The Read/Write Web Article Assessment

Will Richardson’s article The Read/Write Web discusses how the World Wide Web started, how it has become essential in today’s culture, the effect it has had on education and the challenges it brings to new immigrants in this society. Many great facts and points he addresses are:

• Tim Bernard Lee’s grand vision for the internet and how the first part came to be in 1993.
• How quickly it evolved and how far it has come.
• “44% of adult internet users had used the internet to publish their thoughts, respond to others, post pictures, share files, and otherwise contribute to the explosion of content available online.”
• Schools “…have been slow to adapt to these new tools and potentials.”
• “The ability to easily publish text, pictures, and video is changing the face of journalism as we know it.”
• “Today’s schools are faced with a difficult dilemma that pits a student body that has grown up immersed in technology against a teaching faculty that is less facile with the tools of the trade.”

This rapid change in our culture has impacted our society greatly and getting schools up-to-date with this cultural change is essential both to the school and to the student. I have had the fortunate opportunity to be student teaching in a school that has made the decision to move in the direction of technology. Every student has a laptop and the majority of work is done online through a Moodle site. We incorporate Wiki’s, Podcasts, iMovies and other forms of technology to learn about subjects and synthesize information. Combining subject information with tools that they will need once they graduate is essential to their success.

The downside to this is that the students tend to know more than I do when it comes to technology. Thankfully, they have been patient with me as they show me what they know and give me the opportunity to present material in a medium they enjoy.

Energy Conservation Project Overview

For my Energy Conservation Project, I have decided to research what impact both financially and environmentally my daily 32 oz, disposable fountain soda cup has. First, I am going to purchase a reusable thermal mug to use in replacement of the paper cups. Then, I'm going to keep track of how many refills a day I end up drinking (this could be as high as four) and track the money saved and the paper conserved. Some questions and facts I will be researching are:

• How much money will I save by using a reusable cup instead of the disposable paper ones provided at the convenience store? How much paper will be conserved?
• Green Research, an advisement organization that promotes clean tech and corporate sustainability, analyzes how items like disposable cups impact the earth and the money that could be saved by reusing.
• I will keep a daily journal of how many fountain sodas I purchase from the convenience store.
• I will find out the weight of each cup and come up with how much paper is used throughout the course of a year.

After seven days of acquiring this data, I will figure out how much money and paper will be conserved over a year and present the results here on my blog.