Sexting Tragedy

We just read an article about a girl, Jessica Logan, who committed suicide after being unable to stand against people's bullying and harrassment. Her boyfriend sent out to all of his friends a naked photo of her, which lead to this well known tragedy. After the photo was spread all over her friends, school mates and even other school districts, she decided to put an end to her life. Her parents, instead of suing the people who were responsible for this situation, they sued the school arguing that they didn't do enough to stop the bullying and the harrasment. It is really sad to hear that a young and pretty girl commited suicide, but I think Jessica is the responsible for all of this after deciding to send her boyfriend the photo. I couldn't understand why she would it and why she didn't think of the consequences after a possible break up.

Jessica's parents have decided to take legal action against her school. I totally understand that they are desperate, sad and dissapointed for what just happened, but trying to sue the school is not going to work. Instead of just going against anyone, they should calmly think of the situation and then sue the people that were in a way, responsible for the situation. The school, in this case, has nothing to do with it. From what we read in the article, they did what they could but they couldn´t really get involved in this issue. It was alright to tell students to stop and to give counselling but they couldn´t expell the people that were involved because then they would have to expell every single kid. If they were actually expelled then they would even bully more and more. Also, things were spread outside school and outside the district, which was totally out of reach for Jessica´s high school. The school did everything that they could do, so they shouldn´t worry about it. The responsibility first started with Jessica and then with her parents, who should have acted quicker after seing the terrible situation that their daughter was going through.

Video Editing

We will be doing a challenging project at the beginning of next year about video editing. For that special assignment, I was thinking of making a TV commercial about some of the basic things that you need to do in order to make a horse jump. In this project I will be working with Carlos and Rafa.

Facebook

Facebook has become the most popular site for social interaction. It began as a simple school network, but now it's overpopulated. Not only it has become slower, but it has also some privacy issues. That is why the managers of the web site have decided to implement a stronger privacy policy. Since Facebook became people's life, other people could know everything about you. That caused issues such as kidnappings, extortions and suings. Thanks to the new policies people will feel safer while posting in someone else's wall, uploading a photo or changing their status. We will now be able to control every single thing from it by implementing restrictions on who can see something and who cannot. It was about time that Facebook realized that it was a big issue and that they had to do something with it. Parents and even some us became aware that it was becoming more and more dangerous to publish things on this social network. I will now feel free to do more things. I believe that these new policies will not affect the way I use Facebook, first of all because I'm a huge fan of it and also because this new thing is actually improving it and not affecting it. It will take some time for people to get used to it but in the long run they will see the benefits in order to feel safer in this giant called Facebook.

Over the last few days, there has been some controversy on some issues related to Facebook. Some students have decided to post videos and quotes of staff members. The use of this social network hasn't been a problem, but now this situation seems to concern the school community. From my point of view, I don't really see a problem on doing it as long as it is not offensive. I don't think that we should go around asking every single person if they get offended if they post or say something about them. I also believe that the school should not get involved in this situation. I will understand if they do not want the school logo, name or photo to appear on the network but I don't think they should start suspending kids for doing this. I think that when we are at school, the directors have the power to decide what to do with it, but since this thing could be done outside school, they shouldn't really get involved. I am not saying that it is also right to be doing it. Obviously the best thing would be to stop doing in so that no more controversy comes up. We'll see what happens with this situation, but I truly hope that they don't take a negative attitude against students and the use of Facebook.

Technology in our Education

There are different things in our academic career that help us become the students that we want to be. Some people say that it is all about the teachers and their knowledge. Others say that it depends in the habits of the students. Technology is another thing that people say is fundamental to achieve a higher learning. This last topic is the most controversial one. Since it changes from time to time, it has several positive and negative aspects to its evolution.
Technology was implemented since the very first day of our academic life. We started with books, pencils and pens. They can be considered as old technology, but they are quite helpful to this day. As we move on to elementary school, we start experiencing with more advanced technology such as computers and basic microscopes. Later on in high school, we learn how to use graphing calculators, high quality microscopes, projectors and advanced computer programs.
School can be considered a routine. You read, you do some exercises, then you study and finally you get quizzed on something. But there are times when teachers decide to give a special dynamic to their lessons by making us do interesting projects. I would say that most of the projects that I was assigned had something to do with technology. When I was in grade 9, I was given a project in Biology, which consisted on using microscopes to see different animal cells. Two projects were made this year that involved the use of technology. One of them was the creation of a video with special effects for British Literature's class. The other project was the Roto Animation which we just finished in Computer's class. I remember these projects because they allowed us to use our imagination, for their uniqueness and their team work.
There are times in our academic career when teachers decide to use more technological advances such as new computer programs or special objects. Often teachers lack this important feature which is important for their lessons. This happens because sometimes they do things in the old fashioned way, because their lazy, or because they are not prepared to use the new technological material. I totally believe that we should keep up with the technology in our education. It is important for us to see what's out there so that once we go to university we can be familiar with these technological advances.

Roto Animation Project

We just finished a very interested project which once again involved the use of Flash. We first had to film a short video of us doing whatever we wanted with an imaginary ball, and then we had to create a roto animation. I really liked how you could have the freedom to choose how you wanted to do the project. You could pretty much freestyle the whole thing and I find that more appropriate for projects. Also, I liked how they look after you created it, they seemed original, imaginary and colorful. The only thing that I didn't like was the fact that you pretty much had to click on every single line and not in every six, cause otherwise the ball would look slow or it could sometimes get lost. For next year I would probably tell the students to make a longer video and to add more balls. Overall I really enjoyed this project and I hope that in the future we keep doing stuff like this.

Flash Animation

The Flash Animation project was the hardest thing we've done in the whole year. It took us a couple weeks to put this thing together. I have to admit that I'm not very good with computers, so it was definitely a big challenge for me. Luckily, with Mr. Picketts and my classmates' help I was able to overcome the several problems that I had. I believe that my overall result was amazing. I have to say that my final product was quite different from the one of my sketch. I decided to do it about the same topic, but while I was creating it, I made some changes to make it look more interesting. My biggest challenges were putting everything in different layers, the motion tweens and then adding the music. I was able to solve my issues in order to have a nice piece of work. If I was told that I had to make my project longer, I would probably add the rest of the players celebrating with the guy that scored the penalty shot and maybe also showing the crowd cheering.

Family Tree and Special Gathering

Two years ago we had a huge family gathering because my grandparents (on my dad's side) were celebrating their 50th anniversary. Everyone on my family tree attended except for my mom's dad who passed away ten years ago. The event took place in Mexico City. Cousins, uncles, and family friends attended to this magnificent event. We were probably about 200 people. The celebration started with a mass at about 5 pm. After that we had dinner and the party at an amazing banquet hall. We could not stop dancing and talking to family members that we barely see. The most emotive moment of the night was when they played a video with pictures of my family and then my grandparents danced together the same song that they danced when they got married. We kept drinking and dancing until 6 am. I enjoyed this celebration very much because it was a big date for my grandparents and because everyone attended except for a cousin that was studying outside the country. It was certainly a special day for the Vallarta's to remember.

My Amazing Tree

I decided to choose "El Arbol del Tule" because it is the biggest one in Mexico. It is also the one with the biggest trunk in the world with a perimeter of forty two meters. We don't know its real age but it is about 2,000 years. "Arbol del Tule" is symbolic for the state of Oaxaca and it was also very meaninful to ancient tribes. I visited it five years ago while I was on a family trip and I have to admit that I was amazed. Its height, width and the shadow that it makes were very impressive. That is why I decided to choose this tree to accomadate my family members.

Social Media Revolution

Social Media is what’s moving the world now a days. I’m not going to say that everybody is a part of it but more than half of the world has something to do with it. It is useful not only for our pleasures but it is also important for education, businesses, brands, schools, advertisements, the government, politics, and anyone else that you could think of. The days of the T.V., the radio, the newspapers and even the Ipod’s are almost over thanks to this huge social mass. The way in which I am involved with it is mainly through Facebook. I have to admit that I am a huge fan of it because it is the best way to connect with the people you know and with the ones that you don’t know. And Facebook is just a small part of Social Media. We have these days Youtube, Twitter, My Space, Amazon, Wikipedia and many others that we use everyday for different and necessary purposes. For those who say that Social Media is a fad, let me tell you that it has become a big thing in our lives and I believe that it will be even more in the future because Social Media hasn’t reached its highest potential.

Although Social Media has many positive things, it has some dangers that we need to be aware of. We usually tend to give our personal information while becoming a part of it putting our privacy in jeopardy. That could be risky because there are always people out there who are trying to cause harm. You could be hacked, stalked or tricked in order to get something out of you. It is a constant risk that you have to take but obviously there are ways in which you could reduce those perils. One of them is to give the minimum information that you can. Also, it is important to block or not accept anything that looks suspicious. You need to look for reliable resources in the media in order to protect yourself.


I think that our education needs to focus more into Social Media. I believe that using in a pen and a paper or using and encyclopedia should be no longer part of our school supplies. Computers and high speed internet would have to be our only necessary materials. Teacher should take advantage of them too. There is much more in the web than there is in any book. Almost all of the information that you can acquire can be easily found in this media. We should try to start getting more familiar with it because otherwise we will fall behind. The world is changing quickly and we must be a part of that rapid movement. We must get a good understanding of “socialnomics” because that will completely rule our world in a few years. This shift in the way we communicate will make us have a higher learning and education if we successfully manage Social Media.

Assignment #1

I barely know anything about blogs. This is the first time that I make one. I've seen some in the web but I'm not really interested in them. I expect to use my blog mainly for school assignments and specially for computers class. Later on, if I like it, I will start getting more into it. It was very easy to create the blog. By accessing this webpage you could do it in a couple minutes. My blog needs a lot of info to be added and hopefully I will start adding photos and some other stuff. It wasn't hard to solve the blog list problem since everyone in the class has facebook. Through that amazing social networking, we sorted it out quickly.