did my first comparison I and typed in McDonald's and Burger King the search came back with information that was actually useful about each restaurant franchise, such as stock prices and annual earnings. Also when I did my second search comparing the Xbox 360 console to the Playstation 3 console not only did I find the prices but I found average price range as well as shipping weight and features. I think using WolframAlpha can be useful in the classroom because it is a more specifics search then if a student was to just u Google or Ask.com. The only draw back I can see from using WolframAlpha is whether or not it is a reliable source. It is already more reliable then Wikipedia because not anyone can just put information on there but I could not find anything about it being a creditable site. Still, it would be a helpful tool for students who are doing research papers and projects just a starting point as well as for students who are just curious about something and wants to research it without having to wonder if it's actually fact or just an opinion from someone.
Gary Hayes Social Media Count
It's astounding to think of how much is going on in just 1 day or even 10 min for that matter. It's easy to look at this counter and just think it's just numbers on a screen but it's more than that. To put it in perspective in the amount it takes to read this blog (about 1 to 2 mins) there is over 2 million YouTube videos being watched. That's crazy if u consider that a lot of videos on YouTube are at least 2 min long a piece.
As far as the meaning of these changes going on they effect the teaching profession a lot. Most social media sites target the youth to use their sites and click on their ads and what not. Which means they are going to spend a lot of their free time on these sites and learning things from these sites. We, as the people who will be responsible for teach these youth, have to make it our responsibility to teach children by any means necessary which means we was have to use these social media sites to get through to the children we will be teaching.
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