Thursday January 29, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:

Finish this sentence "10 years from now I will be...." (explain)

10 years from now I will be practicing law. I plan to go to college and major in finance and either double major or minor in Spanish. Using this I plan to practice business law and fund management on an international level. If I choose to follow a path other than business, I plan to still practice some sort of law.

Tuesday January 27, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:
Yesterday I had you choose a global issue and you wrote about it on your blog. Today on your blog I want you to tell me about two different perspectives of your global issue. Are there people for an against your issue? Do people disagree on your issue? Is it a topic that can cause controversy? Look at the issue for two different perspectives. Tell me about those perspectives.

My topic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, is a global issue that sparks much controversy. The perspectives are typically centralled around a pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian stance. This causes a lot of tension around the world as alliances are tested.

From a pro-Ukrainian standpoint the grievances are straight-forward: the Russians have invaded and intervened in Ukrainian affairs. They invaded and claimed the territory of Crimea and suspicions remain over whether or not they will invade further. Additionally, this is a way for Russia to keep its ally from separating and becoming less dependant on Russia as Ukraine integrates itself with the European union.

People who side with the Russians cite the ethnicities of the country as a justification. Much like when Germany invaded Austria to reclaim territorities with germanic peoples, Russia is ultimately reclaiming the slavic people living in the area who share Russian worldviews. Furthermore, Russia has a right to help decide the future of the country as they have traditionally been allies and shared resources.

The Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Once you have selected an issue, create a new blog post and answer the following questions:

Without doing any research, what background do you currently have on this issue?
What do you want to know about this issue?
Why did you choose this issue? Had it effected your life? Is it something you are passionate about? Explain.

I currently know little about the Russia Ukraine conflict other than what has been aired on the major news outlets. These have all been the major things only and I am interested to learn more about the topic. I have also heard about how soccer players in the Ukranian League have been affected so I am interested to learn more about that as well.

I would like to learn more about what has happened throughout the last year between the two countries and how other nations internationally have intervened. Additionally I would like to learn some of the history between the two countries and possible links and tensions between the two countries.

In the past I have heard about this issue and I am concerned about how it will affect the future of the world in general. The conflict between the Russian and Ukranian forces could potentially spark a massive war should the advances of Putin continue unfettered and alliances begin to become threatened. It is also something that could affect the relations of the United States globally throughout the coming years. Additionally, I believe that at least one foreign professional soccer player has been killed whilst in Ukraine plying his trade so I would love to learn how it has affected the typical citizens and everyday life throughout Ukraine.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/5297962/data/ukraine-eu-russia-map-data.png

http://static.businessinsider.com/image/5312480beab8ea9733f0786d/image.jpg

Monday January 26, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:
Last week I asked your to "think differently" and push yourself to be uncommon with your PSA project using Google Slides. Why do you think I asked you to do that? What is the point? Why not just use bullets and headers? Explain.

You probably asked us to do that so that we could expand our knowledge of how Google Slides works. By endeavoring to create new and exciting formats we would need to discover on our own how to work the program to tweak our presentation and make it look exactly as we wanted it to. By not using bullets and headers we were forced to think outside the box in terms of how to present our information giving the presentations more variance and creativity.

Friday January 23, 2015

The youngins these days dont know good music. Back when I was a boy I listened to Frank Sinatra; none of that Justin Beaver. They dont know how to talk to people anymore, all they do is keep their heads buried in their new-fangled technology. All this school rots the brain, you should be out in the fields by the time you're 8.

Texting while Driving PSA

Thursday January 22, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:
What is a public service announcement (PSA)? What do PSA's do? What makes a good PSA? How can you get someone to take action after watching a PSA? What is you PSA idea? Explain in detail.

A public sercive announcement is a message broadcasted to the people addressing a large scale problem. PSA's can help to bring problems and facts to the attention of the general public and also make people aware of some common things that can be done to help. A good PSA is riveting and captures the attention of whoever is watching. To get someone to take action after watching a PSA, the call to arms must be easily achievable so that everyone can and wants to make a small change. If the solution(s) requires a long term committment then it is unlikely that anyone will contribute to making the change. I have not yet selected my PSA.

Friday January 16, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life here at BVHS. What activities or clubs are you involved in? What year are you in school? What is your favorite class and/or teacher so far this year? What are you looking forward to this school year? Include some original photos from your phone if you can.

I'm very involved in the band program. I am also in the National Music Honors Society and Mu Alpha Theta and used to play soccer. I am a Junior this year. My favorite class this year is undoubtedly Honors Spanish 4. This year I am looking forward to learning and becoming more prepared for college. I am excited to improve my Spanish too!

Who Am I Presentation

Tuesday January 13, 2015

Blog Post of the Day: What are your thoughts on this class so far? Easy? Hard? Informative? Frustrating? What have you learned so far? What do you want to learn? Explain yourself.

From what I have experienced so far, this class does not seem to be hard. It relies mostly on following dierctions and task completion, however I do think that I will be able to benefit from the information that I will learn. I've benefited from learning tricks to personalize Google Chrome, but I hope that we work with websites like it more in the future and not such niche programs as blogger.

Monday January 12, 2015

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me about your weekend. What did you do? Upload a photo to your Google Drive and then insert the photo (or photos!) to your blog post to show me what all you did.

This weekend I auditioned for state band in Salina, Kansas. I had to wake up at 4:00 AM and didnt get home until 7:00 Saturday. My audition went fairly well, but due to the massive competition, I'll be lucky if I make it. Unfortunately results won't be posted until Tuesday evening! Thanks to my early day Saturday, I spent all of Sunday sleeping, watching football, and celebrating my dad's birthday.

Friday January 9, 2015

Watching YouTube: A
Wasting Time: A
Procrastinating: A
Playing Drums: A
Fishing: A
Hunting: A
Being a Pacifistic Vegetarian: A
Cynicism: A
Sarcasm: A
Being Anti-social: A

Thursday January 8, 2015

Read this small newspaper clipping and then write a blog post about it. What are your thoughts? How does it make you feel? Do you agree? Disagree? Explain yourself.



The judge's comments, although not entirely without merit, are tainted by his dealings in court with the worst of teenagers. If his true aim was to motivate young adults to take up a more active role in their society, he would have approached it much differently. His comments come from an adult perspective and address skills needed later in life, however, the article contains a remarkable amount of cynicism and likely hypocrisy. His insulting demeanor and condescension serves to further alienate his target audience and makes his later points ineffective. As teenagers we need to be free to express ourselves and learn from mistakes so that when we are in positions of true power later in life the consequences of our actions are far less severe. In short, the true message should be to choose responsibly when entertaining yourself. While it is a teenager's job to find his/ her own fun, it is also their responsibility to learn how to have fun later in life, in conjunction with being productive.