Bullying Can Change the World

The video I watched today was about awareness of the power of bullying. At the very beginning of the talk Joel told the story of about 4 children, and their ages. All the stories ended in suicide. In all these stories were also about teens who were bullied because of their sexual orientation. To me this seems unreal. I can’t even imagine kids being so mean, and saying such bad things that make someone else want to die. It makes me so sad that some kids feel that way, because to me, there is nothing I treasure more than life. It makes me want to help kids that are being hurt. I want to help all the kids that are struggling just because they are different. I believe that each child is amazing. No matter the color of the skin, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. I wish that everyone would not judge, I wish we could go back to kindergarten and be friends with whoever will color with us that day. It does not make sense to me why people have to be so mean. When I entered high school, everything changed. The biggest change was my friends. One of my best friends decided that she wanted to be “cool”. Being cool did not always mean being nice. I have become a better person from seeing what she did. I don’t care about what people think of me anymore, I care that I make a difference in others life and I care that I am nice to everyone and that I make them want to go on in life. Throughout the talk Joes was very emotional. He is gay, and experienced firsthand what the bullying was like.  Because he was so emotional it made me feel it too. In my TED talk I hope that I can make my viewers connect with me like I could connect with him. I wish that everyone could see what Joel sees. I also wish that one day we could live in a world where no one cared about how people were different. I think if we could apply that to schools, children would be much better off. Maybe they would enjoy coming to school, and enjoy being who they are. I hope that one day we can move past the titles and everyone can see that they are amazing in their own special way.

Dave Eggers: Once Upon a School

After watching Dave Eggers’ video, I have begun to think of so many ideas. The first thing that really amazed me was how much better children can do in school if they have to one on one time. I am very lucky because I can get that time whenever I need. I can go see a teacher on an off hour, or before or after school to get help and have that one on one time. I know that not all students have these privileges and I think his project is amazing. This shop that he created is amazing in so many different ways. The first being how much fun it is for the children that go there. One of the coolest parts is that it is not decorated like a school. They are very fun and help to make learning fun.  The pirate shop or the superman store is a great idea and it will make children want to come each day.  I also really liked how they did not give it some name that implied that children were getting school help. It was simply an address and applied no titles to the child. This has really made me want to get involved and help kids younger than me. My sister volunteered at the elementary school, and that got me thinking how much fun I could have doing something like that. I thought it was amazing that they had so many volunteers that wanted to donate their time to help their community. Like we talked about in class, donating time is so much more important than any check. It just shows that you don’t need to be rich to help others. Dave’s style was very different. He talked very fast and rarely ever paused. He seemed very fidgety and not very confident. It was not in a bad way he just seemed more like a writer and not a public speaker, which is true. At times it got a little hard to follow and watch because he was all over the place. He also added a lot of humor, which made the video easier to watch and enjoy. This really relates to school, because it just shows how well children can do when they are given the time and encouragement they need. It makes me wonder what our world could be, if every child was living to their full potential.  If every child got their special attention, how could we change the world? It really has made me want to help children in schools because I think it really could change the world and make it a better place. I hope one day, every child gets the attention they need, and their ideas can help change the world.

Roz Savage- Live the life you want

The TED talk I watched today was very different from the others I have watched. This was about a woman, Roz Savage, who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, and is now trying to row across the Pacific Ocean. At the beginning of the video she told us why she wanted to set out on this journey and it reminded me of something we did in class. Roz talked about how one day she sat down and wrote two obituaries for herself. One with the life she had, and one with the life she wanted. She wanted a life of adventure, and she wanted to be remembered. This made me think of the sentences we wrote that we wanted to describe our lives. It also made me wonder what our world would be like if everyone was living the life they wanted, and was living their full potential. Roz did not only want to live a better life for herself, but she wanted to make it a better world. She set out on this adventure to provide awareness about garbage in the ocean, and what it is doing to the creatures that live there. I think that humans have gotten careless and have taken over the world. I think we need to be more careful or we will ruin our environment and all the other creature’s that were here first. Roz had a very powerful story to share, the biggest thing I took away is that you can make life anything you want it to be. I have realized, being rich and having a beautiful home is not the most important thing, being happy and living the life you have dreamed is what really matters. Roz had a different presenting style. She seemed very nervous and it made it almost uncomfortable. I got a little bit bored in the middle and drifted away. I think during my TED talk I need to make it seem like I am not nervous one bit and I truly believe in my idea. If I make it seem like I am very into my talk, then others will be too. This video makes me want to follow my dreams and do whatever I have to do to get there. It makes me motivate myself to do the best I can do in everything, but it also makes me aware that I am in control of my life and it can be anything I want it to be.

Ric Elias: The Moments that Shape You

If you knew your plane was going down and you thought you minutes on Earth were numbered what would you regret? What would you wish you would have done? Not many people experience something that will alter their life forever. This TED talk was given by Ric Elias, the man who was sitting in seat D1, the seat right next to the flight attendants, on the day the plane landed in the Hudson. He talks about 3 things he learned that day. He realized what is truly important to him in life. This video has made me think what matters to me? This really relates to our TED talk because it is about what matters to us. This video really touched me, my mind is going in so many different directions because it made me think of so many experiences in my life, and I realize that I want to live my life as the nicest person I can be. I want to help others and make a difference in others lives. I do not want to go through life, living just for me. I can really connect to this video because it brings back all the events that have shaped who I am today. It makes me think back to 6^th grade when my mom and I were in an ATV accident. All I can remember about the actual accident was darkness and my mom asking if I was okay. I remember ripping off my helmet and seeing my mom with a huge black bump immediately on her head. Like Ric said he remembers the words “brace for impact”, I remember my mom telling me “I’m hurt go get daddy.” Today those words still bring memories flashing to my mind. Sitting on the mountain waiting for the rescue crew changed my life. I thought I was going to lose my mom, and I told her she could not die. I could not lose her, and I could not live without her. It made such a difference to me because I respected my mom and brother so much more after that day. I did not want to fight with my mom, like Ric said he would not fight with his wife. If I said something mean to my family, I could not live with myself until everything was okay, because I learned the same thing Ric did, life can change in a second, and do everything while you can. His style of presenting was very different. He used some humor, but not much. He hardly moved around the stage, and his voice was not as excited as all the others I have watched. After all those things it may make it seem like it would have made it boring, but it made it more powerful and helped me to connect on an emotional level. This talk really made me think of  a quote by Barbra Bush, “At the end of your life, you will never regret no having 0passes one more test, not winning one more verdict, or closing one more deal. You will regret not spending time with a husband, friend, child, or parent.” Ric and Barbra have both helped me to change my perspective. I will not always constantly worry about school, I need to worry about getting done what I want to, and living every day like it is my last.

Clay Shirky: Changing the world through technology

Watching Shirky’s talk has really made me wonder, in what other ways can we change the world through technology? That is a big question because I think there are so many different things we could do, even his example of Ushahidi just started with a blog. I think the story of Ushahidi is amazing. Everyone can realize the truth, when their number once source disappeared, and that being media. These days I feel like everyone has become really dependent on media, and people trust everything they see. Sites like Ushahidi are so important because people can communicate and help each other. I personally think our world needs cognitive surplus. I don’t think people are as helpful to each other as we should be. Everyone is concerned with their electronics and we have lost all of the personal connection. It was really interesting when Shirky started talking about the day care. When I heard of it I thought people would be on time to pick up their children to avoid a fine. Once I saw the results I was shocked. As we started to talk about it in class it made sense to me. I was thinking why would people be late it would cost so much more money? It makes sense because if people can pay to be late, then they won’t feel guilty; it will feel like it is not on their time, because they paid for their actions. It also eliminates the parents’ personal relationship with the daycare workers.  Before it would make sense that the parents wanted to get to the daycare so the workers could go and they parents did not feel bad. Now with the fine, people just pay away their guilt. These story’s make me wonder, what could I do with technology to change the world? What could I start that would help kids who do not have homes? What could I do to get money and medical help to places that have been hurt by disasters or disease?  Shirky had a really interesting style. He had a different sense of humor that he would stick into his presentation, but it was kind of sly. It never seemed like he announced “here is my joke!” he just snuck it in. That made it funnier in a way, but sometimes I did not really get he was joking.  My topic is not very serious, so I was thinking maybe I could use something like Shirky did to make mine even more interesting. I found it really funny how he was talking about something so serious, and then he went to the cats. I liked the humor and, I have seen it in all the TED talks I have watched. I want to find a way to stick humor into my talk because I think it would make everyone want to watch my presentation more. This really relates to education and the world because I think we could use blogs like Ushahidi to help people around the world. Like I said earlier it makes me wonder what I could do with technology. If we used cognitive surplus in the right way, we really could change education and the world.

Daniel Pink: Motivation

My definition of motivation would be a form of encouragement or reward causing someone to succeed at a task. After watching Daniel Pink's TED talk, he had changed my view of motivation. I learned a lot about how people think through his talk. The biggest thing I took away from his talk was that people do not perform as well, when they have a reward at stake; in fact, people that are not going to be rewarded usually tend to do better. Daniel had many facts and statics to support his idea. It was very persuasive and surprising. I have always thought I would do better if I was going to be rewarded. It is very interesting because we read a part from his book Drive after the talk. The sample of the book just went into more depth of his whole theory. I found it very interesting because even with preschoolers, the ones that were not being rewarded were the ones who succeeded. This has completely changed my ideas because I have always thought just the opposite. It has made me start thinking about what really motivated me in life. Most of the time, I do things, and make sure they are done well for self-satisfaction. I do things to know I can prove to myself, that I can do whatever I want. Sometimes, I think my motivation is to show other people what I can do. I always want to prove people wrong, and I think that is one of my biggest motivations in life. My dreams also motivate me. My dream is to go to Duke, and every time I do not want to study, I remember that every A is just getting me closer to Duke. Daniel's style of talking was very different than the other two talks I have watched. We watched a different video in class than the one that was online, but yet they were both very different. With the one on YouTube, he didn't really show his face. He drew everything out, which in a way made it more interesting and easier to understand. When we watched the actual TED talk, he was very enthusiastic, and passionate in the way he was speaking. He used a lot of facts and statistics to back up his information. His style was so different because it was all based on research. It was a little harder to connect with him because he did not really have any personal stories. At times I was also a little bored, just because it was a little hard to follow. I think this relates to education in a big way. Grades are a great example of rewarding or punishing students for their work. Those grades will later get the child into college, and the college they go to will help get them a job. In my world life revolves around grades because it is what will get me further in life. Like I mentioned earlier I want to go to Duke, but i need good enough grades to get in. The talk has made me wonder, how would students perform if it was for themselves and not a grade? If it follows Daniel's theory, then everyone would perform much better. His talks were very interesting and have really made me start to think about what truly motivates me.

Believe: Caroline Casey

Everyone thinks they have limits; there is something they cannot do, but after Caroline Casey give her talk, it has changed my perspective on what I can and cannot do. She had a very remarkable story about her dream of being Mowgli from the Jungle Book or a race car driver. On her 17^th birthday her parents gave her driving lesions, but that same day her dreams were crushed. She learned that day that she was and had been her whole life, legally bind. She really was able to come over her disability, and no one ever knew she could not see. She went to normal school and experienced everything like a normal child. Caroline’s way of presenting was much different than Ken Robinson’s. Ken was very humorous and wanted to get everyone interested through humor. Caroline told her story very seriously. She really got into telling her story passionately, and the way she told it, it reached out and pulled you in. She was so encouraging, and passionate. Even though she had gone through so much she still had so much belief in herself. During her talk she told personal stories, which made you feel like you lived that whole experience with her. It made it feel like you were there every time she failed, every time she got her eyes checked, and when she finally lived her dream. Caroline was so energetic, during the time she was talking I was never bored. When she talked she would paint pictures in your mind of her struggles. They tone of her voice made you feel what she felt every time someone told her no. I took a lot away from this video. It really could connect with me on a personal level because my sister was diagnosed with a disease right before she went miles away to college. Not only would this disease have stopped many from going to college, but she has overcome her disease, and never asked for help along the way. She never once complained, or said “I can’t do this”. She had determination and was not going to let the disease take her dreams away. Caroline has shown me the same thing. She has taught me to always believe in myself. Follow my dreams and never let anything get in my way. Caroline found a way around her dreams. I think this is not only apparent in life, but in education. In education, I have realized I can do whatever I want. If I want an A on my history test, I can get the A I just need to invest time and believe in myself.  I know now that I can follow my dreams; I can go to Duke and become a lawyer, all I have to do is believe in me.