Life Pro Tips

We're coming close to the finish line. One more quarter and you are finished with an important milestone in your life. Might not feel like it but it is. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics upon graduation you will have improved your earning capacity by approximately $185/week and you are significantly more employable .

As well, for the past year you've been consumed with considering the future. What school to go to, what major to study, etc. For this post let's talk Pro Tips. Simple ways to navigate the myriad of challenges in life you will face. https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/

Check out some of these tips. Maybe try one and comment on the results. Success? Not so much? Or include a tip of your own. Your choice. 

Why no cell phones in class?

Let's start a discussion with why from a professional's point of view.

Simon Sinek is a marketing expert and motivational speaker. In this recent talk he discussed the issues about mobile technologies and their impact on generations of people having grown up on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8

For our conversation let's consider what happens during the stages of adolescence...

So for our blog post what is your reaction to the video. Then consider our school phone policy. Is it appropriate, fair, or unfair? What would you recommend the school implement if you were in charge?

Senior Tech News Curation

Welcome back. For our second post of Q3 you are in the drivers seat. Below are five different sites that are at the forefront of technology news. Each has a different slant. Please read one article from one site find another article about the same topic on another site. Then compare and contrast the points of view. Are they different? How? For your blog post please first summarize what the article was about and then compare and contrast the viewpoints from the different sites.

Tech sites:

https://techcrunch.com/
https://www.wired.com/
http://gizmodo.com/
https://medium.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/

Net Neutrality

As we know, the rapid rise of technology has disrupted many industries. In class we discussed the music industry in particular.

But there is a bigger battle going on over the internet itself. ISP's such as Comcast and Silicon Valley giants like Google and Netflix are warring over whether all data should be treated equally. Under the Obama administration, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ruled in favor of Silicon Valley and ordered ISP's to be regulated as a utility like Con Edison. 

That is very likely to change under the new administration. ISP's claim all data is not equal and that content creators should pay more to distribute streaming content to help offset network maintenance costs for ISP's.

Here are two argument for both sides:

Pro Net Neutrality: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality

Against Net Neutrality: http://mashable.com/2014/05/16/5-arguments-against-net-neutrality/#GXx6m4ddomqn

Read both and weigh in on one side of the debate. Which side do you support? There will be a quiz on the articles.

Digital Literacy Continued

This is a continuation of our previous post regarding digital information literacy. Websites and news organizations make money from advertising when we view their content. There are three important distinctions for you to know:

1. Native Advertising - advertising that tries to sell or promote a product disguised as a news story
2. Traditional Advertising - most common advertising that sells or promotes a product 
3. News story - real content containing factual information about a subject and independent of bias and should answer, who, what, when and how

For this post take a look at the following two website banners and answer this question:

Which are these an example of: native advertising, traditional advertising or a news story and why? 

Digital Literacy

A few posts ago we discussed the difference between fake and real news. Since it was post election most of the focus was on Facebook and how fake news stories may have influenced people's votes. A recent Stamford study went further by including the internet as a whole and found troubling results.

Please read: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/we-need-to-teach-kids-how-to-be-skeptical-of-the-internet There will be a 6 question quiz on the article on Wednesday, 1/11/17.

You are bombarded by information all day long. Some from legitimate sources and others with dubious intentions. How do we determine fact from fiction? One way is to go to the source.

So let's begin. Visit this site and put your detective hat on: https://www.minimumwage.com/

For our post:

1. Is this a legitimate news source? Why? What are you basing your decision of legitimacy on? 
2. What organization is supporting this website? Who are they? Does that change your opinion of the information supported by the website? 

Do not copy someone else's response. Do your own research.