Reliance on Ourselves, Jessa Gamble

After watching Jessa Gamble's video on how every living organism with two or more cells has an internal clock, I found it slightly controversial because the examples that she used weren't very numerous and convincing. She spoke as though she expected her audience to believe her instead of having their doubts about what it was she was saying. Her presentation technique was also really bland and boring, which made the four minutes of her presentation seem longer than they actually were. I can honestly say that this TED talk was not one of the greatest ones done; a fifth grader could've done better.

She spoke about how if you took away the light, regular and artificial from a person, then they would start to run on an internal clock called the "body clock". Does that mean then that their clock starts running because of the person's habits, or because that's just the was their clock runs? Does every body's clock run on a different time, or on the same? I feel that if every body's internal body clock ran on the same time, we wouldn't be as diverse of a society as we are now, but it would also be interesting if clocks did run on the same time because we all have the same body parts.

Ms. Gamble said that the internal body clock was chemical, but does the battery every run out? Is that when you die, or does the clock not have any influence on a person's life itself? If we as a race don't use our internal clocks, because of environmental influences, then wouldn't we just evolve them away? Why do we all have internal body clocks? Her presentation was so short that either they haven't studied body clocks for very long, or scientists just don't know the answers to these questions. Of course, both of these scenarios wouldn't qualify her for a TED talk because there isn't enough information known and therefore isn't worth the time of the public knowing.

This connects to me because I know realize why I have a hard time waking up so early in the morning and on weekends, my internal clock hasn't set an alarm and the sun is up interfering with my sleep. I don't however know how this TED talk topic relates to education and the world because I don't know why having an internal body clock is relevant to our everyday lives because may of us don't use them. Why do scientists study our internal clocks if we don't use them because of the external clocks we use?

New Sense of Worth, Ric Elias

I found that while his presentation was mundane, the story itself made me think. He spoke about being in a plane crash and living through that with certain goals, to eliminate all of the negative energy in his life, to be a great dad, and that it all changes in an instant. The way his told his story was full of emotion, and captivating because he had been in such a traumatic incident that tightened your breath until he said that he survived.

If a person is put in that type of life and death situation, do their entire lives flash before their eyes, or just key parts? Do the survivors get a sense of determination to live forever, or does the feeling eventually dim to a point of no return? Would it be possible to know? I find that I can't personally answer these questions, because I have never had a near-death experience before; unless almost falling backwards in a chair counts.

When Mr. Elias said that he wanted to eliminate negative energy from is life, my first question was, is that possible? After all, he is human, and anger is a regular emotion to feel. Did he mean negative emotion he feels, or just negative emotions overall? If he meant overall, I don't see how that would be possible because of the fact that he can't control what other people feel. Why would he even want to get rid of that kind of emotion in the first place? Even though anger is not a good feeling to have, it makes all of the positive emotions that much better, it doesn't really make sense to get rid of it completely.

To me, Mr. Elias' speech sent the message that life is short and that I should do what I want/need within reason. I guess that education could help reinforce that statement because after school, students go out into the real world and have to start making decisions for themselves, so why not teach the kids how to live early instead of having them never figure it out unless they almost die. This relates to the world, because there are people in the world that live lives and don't face any scary situations because they believe that they have all of the time in the world, but if they were informed that their time on Earth was actually limited, they might actually start facing the scary situations.

I would recommend this blog to anybody interested in living.

Passion Lives Here, Isabel Allende

Of the many things to take away from this video, I would take away the knowledge of passion and empowerment of women. Isabel Allende really opened my eyes about how passion is really key to a person's heart and life. She taught me this by sharing stories, both happy and sad about women filled with passionate hearts and how in using that passion they exceed their situation.

If a person were to define heart and passion, what would be the explanation? Are there different definitions? As Ms. Allende explains passion and heart go hand in hand, they interconnect, but one can't fully understand her meaning unless there is a definition that goes along with them as well. She said that passion also goes along with women (I don't know if that's more than men, but that might be implied) and that 80% of displaced people and refugees are women and children; why is that? This can be interpreted in two ways, one: that the women help the children survive because of their heart and passion while the men die, and two: there is something wrong with the environment that they live in; it might even be a combination of both.

Once passion is defined, the next question is, how do people get it? Are they just born with passion already inside of them, just waiting to come out, or does the person have to go through some sort of traumatic experience or series of experiences to achieve passion in their hearts? If a person does have to go through a traumatic experience to get passion in their hearts, does that also mean that passion can be a negative thing? What makes people think that passion is always a good thing? Does it always help their will to live?

Even though Ms. Allende's TED talk brought up a lot of questions, I found that the thing to take away from the passionate speech on passion, was the beautifully phrased storytelling that went along with it. She told stories that had sadness to them and weight heavily on my heart, but they helped to define her point, to make her statement. This relates to Story in A Whole New Mind , and how using stories to help with a point can really get it across; if education was like that, we would have a whole lot of big thinkers in our society as a nation, and as a world.

The Wish of Dave Egger

In this video, Dave Egger explains how he helped to create an organization that helps students struggling in school by offering one on one tudoring. I found this to be interesting because, the students actually learned something and wanted to come. This place was very similar to other tudor organizations, except for the fact that it is a nonproft organization. The odd thing about his "school" is that it also sells pirate supplies, and has a magazine working in the background and/or along with the students and volunteers. Wouldn't that be distracting for both the students and the writers for the magazine to be working in that kind of place?

I found that Mr. Egger was very nervous during his presentation, because he said the word 'um' a lot and it looked as though he wasn't very well rehersed. If anything, that made him seem a little bit unprofessional, but I did like how he used humor during his speech to help give a light hearted but still meaningful TED talk.

He used pictures from his presentation as accents to what he was talking about, I don't think that his presentation would've been as effective if he hadn't used them. He showed smiling kids with their tudors, and pictures of his shop and others to help show the atmosphere of the learning environment. What made the students want to come, was it the fact that the environment was different from school, ore because they had a pirate theme? Is there another reason?

To me, it matters that the kids he meant to help learn were actually learning, and I think that if I had had something like that as a part of my school, I would've enjoyed learning a lot more than I had in elementary and middle school. What is the age limit for this organization of tudors, because if there was no real age limit, it could be a really useful tool to high schoolers that can't take the pressure of their classes all by themselves?

I think that if the word keeps spreading about these types of nonprofit organizations, the entire United States education will have to change for the better, becasue the students will be receiving the help that they need, and will be inspired to show their creativity in the work that the organizations provide. If it can change a communnity for the better, then it could certainly change the world and make it more educated as a whole, which could be good or bad depending on what we would do with the knowledge we learned.

If the organizations are there to help kids learn, then when the finish their homework, do they get to study anything they want? I feel as though that would also help the students to learn and develope because they would be taking the time to study something that is of interest to them as well as the things that they would be studying in classes at school.

Cognitive surplus

In Clay Shirkly's video, he mentioned two types of cognitive surplus, communal and civic. Communal surplus would be something created by a small group of society for that society, and civic surplus would be something created by a small group for the world to take part in. What I don't understand though, is why communal and civic surplus is important. They both are of the same kind of idea, one is just varsity while the other one is junior varsity. Why does there have to be a distinction between the two cognitive surpluses? Why should it matter that civic surplus could help the entire globe instead of a part of it like communal?

He also talks about creativity and how there is a spectrum between mediocre ideas and good ideas. Who's to decide what kind of an idea is mediocre or good, I mean it had to become an idea and eventually a creation for some reason right? Did Mr. Shirkly decide for himself when he said that the infamous LOLcatz was a mediocre idea for his TED topic? For all we know his entire presentation could've been mediocre and just scratching the surface of a brilliant creation, the difference is that he at least created an idea and turned it into something instead of wondering what could have happened if he had.

Clay Shirkly had some of the same ideas that Daniel Pink had in writing his two novels, Drive and A Whole New Mind, like human motivation, and an age of abundance. Since humans have natural motivation, they should put it to use and become aware of different things going on in the world so that maybe they can help raise awareness and help out. In an age of media abundance and a trillion hours of free time, why not educate adults and children in becoming aware and using their own resources to help out and give a hand to those less fortunate than themselves. This relates to me personally in the fact that there is always somebody less fortunate than myself, and in the 21st century I can become more aware at who that person is via cognitive surplus.

Mr. Shirkly's presentation of cognitive surplus was itself kind of boring to listen to but after talking through it, it was easier to grasp the concepts he was teaching. I think that his examples for communal and civic surplus were complete opposites, because one was a resource used for serious matters and spreading awareness, while the other one was just humorous and had easy concepts to grasp.

If Clay Shirkly's purpose for his TED talk was to help in the process of changing the world, I would have to say that he is well on his way to doing his part.

Daniel Pink, Drive and Motivation

I found that this video was more interesting than the others, not for the content, which was fascinating but for the drawings that accompanied it. This showed another way of learning and thinking, this presentation had a different design that was charming. I know that it wasn't technically a TED talk because of the lack of a person, but if it was considered one instead of just a lecture with pictures and phrases to help with the explanation, it would be a great idea for the TED talk final. Doing this as a final would talk a lot of time and effort, but it would be worth it because it would be incredibly creative and inventive.

From this video, I would take away the already known information that the carrot and the stick doesn't always work with businesses and motivation. When a task requiers R-directed thinking (more right brained than left), it actually worsens performance if you entice them with a reward. I found this very interesting and slightly confusing, but with back up scientific studies it was proven true.

Mr. Pink's speaking techniques were more along the lines of putting life into his speech instead of just telling a story, mucking it up with humor and using a lot of power point slides. He made the topic even more interesting than it would have been because he sounded excited about what he was saying. He didn't just explain in a monotone voice because he has talked about motivation a lot, but he instead sounded like he was speaking for the first time to a large group who had never even considered the idea of self-motivation.

The video that we watched, didn't really show a presentation style unless you count the way the information itself was presented. The key phrases from his speech were written on a white board accompanied with pictures to demonstrate another form of teaching instead of lecture which most of educated humanity has become accustomed to. This was a tad bit more interesting.

To me personally, I was able to watch Mr. Pink's video once and get the entire concept without having to go over it agian. This form of presentation help with my learning, but regular lecture would've helped me more in researching for my own TED talk final. I think that if students have trouble paying attention during lecture periods of class, that the education system and teachers should incorporate these kinds of videos. The kid would get the same information, but they would be able to process the information better because they were paying more attention to the topic being discussed. The topic in this video can relate to the world which mainly consists of business because now economists and other businessmen can create a better environment and eliminate the problems of motivation in the work place of R-directed thinking (A Whole New Mind).

I honestly don't understand why this particular youtube video was chosen as opposed to the video shown in class where it actually showed Daniel Pink's face in a standard TED talk. The video shown in class was just like the readings that we were given in class but in the summary version of 20 minutes, and that video was actually pretty well put together, and I would've found it more interesting if we hadn't read all of the material before hand. From that video, I would incorporate the summing up of information that he did at the end of his talk to make sure that the audience understood what his points were; that was a smart move.

Optical Illusions Show us How we See

This video by Beau Lotto concerning illusions was actually really interesting, because he talked about how context is everything when using vision and what color is used for. He also included examples and activites to go with his points which made the presentation interesting and effective.

From this video, I plan to take away the interesting facts he presented, and the way he included specific examples instead of theories. Mr. Lotto also started his presentation with a visual attention getter that showed how illusions affect vision and also relayed what the presentation was going to be about. This helped captivate the audience and hold them while still getting the information across. His technique was effective because it was fascinating in appealing to our natural curiosity and got the audience personally invested so that they would pay special attention to the facts he was relating.

The facts that Mr. Beau Lotto presented connect with me personally because as a high school student, I am being inspired and directed to take care of my own learning, so my curiosity on any topic is approved. I found it interesting that the color and shade of an object depends on the context that the color is being seen in, as well as with liturature. My brain uses color as a way of learning, just like with education. Many teachers color code things, so that the students will relate and connect the topics that they are learning together, so that they can get a better understanding of the topic being studied. This connects to the world, because it is full of color and connections that can be made via color. The world itself teaches our brains to make connections to things by color so that their similarities can be detected.

Humans see surfaces according to the light reflecgted, and as a species, we don't have direct access to the world other than throught the senses.Humans don't only see the color of objects, but the color of illuminations, and the color of space between us and the object, so if any one of those is changed, there could be an infinte number of possible real world sources of color seen. It would be like looking at an illumination of a lightbulb and then putting a filter in between you and the light so that the color would be different even though the light is still the same color. The brain also finds meaning and patterns in information and associates that information with a behavioral meaning and finds significance by interacting with the world, especially with words and liturature. The example Mr. Lotto used was, 'Ca y u rea t is?' there is actually no reason that there should be a letter between the y and u, but you place one there because in past experiences it was useful to do so, so you would do it again; but you don't put a letter between the u and r because it would not have been useful in the past to do so.This moving illusion is an example of how the brain learns and how depending on the light, the rings seem to turn to the left, but then if you blink or move your eyes, the rings seem to turn to the right. There is no correct answer as to which way the rings are turning, because both are likely possibilities.