Professors Being Replaced by Computers

While browsing CNN this interesting article caught my eye because the title was "Will online classes make professors extinct?." The title immediately shocked me because the idea of professors becoming extinct was something I could not believe but after reading this article it seems more likely that eventually this could happen. In 2013, a report was done by the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities and it concluded that the percentage of tenure track positions has gone down from 78% in 1969 to 33% today. This report is quite shocking and I believe that if all college professors were replaced with computers, students would be negatively affected. 

According to the author, "In this season of economic uncertainty, the urge to convert traditional classes into impersonal, large-scale online courses is becoming irresistible to colleges and universities less committed to the sacred bond between teacher and student." The author is explaining how it is becoming more diffilcutlt for colleges to resist replacing professors with online classes or filmed lectures because it is a lot cheaper than paying a professor to teach live. Unfourtanetely, although doing classes online is cheaper and easier I believe that a student gets more out of a class when the personally know their teachers and can create bonds with them. I know from experience that I learn best when I know my teacher and they can directly interact with the class and make learning interesting. I think it's very hard for a computer to come alive and be a teach with the same enthusiasm as a teacher. 

Obviously if all professors were replaced it would not happen for a while but I can not help but think that there is a possibility that kids generations from now will be taught by computers or other technological tools, not real, live people. 

Can Cyber Bullying Be Blamed on the Parents?

As I was browsing CNN.com today a very sad article caught my attention about a 12 year old girl committing suicide because she had been cyber bullied by two other girls around her age. After the girl committed suicide one of bullies supposedly posted on her Facebook account, "Yes IK I bullied REBECCA nd she killed herself but IDGAF." Although the dad of the girl said that he thought his daughter was hacked, this incident still does raise the question: Where were the parents? 

The author of this article believes that the parents of the bullies who caused a girl to end her life should be criminally charged for being ignorant about what their child is doing on the internet. Although this story is tragic, I do not think it would be fair for the parents to be criminally charged. Even if the parents are not very involved with their children's social media accounts, its not like they were the ones telling their children to go after this girl. It should be the actual bully getting criminal charges, not the parents.

Neither my mom or dad has my Facebook or Twitter password and I do not ever think they will but if I were to ever to do something bad on the internet it shouldn't be their fault that I never gave them my passwords. I think cyber bullying between teens can be stopped more easily through social work in schools or counseling. Not blaming parents for being out of the know. 

Comments are very much appreciated!

The Rainbow Loom: A Toy For Everyone

The other day as I was hanging out with my 7 year old sister, I looked down at her arm and noticed about 3 rainbow bracelets made out of rubber bands. I asked her what they were and she immediately exclaimed that they were made from her "rainbow loom." She looked up at me and said, "Everyone has one! Even the boys!" I was very intrigued by her comment and then when I saw the article on Time.com about the infamous "Rainbow Loom" it immediately caught my attention. The full article can be found here but the article was introducing this new phenomenon and how it was "defying the stereotype" of toys that boys play with.

When I was 7 years old I remember all of the boys playing with legos, cars. swords etc. I (as a girl) was very content playing with my Barbies and crafting but none of the boys wanted to come near any of my toys which was understandable. But, the rainbow loom is a toy for both genders which I find very interesting. Personally, I would guess that boys wouldn't like this new toy because it's technically jewelry making and boys learn at a very young age that jewelry is more of a girl thing. But, the rainbow loom proves that the gap between boys and girls toys may be becoming smaller.

Has Slavery Really Dissapeared or Just Evolved?

Slavery has been on my mind a lot lately especially because a lot of History classes have been talking about it. While skimming through CNN one article titled "We still need to end slavery" really caught my eye. I had always thought that slavery ended hundreds of years ago but after reading this article my mind has really changed. The full article can be read here but the basic point of the article is that although slavery was "abolished" years and years ago, modern slavery here in the U.S. is happening. Slavery today may not be as brutal as it was in the 1800's but it is still a lot like the slavery hundreds of years ago we have all been learning about since grade school. 

The article says, "Modern slavery is the man who was promised a job on a farm to earn enough money to pay for his parents' medical care, then forced to work long hours, intimidated with violence, and made to live in deplorable conditions in a cramped room with his co-workers." To me, this quote sounds a lot like the stories we hear about the slaves and their conditions on the plantations. The article also gives another example and says, " Modern slavery is the 15-year-old girl who was romanced and recruited by a pimp, then raped, beaten, and sold online into the commercial sex trade." Although human trafficing is illegal, this article and the picture above makes it clear that is still going on because it is so profitable. In 2005, the U.N estimated the human trafficing industry to be a 32 billion a year industry but many professionals in the anti-traffcing field believe that number is outdated and too low. 

My overall impression of this article is disbelief. I had no idea the act of "modern slavery" was going on in the U.S. It may not be very obvious or a well known fact because it may not be as brutal but I think that it should definetely be stopped.

America's Obsession With the Wealthy

There is a popular tv show on the Bravo Network called "Real Housewives." Bravo has normally been known as the channel of Top Chef or Project Runway but after their first Real Housewives show called "The Real Housewives of the Orange County" they realized how successful it was and began to make more spin offs of different housewives from different cities like "The Real Housewives of NYC." The basic idea of these reality shows is to show the lifestyle of the richest housewives in the US. There isn't much substance to the show. Its basically just pictures well groomed women in their mansions or shopping and getting into other cat fights with their so called "friends."

Although the show does not have much substance, there are about 2 million viewers

Social Networking Taken to the Next Level

As I was looking on CNN today, I noticed a recent post about the use of "Twitter" and clicked on it because I myself do have a Twitter account and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. According to this article, the terrorist group, Alshabaab, shot and killed over 61 people in the Westgate Mall in Kenya on Saturday. A few hours into the attack members of Alshabaab were tweeting updates of the attack while it was going on. One of the tweets looked like this:  "The Mujahideen ('holy warriors') entered Westgate mall today at around noon and they are still inside the mall, fighting the Kenyan kuffar ('infidels') inside their own turf."

Another tweet done after the attack was this:  "#Westgate: a 14-hour standoff relayed in 1400 rounds of bullets and 140 characters of vengeance and still ongoing. Good morning Kenya!" Although Twitter employees have been disabling this terrorist group's accounts for a couple years, Alshabaab keeps making new accounts and tweeting more. 

Journalists have been saying that these types of terrorist attacks are like theater. The terrorists strive on viewers and attention. During 9/11 it is said that Osama Bin Laden himself listened to the live BBC coverage on the radio. Although the terrorist are not controlling the media yet, people are beginning to worry that terrorists are going to start streaming attacks live on websites like Youtube or Facebook and really start to use attacks as a form of theater or entertainment to get views and attention. This really scares me because it shows how involved technology is in people's lives today and how ideas can be spread so quickly. I think it would be really hard to limit or take away from the technology we already have but if terrorists start taking it to the next level, I think the government should be censoring technology a little bit more carefully. Thoughts and comments are appreciated! 

Alabama Tri-Delts Can't Get Over the Past

Recently I was on Facebook when I saw that someone posted a link to a recent "sorority scandal" at University of Alabama. I clicked on it because my mom always talks about how much she loved her sorority in college but what I read in this article was quite disturbing. The full story can be found at the University's newspaper here but the gist of the story is that a black girl at the University of Alabama rushed to get in Delta Delta Delta and apparently had all of the qualifications and great scores from the other girls but when it came to deciding who gets in the sorority, the alumnae jumped in and according to anonymous girls in the sorority, the alumnae and president were the ones who did not let the girl in because she was black and the sorority was traditionally white.  According to the article, the traditional white sorority at University of Alabama have not pledged a black girl since 2003 and she was the only one since! An anonymous member of the sorority said,“Not a lot of rushees get awesome scores,” the Tri Delta member said. “Sometimes sisters [of active members] don’t get that. [She] got excellent scores. The only thing that kept her back was the color of her skin in Tri Delt. She would have been a dog fight between all the sororities if she were white.” This whole scandal has caused a lot of outrage and protests across the country and I can understand why. This scandal seems very old fashioned to me and something that should not be happening now days. My mom always tells me how much of a positive impact her sorority had on her but clearly the alumnae could not let go of the past and how sororities used to traditionally be white. Overall it outrages me as well to know that the leaders of the Delta Delta Delta sorority at University of Alabama were more concerned with how their sorority appeared lined up across the front lawn of the house in a picture than the philanthropic side of it. Other sororities across the country have changed so why hasn't this one? Comments are very much appreciated!

Is Emotional Intelligence the Key to Success?

As I was browsing the New York Times web page today a very interesting article caught my eye because of all the stress students are under with school starting back up again. It was titled "Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?" and you can read the full article here. It is a very lengthy article but the basic point to it was informing people about the strategy of social-emotional learning and many professionals think that teaching kids emotional skills in schools such as coping with anxiety and stress will improve their academic performance. At first I was not sure that these two ideas correlated but after reading the evidence it started to make sense. The article said, "Though it’s not clear how significant this effect is, a 2011 meta-analysis found that K-12 students who received social-emotional instruction scored an average of 11 percentile points higher on standardized achievement tests. A similar study found a nearly 20 percent decrease in violent or delinquent behavior." I agree with what this article was saying because I think that most people would agree that no matter how much you study for a test, if you feel anxious or nervous a lot of the time your mind goes blank and everything you studied the night before does not even matter because your anxiety made you forget it all. Another reason I agree with this article is because if you feel uncomfortable in a class room because you were not taught social/emotional skills at a younger age it is much harder to learn and focus during class. Even if you have an amazing teacher its hard for the mind to stay focused on the material when you are uncomfortable with the setting or people around you. Overall, if schools made a bigger effort to teach social-emotional learning to kids at a younger age I think that this would benefit many kids in the future when it comes to standardized tests like the ACT.