Last Post of School Year

My favorite part of ROGATE class was the fact that we had so much freedom and trust, that we were able to learn and have fun at the same time. I also liked how none of the subjects we studied were closly linked together, so we were able to learn about so many things.

I loved all the lessons. I really enjoyed the more creative ones such as the Work of Art project. I also enjoyed when we learned about ourselfs and how we learn.

Blogs can be used in the future as the Journals instead of paper journels.

Unfortunetly, I am not going to be taking GT next year with you guys because I am going to Notre Dame. :'(

I will miss my friends and this class a lot when I go to High School @ ND.

I fear that next year won't have some kind of GT class.

In the summer I plan to play gigs, write songs, go to summer camp, go to the shore, and do summer Work.

Kickstarter

Have you ever designed something that you believed would benefit the world, but you didn't have the funds to back it up? That is where Kickstarter comes in to save the day. What you do is you make a video and describe what your goal is and you ask people "hey, I need your help to get this project off the ground! Will you help me?" Afterthat, you tell the public that for a certain amount of money they donate to help you, you might give them something back.

So in a nutshell, Kickstarter is away for new inventors/creators to crowd source people by asking them for a donation to their creation or invention; in return, the donor receives a variety gifts, depending on how much money they pledged.

If I had $500 to spend on kickstarter, I would do a few things; I would buy the Pebble watch, a Remee, a Geode digital wallet, and donate $50 to LowLine Park.

For $178, i would get a Geode digital wallet. This thing is really cool because it is an iPhone case that scans all of your credit cards, so you can keep them all in one easy and secure place- your cell phone's memory. To get into the software, the case has a fingerprint scanner, which is the key to accessing all of your cards. Then you scan your cards into the system with the credit card swipe/scanner it comes with. Finally, when you are ready to make a purchase, the app temporarily imprints your card data onto the universal GeoCard in the back of the case, which you can take out and swipe. Check out the Geode now!

Next, I would buy the pebble watch in white for $125. I love this watch because it connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android smartphone. With a variety of different apps you can run on the watch, telling the time has never been so intelligent an beautiful. The watch also gives you notifications of emails, Facebook, texts, and caller ID. The Pebble E-Paper Watch is amazing!

Also, I would purchase a custom Remee Lucid Dreaming Mask for $140. I do not really understand how the technology of this sleeping mask works, but I do know what it does. The Remee allows you to control your dreams while in REM sleep (Rapid eye movement). This is definitely worth it to me.

Finally, I would make a $50 donation to the construction of LowLine Underground Park in NYC's Lower East Side. I would fund this Kickstarter project because it is a great idea that will better NYC. The money will go to a group of people who will construct a city park entirely underground. It is just to cool to describe in words, so you will have to check it out yourself.

After all my spending on Kickstarter.com, my total will come down to $493 spent, leaving me with $7 left. These projects on Kickstarter are all genius but wouldn't be made possible without the needed funds from people like me.

Crowdsourcing: ExploraVision

ExploraVision is very much an example of crowd sourcing. Crowdsoucing is using a crowd or community of people to get information and then using it for a service, or product, or business. ExploraVision is an anual competition where students around the nation submit an product idea to become a real life product. The students provide a full blown report from materials need to what the invention does. Then, Toshiba and NSTA make it a reality. They are using students inventions to sell, and in return, the winning student gets some profits. Here are some websites with more information on ExploraVision: ExploraVision Site Wiki

rUN

THIS GAME AGRIVATES ME

20% first followup

My topics for the 20 percenter included all about music, recording, about the music industry and what not- how to write songs and get known especially. Last Friday, I spent my time on researching the x factor. The X Factor is a nation wide singing compition for 12 year olds and up. I figured,if I could get my brother to audition, it would be great. I learned that they do hold live auditions around the country but there are other options. Evan can make a video and send it in or there is a place in New Jersey where there is a digital HD recorder, called MyStudio. I think we will try to get him to audition with that.

2O p3r₵3nt t1m3

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-von-jan/unstructured-classroom_b_1024404.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

I completely agree with Kathrine von Jan. To open up door ways to sucess in our youth, you have to let them persue what they want to persue; not the standard school curriculum. This is how Google's 20% time works. Google gives its employees 20% of their work time (one work day) to persue their passion. In return, Google gets some of their greatest ideas and invetions, such as Gmail. If we did this in school, we would be more inclined to find knew knowledge that could help us, instead of knowledge already learned. I believe that this is how our schools should be.

WASTELAND

My overall reaction to the film was 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed learning about the life of trash pickers in the slums of Brazil. I found it very interesting to see one person change their life completely through art. In the beginning, I found it very slow, and somewhat boring. I thought the subtitles would make the movie worse because I find it difficult to pay attention to both the subtitles and the movie. But as the movie progressed, I began to enjoy the subtitles. I feel like without them, the movie wouldn’t be as interesting. I really liked at the end of the movie when Tiao’s painting got famous and he had enough money to make the trash pickers the official garbage collectors of Jardim Gramacho and Brazil.

Vik Muniz has helped the people of Jardim Gramacho greatly. He made the trash pickers known, helping them to get more funds for trash trucks and what not. He also helped around 8 pickers to realize that if they wanted, they could pursue whatever career they want. Finally, all the proceeds from his art works went to the pickers in the art.

I believe that when it comes to staying alive, you have to do whatever to support yourself and your family; whether it is good or bad. If I had to work in drug traffic to keep me and my family alive, I would. The difference with me is, I would work hard at doing something better with my life at the same time, if I was in that predicament.

The film did not make me think of the garbage my family produced on a daily basis, but I am sure we produce a lot. I don’t think I will change in the way we deal with garbage because I don’t do the shopping so I can’t say to by something recyclable or not.

Vik Muniz highlighted danger in Brazil. When he was planning the trip, they were talking about drug traffic and dangerous things like that.