Race To The Top is a FLOP

I chose to research Censored Story: #20 Obama's Charter School Policies Spread Segregation and Undermine Unions. What are President Obama's plans and views on education? Here is what he had to say at the State of The Union-

• The US cannot compete globally without an educated workforce; they tell us that America is falling behind in the economic global "race to the top".

• Obama’s Race to the Top contest has awarded only two states thus far, but has compelled nearly every state to alter its education code in anticipation of winning a piece of the several billion dollar federal aid package.- Before receiving the money it looks like schools need to spend...

• The Obama policy is also quite similar to Bush’s in its goals for the rapid expansion of charter school networks and nonprofit with for-profit providers to run them... "Race To The Top" is the rebranding name for "No Child Left Behind"-

• According to a survey conducted last fall by the school administrators’ association, nationally 6 percent of districts closed or consolidated schools for the 2009–10 school year, double the number from the 2008–09 school year. The ranks of public school closures are expected to grow to 11 percent for the 2010–11 school year

• Detroit opened twenty-nine fewer schools in fall 2009 and put many high schools under the control of private management groups "In Fight for Space, Educator Takes on Charter Chain"

• Charter schools are often accused of “cherry picking students” to build higher test scores, leaving low-income and difficult-to-teach students in inadequately funded public systems. One former high school teacher in the Latino community has hope.

• For states to be eligible for the $4.3 billion, they must show they are progressing toward meeting the four assurances. If they do not, then the states will not qualify for the funds and their political representatives will be forced to tell their constituencies that there are no monies for education and face the wrath of voters.

http://democracynow.org interviews Diane Ravitch, author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education". Ravitch was Assistant Secretary of Education & Counselor to Education Secretary Lamar Alexander under President George H.W. Bush and appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board under President Clinton.

The interview starts about 2min and 10 seconds into the video-

Although Obama has said in the past that teachers should not be forced to spend the entire academic year preparing students to "fill in bubbles on standardized test" (Weinstein, 2009) it certainly seems that under the Obama administration programs like No Child Left Behind is here to stay...

Mid Semester Reflection

A review of the class for the first half of the semester:

1. After studying media for eight weeks in this class, what have you learned? Please be specific.

The one major concept that I've grasped for the first half of this semester is convergence and simplicity of creating media. In the past the power tools have always been in the main thing that I learn but this being my third year of using them it's more integrated and something I don't think about as much. Even in the past three years the ability of anyone to make multiple types of media has grown so much. With the increased popularity of flip cameras, online editing software, and smart phones it really comes down to anyone has the chance to have their work seen by the right people and with social media they can spread it around better. Even a 25 year old woman can make a movie by herself and make it look extremely well done and not have to be sponsored by a big corporation is amazing.


2. What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself as a critical reader, a writer, and a thinker in this class so far?

I'm getting more and more fascinated with being involved with news on a consumer level. I'm discovering myself going out and looking for stories instead of waiting for one to come to me. My computer's home page is BBC and I spend a lot of time looking at news, especially this semester with Egypt, Libya and now Japan. This class has helped me be a better researcher and consumer of news media and to almost always question what is being reported and dig deeper to find a multi sided more rounded story and becoming a much more critical reader, watcher, and thinking of the news.


3. What’s one thing you would do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I would have tried to spend more time focusing on the reading. The books that we've read were really enjoyable and educational, but it was still homework and a time frame it had to get done in. I would have planned my time better so I could spend more time really reading and thinking about the reading. I like having to write blog posts about them because it does make me think, but I just wish I had managed by time better so I could do more.


4. What’s one thing you would like me to do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I understand the reason you chose the videos you do. I love them and they are awesome and I'm glad I get to see them again, I defiantly notice this I hadn't in the past. However, I'm not sure how fair it is. I've seen the videos you show for the tool sets at least 10 times each and with my mind and eye for film I can remember a lot of detail about them. I would have been able to fill out a note card on all of them with out having to have seen them again. I'm not sure how fare that is to someone who has never seen them in a class with you. Maybe for students who havent taken a class with you keep it the same, students who this is their second make them do something different, and third even more different. Like limit the power tools they can use, because there are some that its easy to use as a copout like testimonial, ownership, and aesthetic shift.


5. Please comment on the usefulness of the power tools, our quizzes, the course blog, your personal blog, our films, and our books (AMUSING, FEED, MEDIA/SOCIETY) as learning tools.

Like I've said before I love the power tools and quizzes and use of blogs because as a returning student I know what to expect, how to use it best, and how important they are. I love the books we've read this semester they dont just benefit me for my major but I think they are books that everyone should read. I enjoy blogging and I wish we used our personal blog for more than just four media meditations. I'm not sure what else you could find to use them but I would have liked that a lot. I'm not a huge talker in any of my classes but I love writing and talking on blogs and forums. Maybe the use of a wiki for a class where everyone whould have their own page or color to write in or something like that so we could easily view other's ideas and bring everything together in a way thats different than just commenting on chapter blog posts. Or have their be a requirement not to just get followers, but comment on peoples personal blogs.


Thanks for another great first half of the semester!

Media Meditation3: Viral Videos are Vying for Views

So far on vacation I've spent so many hours watching videos on Youtube and other places looking up videos. Even with out relaxing in front of my computer and clicking on video after video I get emailed or IMed some video...

What is it that makes a video go viral? Why are we so fascinated by them? Who makes them go viral?

There are so many viral videos yet somehow they keep popping up. Websites like Youtube are full of videos that are vying for views. The majority of videos and clips on Youtube dont get more than 50 views, but there are a handful that get 100,000 views. The first video I remember getting popular is the video with over 40,000,000 views, and thats just this user's upload-

Yes the man in the video looks hysterical but after seeing it once I didnt have the urge to play it again or send it to others. A lot of people did and I'm sure there are several reasons why such as:

• One of the major parts that made it popular is the limbic brain is attracted to the music thats in another language that sounds like silly voices.
• The movements and music create emotional transfer and you cant help but smile and feel goofy.
• The man in the video wasnt a celebrity or known before the video. He was just a plain folk and others can relate to him.

Two years ago a woman named Susan Boyle auditioned on Britain's Got Talent. She looked old, warn down, and seemed to be nervous. People were laughing at her until she started singing! Every version of this video on youtube has the embedding disabled. But of course, it was easy to find some where else-

Susan Boyle's Britain's Got Talent Audition @ Yahoo! Video

After seeing this woman over come her fears at perform amazingly, its hard not to want to show this to someone else.

• Everyone who watches this movie has their own individual meaning that comes after they watch it. For me I'm really proud of her and it makes me think of my mentee from DREAM who says all she wants to do is sing.
• In the video you can see the audience crying and everyone being so in awe with Susan. It makes the viewer feel warm and fuzzy the way the audition is edited and the way people react.
• The motivation and inspiration from this video is created by the strength she shows and the encouragement that the judges and hosts give her making the viewer feel empowered.

There are so many people who have become famous out of Youtube videos that everyone is trying to make the next big thing. Its becoming easier and easier for everyone to shoot, edit, and post so people decide Youtube fame is better than Hollywood fame. There are blogs and articles all over the web on how convergence helps make a viral video.

I'm not a fan of spending all day on youtube watching babies laugh at paper, bite fingers, or get knocked over by puppies... but it is very entertaining to sometimes do that. And congratulations to those who have made a success out of sharing a part of their life with the rest of the World Wide Web.

Media Meditation2: Tweet Like an Egyptian

Mubarak disconnected his citizens of Egypt from the Internet, but they managed to turn things around and disconnected him from the government. It wasn't done through violent protesters, suicide bombers, or attacks on his life. The people took the power of social media and used it to change their world.

I could name so many adults that dislike social media and say that its a waste of time, addicting, and can lead to cyber bullying.

Here are so definitions to explain what the three main platforms are-

Facebook:

It is a place to communicate with friends and family, to share photographs or funny links you find on the Web, to play social games like Farmville or Mafia Wars, search for long-lost friends or even chat interactively with your buddies.

Twitter:
It is many different things to many different people. It can be used by a family tokeep in touch, or a company to coordinate business, or the media to keep people informed or a writer to build up a fan base. Twitter is a micro-blogging. It is social messaging. It is an event coordinator, a business tool, a news reporting service and a marketing utility.

Tumlr:

Perhaps the best alternative to Twitter, solving many issues that the social messaging giant suffers from including the 140 character max message limit. Twitter was designed for text messaging, thus the limitation. Tumblr is designed for the web, thus Tumblr makes it easy to share text, photos, videos and links.

While you watch this video, I want you to think about other protests. You could say that its extremely similar to almost any other one, the people are passionate, they know who to trust and who not to trust, and they all have the same message... Just like other protesters have for other causes.

Now I want you to figure out how it got so big. How did thousands of people know what was going on? How and why did the media pick up on it with such intensity and passion when they have ignored hundreds of other ones in the Middle East and Africa. They picked up on it because the people wanted them to. They got the worlds attention through Facebook and Twitter. Once the media discovered so many people around the world researching and following Egypt they couldnt stay away. But of course many news reports didnt even talk about the struggle that happened through social networking.

Social media and networking started a revolution to change the government of an entire country. The January 25th revolution in Egypt gained a major foothold because of tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. People used social media to increase government transparency, spread news/photographs and show outsiders what was actually happening as opposed to what the government and media was showing.

Theres a very interesting story by Stephan Faris that is on Time's website: Meet the Man Tweeting Egypt's Voices to the World It just shows how small the world can become with social media and especially blogging/microblogging.

Whether or not you agree that the revolt would have happened with out media, you can not deny that todays real-time communication spread word of the protests and helped gain momentum that would have been a lot harder to achieve without social networks.

Maybe people will start using the media instead of weapons to change the world?

Not related to class-

But!!! I just love how by the time I got home from Iron Chef Fox44 and Channel 3 WCAX already had stories up about Iron Chef. No need to wait to read the morning paper, its almost instant! I would love to be a part of this process. Get a story, film, edit, publish all in a few hours, so crazy!



Go team yakittome!!! most fun Ive had at iron chef in three years!!!
~Laura

Media Meditation1: LK's KU Convergence

Some people just watch a college basketball in a sports bar, at home at a party, or follow it online. I follow The University of Kansas (the Jayhawks) basketball in more ways than I thought was possible and tonight while I'm watching a game I'll bring you along with me to see how I connect with the players, fans, and announcers.

KU is playing their biggest rivals Missouri. It might be one of the biggest rivals in college basketball so sorry for any offensive language from fans.

Pre Game-

Anyone whos my friend knows when a KU Basketball game is coming up. I spend the entire day tweeting and blogging videos, articles, pictures, what ever I can find.

I look at videos a lot. I have an RSS feed set up for anything Kansas. From the game, fan videos, and news reports. But what I love watching videos of players off the court that THEY MAKE! The University of Kansas gave players from different sports a camera and let them video tape whatever they wanted. One of the best things about letting the players do that is it makes them see more like every other person. They use plain folks, testimonial, and humor.

Heres one from the basketball team, basically a few days in their shoes-

And of course I must post articles about why this rival goes beyond basketball and is one of the most intense and historical ones. This one was my favorite for this week. I love using my RSS feed to read not only summeries of the game, but to learn more about KU tradition. The technological shift of local news papers being put online really helps keep traditions alive wherever in the world KU fans are.

Missouri's mascot (a tiger) just happens that my favorite animal and I have a stuffed one. In honor of tonight's game I took a picture of it in a KU tshirt with my phone and posted it to Tumblr. One of my favorite things about Tumblr how good it's for smart phones. Its convergence at its best. Take a picture, write a caption, create tags, post it Tumblr, view posts of others! The individual meaning that is created before the game is different for everyone. I never wanted to go to a big college like KU but I easily could have gone just because I love watching sports. There is no other team, no other sport, that I have ever taken the time to research and be as connected to. There is something about this team/college basketball that makes me feel connected and part of a nation. Not to mention I love all the media around the currently ranked number two team in the nation. Its all over the internet!

Game Time-

The game is starting in about ten minutes andwhat is on my screen? Everything! Just look at how many tabs I have open!

I have three news sources on what's going on with the game, an article that I was reading before the game started on how one of the starting players is hurt, Twitter, followed by two Tweetchats for the hashtags #muckfizzou and #kubball, then a search for university of kansas on Tumblr and my Tumblr's dashboard.

One of the reasons I love following the stories on twitter is everyone feels united. Everyone bandwagons and creates hashtags like #muckfizzou (instead of saying fuck mizzou), #rockchalk (from the chant "rock chalk jayhawk"), and even for players #trob (Thomas Robinson). The defensive nationalism can get really intense. From 2007-a few weeks ago KU hadnt lost a home game. That was a record amount of games, 69 of home wins in a row, the next closes is in the 30s. Because of that people went crazy describing, supporting, and bragging about KU using strength, scientific evidence, name calling, denial, and humor online. Tonight's game is exactly the same thing because its against our number one rival. Twitter exploded with quotes, pictures, and sayings.

Jayhawk nation is like no other, and thats not just a fan saying it. Other players, coaches, fans, ESPN announcers all say its different from any other team/fan/location. Anything about KU automatically draws fans in. The music, chants, alma mater, or even just KU fans screaming ignites the limbic brain and gets everyone's reptilian brain wanting to get super exciting and fight the other team. What makes my limbic brain react the most? The Rock Chalk Jayhakw chant! I love it so much. The pacing and how it starts off slow and quiet then it rumbles its way to a bombing fast chant. Its just great and always gets me ready for a game.

Incase you have never heard the alma mater or rock chalk chant heres a video of it-

Post Game-

The game is over and everyone is tweeting, blogging, making videos, and re-watching plays.

When the game is over the players tweet about it, coach Bill Self has weekly interviews, and the media covers it from every angle. People re post and re tweet things and Ive seen a few times that ownership becomes a problem. On Tumblr there are some amazing pictures that a few photographers put up and Tumblr allows you to reblog the photos. Im guilty of doing it, some of them are just too great. However, Ive seen people get mad when they dont get the credit for their pictures. Ownership online is getting very complicated and easy to forget about. I decided not to follow the people who get up in arms about it, just one amazing photographer who also follows me and talks to me about the Jayhawks!

The thing that makes me love watching the University of Kansas's basketball games with my computer open is everything Ive talked about. The unity that everyone feels, individual meaning, convergence, and of course the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when your team wins is what makes watching Kansas my favorite even twice a week.

I love my Jayhawks and cant wait to visit Lawrence KS this summer and move there after college to start grad school at KU!

Script 1

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FEED In 60 Seconds. Script #1

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