Case Study Response

1) The girl who hurt Natalie should be punished, obviously. I don't think she should necessarily be kicked out of the school, if this is her first offense, but she should definitely receive more than a warning. She should have to pay for the damages. She should also have to preform community service or something like that. Maybe that would help her grow up a little. Someone should also tell her not to believe everything she reads on the internet.

2) Juicy Campus is not responsible for what happened, not in the slightest, unless whoever owns the website said "now go key this girl's car," which I'm pretty sure he did not. The owner can't be held responsible for his readers actions.

3) Social networking becomes cyber-bullying when one of the people in the online interaction no longer feels comfortable, or when they begin to feel unhappy, threatened, etc. It also become cyber-bullying if it continues after the uncomfortable person expresses his discomfort. If you continue to say something mean to someone after someone asks you to stop, that is definitely bullying, even if you don't intend to be mean.

4) Could Natalie's situation have been prevented? That's a good question. I think Natalie probably should have been more careful about what she posted on the internet. As my dad always says, posting something on the internet is like putting it on a billboard on the side of the highway. So if you're going to post something, first think about if you'd want it on the side of the highway.

NY times article

My initial reaction was "I can't believe they're spending so much on technology while cutting teachers." I was especially surprised at this since the article said they had just recently updated. Also, what they were doing didn't sound that important. It didn't seem like they were buying some helpful new device for learning, or even new computers. They were just putting in new wiring. But as I read on it started to make a little more sense. Like, they said they weren't allowed to use this money for operations kind of stuff, like hiring teachers. Actually, I don't think that rule makes much sense, but if that's the rule, then I guess they have to follow it. Also, I liked that they said they were trying to prepare students for the future.

What worried me most about this article was the idea that they are trying to move learning online. Combined with the facts about the amount of teacher jobs they're cutting, I started to wonder if they're planning on having children take online classes. That sounds like a bad idea to me. I personally hate online classes, and have a hard time keeping track of them, and I'm a semi-responsible adult.

If I were the superintendent in this case, I think I would try to change the rule about not using the money for "operations" stuff. I mean, I would use some of it for technology, but I would also use it for other stuff, like keeping teacher's jobs.

More Powerpoint stuff

1) One criticism the author had was that Powerpoint is not serious enough, not smart enough, for people to use in their businesses, or in serious presentations, like a work. As he says, "Powerpoint will no do for serious presentations..." To support this claim, he says that these presentations don't relay enough information. Instead of helping the presenter, People who use powerpoint get lazy and relay less information. Furthermore, he says that the bullets don't bring "intellectual discipline" to the presentation, but just help things look organized, without actually organizing them. I find this claim kind of ironic, since many professors use powerpoint in class, and class is a very serious and intellectual activity. I don't agree that people relay less information when they use powerpoints. I have seen lots of Professors provide information that is not on the slide. I do agree that powerpoints can seem kind of silly, but that often depends on how they are set-up. For example, they don't seem very serious when they have too much animation or color, but they can look serious if they are very uniform. Overall, I don't really agree with this arguement.

2) The author also says that Powerpoints are pushy. He says that, in these presentations, the speaker tries to dominate over the audience. The speaker tries to force the audience into his little bullet-point set up. He says that they are "aggressive" and "overmanaged." I think this arguement is just plain dumb. There's nothing remotely aggressive about Powerpoint. Yes, I suppose the audience does have to follow the speaker's line of thinking, but that is true of any presentation.