My Preety Awesome Blog

Hello my name is Mahnpreet! Welcome to my blog. I use this blog to answer blog prompts chosen by my teacher. Have a nice day! :)

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TED Talk Reaction

YOU WILL FAIL. I listened for 15 minutes on how the possibility of getting a great career is hard. What I listened to was a TED talk done by Larry Smith and it was about how you will fail to have a great career. The reason why I chose this TED Talk was because I was really intrigued at how can someone say something so pessimistic. One expects talks that tell you how you can succeed, how to have a better life not on how you will fail. After listening to this talk I really started to agree with the things he had to say, for example, he was talking about an example about a kid who was good at math but, wanted to be a magician. In this example, he was talking about how the kid's parents were saying how it is risky and how it's not a safe path if he were to become a magician. With the whole of the talk, I agreed with everything in the talk there wasn't really anything that had me disagree with it. The best part of the talk was that he was talking about something no one does. Failure. No one likes to talk about failure and how you can fail. Most people work at desk jobs and this talk really reminded me that is something I don't want to do. Even though I go around telling people “I want to be the first women President of the United States of America” no one really has understood why. I do not want the White House or the amount of fame and money that comes along with the job. Nor am I scared about the stress of the job. The real reason why I want to do it is because I want to help people. I feel like in this world we are born to serve and work and some of us win the lottery of life while others feel pain. If I am going to work my whole life why spend it doing something I think is good. In this world, we have one life, one chance. Why am I going to waste it? I believe we are all destined for greatness it just depends on what we choose to do with the power we are given.  With this in mind from this amazing talk, I would 100% recommend this to my friends because we are at the last 2 years before we decide on what to pursue. I think that High School students need to watch this. I know people in the MaCs program who view careers as how much money they can make. The see as long as the salary is high then it's perfect for me. They might have another option but feel obligated to do this. People need to understand its the one life you have so make the most of it. Do not waste a second on what you don't love. I just want to say if we are dying to live then why not spend it in the best way possible?

[mahnpreet-blog]

IDC Self Directed.

IDC Self Directed. | Piktochart Infographic Editor

This is my self-directed project 

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That’s a wrap...

School can sometimes be really boring especially when many teachers decide to read straight from the textbook. Can this be changed for the better? Can Personal Electronic Devices be used for the greater good? Well in my group’s PED Project we decided to test this and see if implementing PEDs could increase student engagement and achievement.  At the beginning, we needed a starting point so we surveyed the class we working with. Afterwards, we implemented Poll Everywhere which is the PED tool that we implemented. At the end, we surveyed the class again to see if there was an improvement. Sadly there was no way to tell due to the fact that we only did this once.

This project took a lot of mini tasks to finish. I would say that I did help out a great deal of this project. The things that I did was that I wrote a proposal which was used to see if any teachers wanted to work with us, as well as put all over planning on a spreadsheet (this included over deliverables as well as our Gantt Chart.) In addition to this, I also helped with the creation and presentation of the questions for our Poll Everywhere demonstration. Furthermore, I helped with some of the surveys we made to track the classes progress and how the students and teachers felt with this new technology being brought into their classroom. Lastly, I helped out with our Executive Summary.

I think that this project was not a complete success. I can say yes we did complete something but it was not the goal that we originally planned. Our main goal was to see if there was a correlation between student engagement and achievement, we did not really see this until the end. I think that this was because we didn't have the time. This project relies on the cooperation with other teachers. I think if we could test this multiple times with multiple classrooms I think this would be a success. But with the resources we had, I believe that what we accomplished was still great. Not only did we teach the teacher we were working with Poll Everywhere, we also introduced Google Classroom. I think this project can be a partial success because we did not meet our goal yet we accomplished something.

If I could go back and change something from this project I would probably change the fact that we only did one trial with the class. To really see if there is a change in student engagement and achievement when PEDs are implemented takes time. Since we only went in once we didn't see the full effects. Yes, we saw that more kids were paying attention, but I feel in this project there should be an impact. We do not know if after this project the teacher we worked with continued with it or just stopped. We do not know if it really worked. I feel like if there was a chance where we could have gone in a couple more times I think then we would have seen if there was a possibility of increasing student achievement and engagement.

Some suggestions that I would give to improve this project would be to see if there was a way to get more teachers involved. Even though yes this would be a hard thing to implement I feel like having more teachers involved with PEDs is important. Even though I have been in the class of the teacher we worked with and saw his teaching as something that was already engaging he still found things to take away. I think that a lot of teachers should open up to the idea of having PEDs, due to the way the world is going. Students go to each of their classes and expect the same thing, either reading from the textbook or off the board. No matter how interesting the topic may be everyone finds this boring. Having Poll Everywhere or a Kahoot really makes a difference. People look forward to classes. I think that teachers need to stop being afraid of a new technology's afraid of breaking things and have fun with it.

[mahnpreet-blog]

Online Harassment: Video Games.

"Go kill yourself, cuz you suck so much." This a phrase that often said in gaming (when the vulgar language is removed). Even though it is very harsh, it doesn't seem to affect many people who are in the gaming community. I know when you read that, it adds some shock factor but it's not that new to most gamers. I play online video games whether it be Call of Duty, NBA 2k16 or GTA V. All these games when you play online have some sort of harassment but really it doesn't bother me at all. The thing is that I usually laugh at it. It’s amusing when people start freaking out for no reason. Saying these comments with no meaning, I think this came because my brother and I  always play together so whenever he starts to laugh at these comments so do I. Both of us take it as a huge joke which just leads to both of us ignoring the harassment and not getting bothered by it.

Even though I have received harassment, I have not participated in any verbal harassment. I think the reason behind this is that I am more of a console gamer. I usually play on the PS3 that I own, and in order to interact with others, you need to own a microphone. Since this is needed it has made  me keep to myself and freak out less online. Furthermore, I don't get angry during gameplay, I am really relaxed and like to have the most fun I can. If however I do get mad the response is usually me just freaking out in the environment I am in and not transferring those feelings onto the online servers. Meaning that I do not go online typing out the rude comments. I just keep it contained.

I think that this harassment happens because it's a way that people let off steam. Since the culture has already been built, people just overlook the harsh things that have been said. However there are moderators who do remove toxic gamers. This would be people who are targeting other individuals and being flat out rude all the time. With this in mind, I think most people do it as a way to vent their anger when either themselves or someone on their team is doing a poor job, causing the team to lose. When it comes to gaming, gamers who play online are incredibly devoted.  They play for long hours and crave those extra wins. So when someone isn't doing their best it puts them in a bad mood. This could be because their winning streak is broken by a nameless, faceless troll.

However taking this away from the screens if I were to see this in reality, I would not accept it. The reason behind this is that since the culture has been built and this behaviour is expected. However when you look at something in the real world, people tend to be cooler and more collected in comparison to when they are playing video games. Also relating this to sports, people feel like there is an obligation to hold good sportsmanship, but when you looking at the gaming community it is not as prominent.

Even though there is harassment in games, I think that issue should be addressed in schools. At the end of the day, hate tends to get out of hand and always shows negative impacts. In this world there are 7 billion people and each person handles things differently based on their experiences. For example, I do not get bothered by hate in gaming because I find it amusing that someone is freaking out. However there are people who will look at the comment and go, “Oh my gosh is that what people think of me, is that true about me?” and this can lead to false perceptions. I think the matter of keeping mean comments to yourself is important. I think at the end of the day the school should be teaching that being polite and courteous online is important.   Furthermore, I think that schools should address that the hostile comments are from people who are blowing off steam and are venting and those comments aren't all against you. This means also bringing up risks of online gaming such as people who are targeting you and doing unlawful deeds. In the end, schools should be addressing a conduct for students to follow.

Conclusively I would like to say that yes there is hate in video games and that it's something that I do not see changing in the near future. The gaming community has this harassment that you wouldn't find respectable anywhere else yet we do here. At the end of the day it's a game, just type in GG and call it a day.

[mahnpreet-blog]

Helpful Tech for school :p

Block and Focus:

One of the technologies that I belive is really helpful is block and focus. Block and focus is a chrome extension that blocks certain websites for a certain amount of time to keep you focused. The way that Block and Focus works is that it has cycles so for every amount of time you work (this is when it blocks the websites) it gives a certain amount of break(the time that the websites are not blocked). The way that I would use this is to complete the work that I need to be done. I am someone who gets very distracted and the more uninteresting the subject the less chance of me to focus. The thing is I really need to sit and work so that I don't end up pulling an all-nighter when one isn't needed. This can be hard because at times watching IISuperwomanII can be better than completing that really important biology assignment. So with block and focus, since I am not allowed to access it, this gives a good reminder for me to do my work. Furthermore this also gives you an inspiring quote whenever you tried to access a blocked website. In the end, this technology is very helpful because it helps me focus and finish my assignments quicker and lets me work uninterrupted.

Quizlet:

Another Technology that I believe would be really helpful is Quizlet. What Quizlet is a study tool that allows you to create flashcards and study with a couple of games. This would be helpful because if you need to memorise a bunch of definitions they can help. Since they are electronic flashcards they are so much easier to access, instead of bringing around cue cards you can use your phone which most people already have on them. A way that I would use this is making them before a test, and then after all the tests are done I can compile the flash cards and put them into one combined set. This makes it easier to memorise things for the test as well as the exam.  With this tool, you can create your own flashcards or use someone else. This tool is so effective for it is something that can make studying seem less like a burden.

Live Binders:

A technology that I would use this semester is Live Binders. Live Binders is a technology where someone can organise there information on a virtual binder. This eliminates the whole problem of paper, by making everything virtually paperless. This would come in handy for this semester I have biology and law which are heavily dependent on their notes. These subjects have a lot of material which you need to memorise. So with this you can have everything in one place and not have to worry about losing things. This technology can help people learn for with live binders it has a collaborative option so a certain place where you didn't get really nice notes someone could fix that error. In this end, Live Binders would be really helpful for me this semester specifically with law and biology.

Remind:

A technology that I see would be most helpful for teachers is the application Remind. Remind is an application which allows teachers to remind students about certain tests or assignments as well as help them outside of the classroom. In this application we there are many different features which are catered to teachers. There are things such as scheduled announcements where teachers can set an announcement to be sent out to students at a certain time. Also, this application allows you to attach files this can be really helpfully when is comes to making sure that every student has got everything. With the chance of being able to put up files, it allows teachers to give the powerpoint from the lesson to a student who couldn't come in that day as well as put up the assignments due that day. In the end, this application would be best for teachers.

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Learning Idea Communication Task Reaction :)

For this project, I created a video about tips on how to memorize better. I am satisfied with the final product that I have submitted, and this was the best possible work I could put out at the time. When I started this project I was looking for the best platform for presenting this and found something called Powtoon. This platform was very new to me so when it came to creating this video there were a lot of things that I had to maneuver around. I feel like now that I have a lot more experience with the platform that I was using I would be able to produce something a lot better.

I believe that I did not procrastinate on this project whatsoever for I used my time wisely. I believe that this is true because whenever we got time in class I was, for the most part, using my time well. There were sometimes where I would get off task. However I think I used my class periods well only when the computers were working, those 2 days where they were not working were days that I did not complete as much as I would have expected for everything was down.

I expect to do well maybe get an 80% or 90%, but in my mind, there is always room for improvement. So I believe that this isn't the perfect project but it certainly one that has a good amount of value. I think that I spent so much time on the research and the script that the video's look could have been better. That is really the only criticism that I have towards this project.

In the end, I would say that this project was very well in terms of how the class structures were placed. The due date was the Friday but due to the 2 classes where  the network was down you, Ms Cuttle extended it for us and it was really helpful. I personally do not see any changes being mandatory for this project to run smoothly. I think that I had so much freedom in terms of what I wanted to do the project on and what platform that in reality, it felt like there were no restrictions. This made the project seem fun. I spent my project learning about something I struggle with, which is memorization. So having a project where I can learn more in depth about that was really informative.

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PED Project Reaction :) The project that I am doing about Personal Electronic Devices is a to see if see if there is a correlation between the use personal electronic devices in classroom activities and  student achievement/engagement. Overall this project has been enjoying and I have been learning quite a lot. I have learned about new platforms such as Trello and RealTime Board, which are really helpful in organising and keeping track of the tasks for a large project. Furthermore, this project is so different from the usual projects that people get from other classes. Every single day when I walk through the door I know there is something to be accomplished making me able to get focused quickly, while in a classroom there is the routine of just sitting and listening to the teacher. Since we have only accomplished the planning stage for our project it has also given me the opportunity to flex my organisational skills. I am a meticulous person and so far this project has been so far good but I wouldn't say it is all was perfect. Since I have the need for things to be presentable it can cause me the little negative in this project. Since there is a lot to do I find that time is running out quick.  With this is in mind even though it is not practical to make the project "pretty, I fill like there should be a bit of extra time to do so. In my mindset, I feel like it is important to stay organised from the beginning so there is less work the more you move through the project. But looking at this project from afar I believe that there are more positives than negative meaning that this is a project that I do enjoy. In this project, I do not believe that I do not have any sort of role. The group that I am working with are people who all just pick up something and go. In our group, there is no leader and there are no followers. Everyone puts their input and we find the best possible comprise which will work effectively to give us the best results. So far we have been going with a plan as you go. I believe that deciding a lot ahead can cause complications. We are taking this project deliverable by deliverable so when the time comes we can then split the workload. So far in this project My concerns going forward with this project is that the Gnatt Chart that my group created will not go as planned. Since our project is dependant on the teachers time and cooperation it can cause some complications. Furthermore, this can create some problem with the project being delayed. But I see that there is one good that can come from this complication and that can be for us to finish some of the concurrent tasks. Since there are not as many concurrent tasks as sequential this creates the time gap a complication because there can be times where we are scheduling with teachers creating a time period that for the project will not be used effectively. I expect that the outcome of this project will be a positive result for my group is amazing. It is filled with productivity and a little bit of being side tracked but overall this creates the ideal setting for the project to be accomplished. The result that I hope that we receive is where my group goes into the class it is assigned and creates an improvement. This would the outcome that I hope for. Most people find school to be boring for the do not prefer learning with a teacher talking and using a powerpoint for notes. Personally, as a student, I wish a lot of my teachers created an environment where I was not sitting at a desk for 90%  of the time. So with this in mind, the outcome that I hope to create is to show the teacher a way to use Personal Electronic devices