the mini comes to town

 

The new iPad mini has come to compete! For some people this is just another gadget and has no relevance, no importance, and no particular use for them.  For others, it may spark a new market for thsoe wanting a tablet.  The new mini was made to compete with the Google Nexus 7, but to still capture the many features of the iPad, which its consumers already love so much.

 

 

While it can now be held in one hand, and is significantly smaller than the iPad, does it really offer a good competitive edge against the Google Nexus, as well as Amazon's tablet?  It enters the market at a price of $329, while the two competitors it was designed to match up with, have a retail price of about $160.  Also, Apple's new iPad mini, while saying it will be different than the iPad, seems to have the same apps, the same resolution, run on the same operating system, and therefore seems to be pretty much the same, except a shrunken down version.

 I wonder if this price will stop people from purchasing the mini, compared with the other tablets it competes with?  But then again, I have always thought Apple seems to have absurdly high prices, but being an elite product, consumers are willing to pay anything for their products.  And I guess that is how the market works.  Those who want the mini, those who are already Apple lovers, will pay the price because they will see the mini as a benefit to them, and will see the price as being lower than the iPad, so it will make sense to them at that cost.  It only needs the one hand to work it, and therefore people have the other hand free to do work, eat, clean something, or anything else along those lines. 

And there you have it, the new mini ... is it worth it?

Minimal Standards for Education

Does it even seem plausible for America's public schools to model any of the elite schools?  If our public schools could resemble some of the elite schools within America, then yes it would make the education system one step closer to solving the failing test scores, and the" blame-the-teacher" concept.  The only question of whether or not this could ever happen would be the question of where the money would come from.  While thinking about this I remember in the film Waiting for Superman how they explained the amount of money it cost to imprison one of the teenagers, a high school dropout who got into trouble, verses the amount it would take to send them to an elite academy in the area.  They said the difference would be about $8,000.  Therefore if our government has the money to fund prisoners for four years, totaling a higher cost than to give them the money to put them through four years of school, why is it not considered as a possible option to solve the education problem?

I do not know the amount of funding our government could afford to give to schools and give to help support a reform for education, but if they can afford to put those students who cause trouble in prison for the same amount of years it would take to educate them, it would seem to me to be a better option. 

A lot more has to be evaluated when looking at where the problem lies in education.  It is not solely a "blame-the-teacher" problem, but instead has many other contributing factors.  What about the child's home life and whether or not they have the basic necessities, or the push and motivation needed to study and do their homework while at home, not only focus when in the classroom.  Also, the teacher to student ratio should be examined.  In those schools with a better teacher to student ratio, the students are most definitely benefiting from getting a little extra attention than otherwise would be given if more students were in the classroom.   Lastly, I think we really need to evaluate the programs our teachers come from, the materials they are learning there, and if they have the ability to teach in different ways and to connect with different students.  There is not only a need to teach, but a need for teachers to understand the methods behind it all. 

What about the students?

Teacher unions seem to be so focused on protecting all teachers, keeping them on the same playing field, and not realizing the importance, or need, for schools and reforms to be able to single out the "bad eggs." It seems as if teacher unions are trying to "hide the bad teachers" in the contracts they have. This idea was proposed last night and truly seems to be on the right track.

"America’s teachers unions — particularly the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — are the most organized and powerful voices in education politics. These unions continue to block reforms needed to improve our nation’s schools by putting their focus on teachers rather than on the students they teach." -- www.teachersunionexposed.com

If the objective is to help our students succeed and help them excel at the level needed to attend universities, then why is it not easier, or why has there not been improvements made, to get rid of the teachers who are "bad" and not teaching the material to the extent needed? And yes, not many of us have encountered those terrible teachers, because most often we tend to have the average teacher, and not those teachers on one of the two extremes.

I think the teacher unions are the start of the issue, and being able to adjust their contract and fire/replace teachers who do not know the material, do not understand how to teach students, and possibly even those who simply do not care enough about the needs and progress of our students, would be a step in the right direction. Not only are the teachers, and the teacher unions, to blame, but then we also have to look at home environments and whether or not students are being motivated and pushed to learn and review their materials at home, not just in the classroom. If students do not have the necessary resources, as well as if the schools do not have the necessary resources to hire an adequate number of teachers along with providing students with the essentials for learning, then how can our students and schools ever raise test scores, and improve their levels of knowledge?

These are two key concepts to be looked at and researched on the alternatives we can offer, and the funding abilities that can be provided on these levels. But teacher unions are a definite must to re-evaluate, and I feel that teachers, or at least the good ones that care about their students, should be on board with this idea and help to develop new contracts that can be issues to improve the problem at hand. 

Bad Teacher? Bad common sense.

Why think of teachers as being the ones to only blame?  Yes they are the ones in contact with our students, but they learned their knowledge and the material they teach students from someone.  Should we not examine the professors who taught them, the different types of programs out there providing these teachers with certifications?  There should be a lot more research put into defining the problem of our educational system and the facts leading to students not learning, and therefore not testing to the minimum standards necessary. 

No this is not the type of bad teacher I am referring to, but this movie image is the type of image that comes to mind when I think of the concept of blaming teachers for being “bad teachers” and being the reason students are failing, or not achieving the marks desired by schools. 

Bad Teacher identifies the fast-track program, and the easy accessibility individuals have to obtain teaching certifications that do not provide teachers with the essentials in order to teach students how they need to be taught for success.  Why implement fast-track programs, when we can see the ill effects it has on our students?  These programs give teachers a lack of field experience, a lack of understanding on how to teach students who learn differently, and a lack of knowledge around different courses and material needed to be learned.   Yes I understand the ability to train more teachers at a faster rate, to help teach them only the material supposedly necessary to raise standardized test scores, but none of that seems to be making a difference in how our students are doing with test scores.  Therefore, I feel traditional methods and being able to examine and learn the necessary materials, how to implement them in complex problem sets, or in reading across disciplines, would be more beneficial for students.  Clearly the reform that is trying to change how students learn, and trying to achieve the desired marks, is failing.  Maybe it is time to re-evaluate the real problem behind these test scores, and solve solutions accordingly.

Liar Liar

"Liar, liar?" What age are the presidential candidates? What is our world coming to, when this is how we fight our battles? When this statement was made during the first presidential debate, of course we all knew what publicity, and what statements were going to be made to counteract, justify, and state how this matter was either okay or was completely uncalled for.

"This business of just going out and calling a candidate for the president of the United States a liar, just saying liar, liar -- that in my view ... this is a new low," Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, told Fox News on Tuesday. "It means that they're out of ideas." After the debate was over, my family and I were discussing what was said and how a presidential debate could even stoop this "low" and bring about a statement such as that. Sen. McCain's statement hits the nail on the head, and he seems to be completely right with saying maybe Obama and his campaign are "out of ideas." I feel this would have to be one of the main reasons for bringing up such a juvineille comment, instead of providing a better counterpoint or argument to address.

I don't understand how any side of a presidential campaign would feel they had the power or ability to launch these statements without knowing the amount of press and repercussions for those statements. The Obama campaign, "says there's no way he'd be able to find enough loopholes and other benefits to sacrifice in order to make up the difference. Therefore, Obama says, the plan would end up either raising taxes on the middle class or adding to the deficit." This is the argument placed by Obama in defense to his statement made in the first debate we saw last week. While his counterpoint, and explanation, is useful, this should have been the first statement made during the debate and should not have been needed in the aftermath of it all.

A personalized world?

After the discussion in class, about the ability to personalize what you view on the Internet, along with other elements, such as music preferences and youtube selections, just because of new technologies, I started thinking about the consequences of this and how this is not really life.

When you read a newspaper, buy a magazine, or anything else in print you look at, you receive all the information you are looking for, plus additional articles about issues you may have otherwise ignored. The additional information allows you to be more connected to other aspects in life, and does not allow individuals to discard things so easily. On the other hand, they can turn on their computer, go onto the internet, and there they have they may already have their settings customized to the articles and information they typically click on, and the websites with the view points they desire, while not getting both sides to every situation, and therefore being slightly misinformed, or as I should probably say lacking all the necessary information, to hold debates and discussions on the topics in the world. This customized world is not real, and as we brought up in class, tends to have people thinking what they know is the complete truth, because they are only getting the information from their view point and not the whole story.

A personalized/customized world? This may seem desirable and perfect to some who have the mindset of knowing exactly what they want, and only that. Logically, this world does not exist and our technology should not be turning to this type of world. We should still be given other articles, other information of both sides of debates and discussions, this allows us to still form our own ideas and opinions, but this way they are more well-rounded and include all the facts. I know a personalized world sounds ideal, and it is exactly that. In the real world there are more issues and more problems going on than what people bookmark for their home pages, and what people tune into on the television and internet, as soon as they get home. People need to broaden their information centers and learn more than just their preferred method.