Wonderpants!

 Topic: A type of pants that can stop bed sores.

 Article Title:  'Wonderpants' which give wearer electric shock could stop bedsores

 Article Source:  The Telegraph

Summary: Wonderpants are pants that prevent bed sores. They are actually more like underwear , and they send electrical shock throughout your body. This could keep up to a half a million patients who develop life threatening bed sores yearly.

Reaction: I think this is really smart, because when your bedridden, you cant get up, and most people cant even tend to the sores themselves. This kind of touches my heart because my moms friend's wife has been in the hospital for around 10 years, and she has bed sores really bad. This invention could have made her heal faster. This is great. Hopefully it is affordable.

World Impact: I don't really know how well this will impact the world, but I would think it would impact it greatly because it will affect the U.S greatly. This could help the richer countries, but I dont think it could help the more poor countries.  Everything hasnt been decided about it yet, but hopefully, it can benefit everyone.

Weekly Blog~

This week has been... interesting. I have lost some friends, gained some friends, and dyed my hair! We move into the new building next week, which is incredibly awesome considering it was suppose to be finished a loooong time ago. Also, to make things even better, my birthday is in 5 days! I love Octobers.

This week we learned about staying real online, and ways to stay safe when meeting people online. Representing yourself is how you show yourself to others. It creates somewhat of a 'label' for you. Someone's persona is the way they act in front of others. Some people try to have a different persona when they create avatars, which is basically a graphic image to represent yourself online. A lot of people choose to stay anonymous online, which is when you have a hidden identity. Some people act more freely online, and aren't very inhibited, which is when someone is careful or restrained in actions or impulses.

In Digital Driver's License, we learned about how someone can hide behind a computer screen and live a whole other world when online. Some people live through their video games because of the restrictions they have in reality. For example, a warrior in a video game might actually be a paralyzed teenager. Some people keep there online lives somewhat the same to their everyday life because they like whatever aspect of their life that they keep. Some people just like to play video games.

This digital literacy component helped me a lot to figure out who I am in the online world. I like to make my avatars look as close to me as possible, because I don't want to be anyone else. I'm not much of a gamer, but I used to be. 

This week, our 2.0 web tool was Glogster, which is a website where you can present information through a 'poster like' template. Personally, I really liked this website because there were so many different themes and colors to choose from. I could make my poster exactly how I envisioned it would look like. I love when I can think about how I'm going to do something, and not have to change it because I'm not given the resources I need.

One negative thing about Glogster, is that it took a while to load some of the pictures I wanted to use. There wasn't anything else that I didn't like about Glogster. Some positive things about Glogster is that it was easy to use and simple to work productively around. I didn't have any problems with any customizing I wanted to do. If I had to rate Glogster, I'd give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

https://teachershelper.wikispaces.com/file/view/glogster.gif/58000334/glogster.gif

Overall, I didn't have anything extraordinary happen to me this week, but it was still a good week nonetheless. I have so much to look forward to next week! Halloween and my birthday is Wednesday (yes, Halloween), My mom's is Thursday (yes, All Saint's Day), AND we move into the LSB building Thursday! I am SOOO excited! Next week should be great! Ciao. ~

Leukemia Treatment

Topic: Blasts of electrically charged gas could possibly cure Leukemia.



Article Title: Leukemia could be treated with blasts of plasma

Article Source: The Telegraph

Summary: Scientists have just recently discovered that the cancerous cells can be killed off with a type of matter called cold plasma. Researchers hope it will be possible that patients' blood can pass through plasma streams to destroy the cancer cells. The treatment will somewhat be like a kidney dialysis, whereas the blood flows through a machine to be cleaned.

Reaction: Personally, I think this is amazing. Last year, the Leukemia Awareness group came around to all of the schools and it really touched my heart. At the time, I was working on a huge Kidney Dialysis project, and I just thought, "Why can't they get rid of cancer like they get rid of toxins?" But I was told by MANY teachers and other adults that that's not how things worked. Well, APPARENTLY they were wrong, because now they have proven it. I hate it when people don't listen to me.

World Impact: This discovery will impact the word greatly because Leukemia is the most common childhood malignancy for one out of three cancers in children. So many lives will be saved, and it wont be nearly as exhausting as chemo is. I am extremely happy, because my entire family is very likely to get cancer before our forties. The only setbacks are that the treatment isn't entirely thought out yet, and it may be more expensive than the regular cancer treatments .

Weekly Blog and Cyber bullying.

This week was very interesting! I learned a lot of new things that have affected my way of thinking in my everyday life. Our digital literacy this week was about cyber bullying, or bullying in general. Bullying IS NOT acceptable. There is no point in doing it, and it hurts people. We learned about what a bystander is and why we should be an upstander instead. 

When bullying occurs, the Target (example 5) is the person being degraded. The Offender is the jerk bullying people. A Bystander is someone who has witnessed the bullying occur, but hasn't done anything to stop it. However, an Upstander is someone who witnesses a victim being bullied, and stands up for them. Bullying can gradually change over time. It can Escalate, which means to get more severe, or it can Deescalate or decrease in intensity.

If you're in a situation where you or someone you know is being bullied, there are a few things you can do. If you are the target, you can stand up for yourself (and hope you don't get your face pounded), block or delete them, and if it still doesn't stop, collect the evidence and take it to authorities. PERSONALLY, I don't like to snitch. I handle my business. If the person is fifty times my size, then I get my goons to handle my business for me. THUG LYFE.

If you're or someone you know is an upstander, you can go to the authorities (I'm not about that life), stand up for the person, or be a support system for the victim. Like I said, I have goons. So if you need help, my goons have your back. All of these tips can help you during an escalating situation.

The 2.0 website we learned about this week was WeVideo. I liked this website, because you got to do more with it than the typical Animoto. One thing I liked about it was that you could use a lot of different features and animations. One thing I wasn't very fond of was that it was difficult for me to figure out what all the buttons meant at first. I caught on shortly after I started, though.

So, Yeah my week has been pretty fun! I got a new puppy, my birthday is even closer, and I'm comfy in my sweatpants. Life's pretty good. :)

Fire Extinguishing Robots.

Topic: A robot that can burn out mega fires.

Article Title: A robot to extinguish fires too dangerous for humans to tackle

Article Source: The Indian Express.

Summary: A company in the US has recently produced a robot that can fight fires. This robot is called The Thermite remote controlled fire fighter. The company believes that it is the one and only robot created to save lives by taking humans out of the danger of disaster control.
 

Reaction:  I think the discovery is wonderful! People don't have to risk their lives anymore. The robot can be controlled from over a quarter mile away, and it can spray approximately 600 gallons a minute. This might affect me sometime in the future because you never know when a fire might start. I am glad that if a fire started and I was involved, that someone wouldn't have to risk dying to save me. I know that the robot wont be used by every single fire department around the corner, but I think it would be a useful tool.
 

World Impact: This could impact the world greatly, because it hasnt ever been thought of before.  Now that we have something to show, other countries and companies could use this idea to maybe even make a better one. Ideas like these are always useful because when lives could be saved in a harmful situation, its always good. I feel that this could also reduce the amount of burning forestation in the 'fire seasons'. This could increase the animal populations and tree populations as well.

This week's Blog.

This week has been mediocre. It wasn't bad, but nothing was excellent about it. I learned a lot of new things this week, in all subjects. One of our terms was sexting, which is basically sending or receiving revealing pictures via text, email, IM, etc. Reciprocating is giving revealing pictures in return for one you received. Self disclosure is when you reveal private and/or personal information.

The 2.0 tool we used this week was MakeBeliefsComix. We used this website to describe situations in which we would use our digital literacy. One positive thing about the website is that there are a lot of creative characters, and one negative thing is that they didn't have some things I needed. For example, I needed a table in one comic strip, but there wasn't one.

My first comic strip was about how asking for explicit pictures is crossing the line.

My second comic strip was about how the traditional way to start a relationship was to go on romantic dates and do nice things for each other.

Our digital literacy component was about how sexting is bad to do, and how it can ruin your life. Nowadays, employers require your social network passwords, and they do background checks. If anything bad comes up, your out of luck. Some healthy alternatives of building relationships online is to go on dates, meet through friends, and respect boundaries. These things are vital for maintaining or creating a healthy online relationship.

                                                   DDL Website Logo. There's no date.

We used Digital Driver's License for some of the digital literacy, and Over the line, for some of it. This affected my knowledge of the social networks, and I know realize that at the moment, anyone can view my profile. They can see my name, birthday, and my home high school. I need to change that when I get home!

I am glad teachers are talking about sexting and other bad things, because a lot of the people who send and receive the pictures don't even realize what they are doing. Sexting is bad, and more and more people do it everyday. People commit suicide because they get teased for their circulating explicit pictures. Its terrible, and it needs to stop.

So, there you have it. My week went by slower than usual, but I still managed to pull through. And luckily, today we have clubs!