What is the most precious item in your life? The one thing that you cannot do without. The thing in life you value the most. This question does leave some room for interpretation. There is no wrong interpretation. Please answer with what pops into your head first. Please do not over think it!

I would say my family, but I hate to call my family an item. So the most precious item I have would have to be a beautiful ring my grandmother once owned. When my grandma passed away, we were going through her jewelry and I spotted the ring. It was gorgeous and it fit me just right. My grandpa said I could have it. So now it is mine and I plan on passing it down to my daughter or granddaughter.  

My ring looks much like this one.  Mine also has a ruby heart and diamonds on it. 

Why should we use technology? Why do you think it is important? Who is listening(or reading) to you?  This was supposed to all be written within 500 words, so here is my answer, in exactly 500 words.

You will probably find my answer is very different from the rest of the answers.  As my teacher would say, I have some very anti- technology views.  So rather than writing about why we should use technology and why it is important, I am going to write about why we shouldn’t use technology, and why it is unimportant.  I believe that technology does not help many kids learn.  I am good at writing in ink and I am a slow typist.  I just assume write my assignments rather than type them.  Many people say technology helps us get things done faster.  Obviously I would disagree with this.  Typing this right now will take twice as much time as writing, for me.  I believe technology is not as important as people make it out to be.  My mom actually had more free time when computers didn’t exist.  Computers just take away from everyone’s time.  Whether you are on it to type an assignment, are chatting with friends, or are just surfing the web, by being on the computer, your time is being wasted, just like I believe my time is being wasted right now.  The next part was who I think is reading what I put up on my wiki and blog.  I think a person who sits at home and googles random things is probably reading this.  The average person doesn’t just happen to come across some kids’ blog.  I believe that teachers Mr. B asks to look at our assignments looks at them.  Truthfully I have no idea who looks at my work, and at this point in my life it doesn’t really matter to me.  I am not saying that everything about technology is bad though.  Mr. B probably considers me a waffle.  Part of the reason technology should be used is because a lot of the things you can do with technology is just plain cool.  Like having a debate with a class from Kansas.  Or like commenting on blogs by kids from Australia.  My parents are both teachers and they always say that the best way to teach is by making the learning fun.  By letting your students collaborate and talk to kids from other states and countries, you are adding the fun to the learning.  I also believe that there are many other ways to make the learning fun without using technology.  I think that it is important not to make your students technology obsessed.  A thing like reading children’s books to a class of eighth graders makes the learning fun, too.  Most children’s books have a moral to the story, so it is almost like you are teaching students a hidden lesson.  I believe that if you make the environment more enjoyable, the kids will be more willing to learn.  You could hang Christmas lights in your room, put rocks on the edge of the whiteboard, put a shoe rack in the room, and make sure you have a cow on a hamster wheel! 

I left a comment on a Canada blog and asked them the two above questions.  I am waiting for the comment to be approved and waiting for a reply.  Check out the Canadian blog at this site. 

Why do we have no school on Monday? Why would schools across the country close to honor Martin Luther King? What’s the point? Would his legacy be better served by staying in school?

Well, the answer to the first question is quite obvious.  There is no school today because today is the day Martin Luther King Jr. was born.  The following story I think will answer questions 2 and 3.  This story can be found on this site. Julia Jordan had a simple answer 18 years ago when her granddaughter Julie, then a high school student, questioned the point of taking the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, complaining that the clay in her school art project would harden during the long weekend.”I told her mother to pull her sweater up and show her the scars on her back,” Mrs. Jordan says.Julie’s mother, Leiwanda Kayrette Stoker, got those scars from sitting at all-white lunch counters during the Montgomery bus boycott, when Alabama police and sheriffs sometimes pressed burning cigarettes and cigars into the backs of those who challenged segregation. As a 16-year-old college student at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., Mrs. Stoker was inspired by Dr. King’s words and left school with fellow students to march with him. She was jailed three times. Her mother flew in to bail her out each time, eventually depositing her in Los Angeles with family to keep her out of harm’s way. ”I told Julie, ‘This is the only reason you are going to your school today,’ ” Mrs. Jordan says. “Julie cried. She said to her mother, ‘Mommy, I didn’t know.’ “Mrs. Stoker died three years ago from lung cancer. And that’s why it means so much to Mrs. Jordan that the stories of those who fought for civil rights, like her daughter, are kept alive in “381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story.” The African American Museum in Fair Park is presenting the 3,500-square-foot national touring exhibition of photographs, political cartoons, illustrations, text and audiovisual elements, developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in collaboration with the Troy University Rosa Parks Library and Museum. The display runs through Jan. 13.The exhibit shows how Rosa Parks’ arrest on Dec. 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man mobilized 50,000 people to protest for 381 days. The arrest led to a Supreme Court ruling in November 1956 that segregation on city buses was unconstitutional.After all these years, Mrs. Jordan still seems awed by her daughter’s courage. Mrs. Jordan, all four of whose grandparents were slaves in Texas, is a survivor, in part, because she was reared to be aware of racism and savvy about how to avoid dangerous encounters.She’s troubled that, like her daughter, many who marched with Dr. King are dying off, burying their scars and what they endured for freedom.Mrs. Jordan believes passionately that their memories must not die, too.”It’s important because these children need to know what folks went through to reach where they are now,” she says. “I think of what my daughter went through. I remember how she told me, ‘Mother, we could smell our own flesh burning.’ I said: ‘Kay, you could get killed. These people are vicious. We may never find your body.’”And she said, ‘Mama, I am committed and willing to die for you and for Daddy and for children not yet born. If you heard Dr. King’s speeches, you would follow his teachings, too.’ “Mrs. Jordan was proud of her daughter, but frightened. When an opportunity finally came to participate in a civil rights march in Dallas, she parked her car, intending only to observe as her son, Frank Jordan III, and her husband, Dr. Frank H. Jordan Jr., joined the crowd, which was followed by an ambulance in case there was violence. And then something unexpected inside her stirred, sending all those years of caution blowing in the wind.”When they started marching and singing, I really couldn’t tell you what happened to me,” she says. “I was hypnotized. Before I knew it, I had marched all the way downtown.”And what about question 4?  What holiday do we celebrate by going to school?  None.  We celebrate by taking the day off.  This is a link to a biography on Martin Luther King Jr, and this is a link to his I have a dream speech.

Outside of parents, who has influenced your life more than anyone else; who had an impact on your life and what was it about that person that meant something to you?

If you had one wish for anyone other than yourself, what would it be and who would it be for?

 The post assigned for this week will have a very similar response as the first post we did had.  I will re-explain my brother’s situation for all of those who did not read my first post.  My brother has dyslexia, and he really struggles with it.  It is incredibly hard for him to do all of his schoolwork.  Numbers and words that he reads get all jumbled up and it could be really confusing.  What you are about to read is pretty impressive.  I know some people who could easily achieve an A in all their classes, but they are failing because they don’t try.  My brother has the reading and writing level of that of an elementary schooler.  He tries so hard that he has all A’s and B’s in all his classes.  This is why he has influenced my life so much.  Without him, I could have been a slacker, a troublemaker, or someone who fails because they don’t try.  Imagine me a slacker, troublemaker, or failure.  I bet most of you can’t.  Because that is not who I am.  That is not who I am because of my brother.  Every quality my brother has I can learn from.  He teaches me to be a better person, the most important lesson of all. And he doesn’t even know it.  To find out more about dyslexia, click here.

Vacuumed, Listened to music, Watched tv, Talked to my mom on the phone, I M ed flamingooo, Wrote a letter, And chewed gum!

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