Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a very important time of year for my family. It is a time for family to get together and really give "thanks" for what we have. We spend the day cooking and laughing and just catching up on all the pahhenings of the year. All the women spend most the day in the kitchen cooking and sipping wine while the men spend their time watching football. We all come and go chatting and chasing the little ones around and keeping them out of trouble and just playing. Dinner time is crazy, lots of tables and lots of food! Everything and anything you can think of, we eat it! After dinner is all the deserts, pies and candys of every kind. I usualy fall asleep so I don't have to help with the dishes but my mom finds me and makes me help but that's okay.... I love the holidays in general but Thanksgiving is one of my favorites.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The 2109 family
The Family in the year 2109 will be very different from ours now. The true “family” started slipping away with the invention of the TV tray. As more and more cell phones and I pods, WII’s and other gadgets come about the more detached we become. Children sit at the table and text theirs friends, if they are sitting at the table at all. Parents and children aren’t talking because they can’t hear through their I pods, or over the big screen TV. Children are forced to grow up entirely to fast these days and I feel it will defiantly adversely affect our future as a family.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
community
Community to me is the people I share beliefs, interests, likes and have common vested interests. They are also about human interaction and building and maintaining personnel relationships. Some religious and social clubs can be very exclusive and secretive communities that can be hundreds of years old.
Communities in the modern world can range from communities of practice that large companies use to share best practices, protocols and up to date information about the company via the internet. There are tons of gaming communities where gamers from around the world can compete and work towards a common goal in many different gaming systems. In order for any community to survive it must bind individuals together in some pursuit of a common interest or goal. Today people can be involved in many different communities and never see or have any face to face contact with its members. This lack of physical contact seems to build bonds that can easily be broken or swayed. In small town communities usually everyone becomes part of your extended family and individuals have many people they can turn to for support. Today’s communities tend to lack loyalty and put individual needs before the group.
Social networking sites have opened the world to invite members to join communities around the world with the click of a mouse. While this may be lacking the intimacy of face to face interaction members can now explore the world and join communities that would have been impossible just 10 years ago.
Communities in the modern world can range from communities of practice that large companies use to share best practices, protocols and up to date information about the company via the internet. There are tons of gaming communities where gamers from around the world can compete and work towards a common goal in many different gaming systems. In order for any community to survive it must bind individuals together in some pursuit of a common interest or goal. Today people can be involved in many different communities and never see or have any face to face contact with its members. This lack of physical contact seems to build bonds that can easily be broken or swayed. In small town communities usually everyone becomes part of your extended family and individuals have many people they can turn to for support. Today’s communities tend to lack loyalty and put individual needs before the group.
Social networking sites have opened the world to invite members to join communities around the world with the click of a mouse. While this may be lacking the intimacy of face to face interaction members can now explore the world and join communities that would have been impossible just 10 years ago.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty on college campuses has always plagued modern learning intuitions. Today with the internet making plagiarism as easy as research students must make integrity choices for themselves. Universities have begun to push “honor codes” on students hoping to curb cheating by students. The effectiveness of this strategy remains to be seen and many believe that this is a clear indication that the nation’s moral compass is off.
In the military each branch of service has core values that help instill members with simple and clear guidelines for helping them become better soldiers and leaders. The first Air Force core value is “Integrity First” because integrity is the essential element or the foundation on which other values are built. This is important because military members represent our nation to the world and the poor choices by a few can become international incidents. Lack of integrity can lead to failure of the team or lives lost. On college campuses I believe that “honor codes” on campuses are not worth the paper there written on.
Students must make integrity choices themselves and signing a piece of paper at the beginning of the semester can easily become a distant memory when it is 3:00 a.m. and your grade for the semester is riding on what you have delayed working on until now. The choice on which path to take will be made on how you were raised and what you believe in. Not a piece of paper from the school. Dishonest or lazy students will not be deterred from cheating if their belief in completing school is more important than how they did it.
I do agree with students being clearly informed of the consequences of poor choices. Colleges that use Turnitin.com or Safeassign.com provide students with instant feedback on what they have submitted compares to millions of other sources. “Honor Codes” are only a small piece to curbing academic dishonesty but this need to be used in conjunction with clear consequences to cheating in anyway.
In the military each branch of service has core values that help instill members with simple and clear guidelines for helping them become better soldiers and leaders. The first Air Force core value is “Integrity First” because integrity is the essential element or the foundation on which other values are built. This is important because military members represent our nation to the world and the poor choices by a few can become international incidents. Lack of integrity can lead to failure of the team or lives lost. On college campuses I believe that “honor codes” on campuses are not worth the paper there written on.
Students must make integrity choices themselves and signing a piece of paper at the beginning of the semester can easily become a distant memory when it is 3:00 a.m. and your grade for the semester is riding on what you have delayed working on until now. The choice on which path to take will be made on how you were raised and what you believe in. Not a piece of paper from the school. Dishonest or lazy students will not be deterred from cheating if their belief in completing school is more important than how they did it.
I do agree with students being clearly informed of the consequences of poor choices. Colleges that use Turnitin.com or Safeassign.com provide students with instant feedback on what they have submitted compares to millions of other sources. “Honor Codes” are only a small piece to curbing academic dishonesty but this need to be used in conjunction with clear consequences to cheating in anyway.
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