Shawn Achor Ted Talk

The link wouldn't work, but it's called Shawn Achor: the happy secret to better work

I really like this Ted talk all around. In the beginning it starts off with a good story that caught my attention. He talked about his childhood with his sister. It was easily relatable. It was also very comical. Not only the story of him and his sister was comical, but the whole Ted talk was funny. He referred to a well known prep school in New England that he did a talk at, and I'm pretty sure it was choate. He also said he has been to 45 countries traveling and talking to audiences. This amazed me. Traveling is something I want incorporated with my job, so I was really interested In this Ted talk. Something really good about this Ted talk is that he was easy to listen to. He used graphs and other statistics to support himself. Towards the end is really where he gets into the title of the video. But everything leading up to it was the evidence supporting it. I kind of liked it this way because you get all of the statistics and facts first and then put it all together for this idea. I think this video was very affective because of the order in which it was given.

Progress on personal goals

Reflect on the personal goals you set for yourself in the beginning of the marking period and discuss your progress. What did you work on this marking period? What did you improve on? What do you need to work on more? What goals do you set for the next marking period? What might you do differently in this upcoming marking period? 500 words

In the beginning of the marking period I had a lot of goals. I wanted to become a better public speaker. Obviously, that's why I took this class. Within this goal I had a lot of smaller goals. I wanted to become less shy. I think that my progress is good. I Think that I am making a lot of progress. I am getting more used to the kids in our class and I feel like that is why I am not as shy any more. I have not perfected public speaking but I'm getting there. This class has taught me a lot about annunciation and slowing down the speed at which I speak. Another goal I had was to get better at public speaking not only in this class but in my other classes and everyday life. I think this class has prepped me well for the real world. It helped me a lot in my college interviews and I was not nervous at all. My goals have definitely been somewhat achieved. I have not reached all of my goals 100 percent but I know I'm on the right track. This marking period I really was focused on my core classes so it was sometimes hard for me to get all of my work done for this class because it is an elective. I'm not trying to say this class is not important, but other classes are weighted higher on my transcript and colleges care more about my IB classes than they do my public speaking classes. But I think I improved on annunciation and being more confident when I talk. For next marking period I am setting the goal to get over 85 on my blog posts because I did not do too well on some of those and they should be an easy a or b. In this upcoming marking period I might participate more in class and try harder to memorize things that need to be memorized. Also, I will be able to put more effort into my work because I will not be busy applying to colleges or focused on other things. Some goals I set for the next marking term is to be more focused in class. I think that sometimes I'm just completely lost. Next marking term I also hope to have a higher grade overall. This class was definitely not what I expected but I like it. I thought it was just going to be very easy and hardly any work. But it is a lot of work. We have done many types of  public speaking. Monologues, spoken word poetry, and debates. In the second marking term I hope to learn other aspects of public speaking and eventually make my own speech and present it to the class. I think this will be good as an assignment. If we make our own speeches I think this will help me with memorization and emotion. I think we should definitely try this as one of our last projects. This class is teaching me a lot about public speaking and in the next marking term I hope to learn even more.

spoken word poetry

http://youtu.be/wr6YBu3KqcQ

Homework and video game debates

Homework should be banned:
-it's too much of a work load for some students
-student athletes don't have enough time
-staying inside to do homework makes a person less social
-it causes too much stress for students
-seniors that are applying to college need to focus on their application more than their homework for classes
-there is not enough time to even relax on weekends
-we're already in school for so many hours and we take in so much information that our brains are fried by the time we get home and we don't need to do any more work than what we already do in school
-when students have hours of homework they don't get enough hours of sleep, sunlight, or exercise

Why homework should NOT be banned:
-it gives us an opportunity to practice problems
-it allows us to picture how the work load will be in the real world
-maybe shouldn't be banned but should be lessened
-practice makes perfect
-teaches responsibility and time management

Video games are too violent:

-there are lots of games that have guns and bombs in them and that teach kids at a young age thar that is okay
-they show deep detail
-they send a wrong message to children
-they make kids get a wrong conception of how war is
-violent video games were blamed for school shootings, bullying and violence towards women

Video games are NOT too violent:
-they aren't too violent if you are mature enough to know right from wrong
-they're just a game
-it is up to the parents to know wether or not their kid should be playing them and to monitor what they're doing
-most video games are not war games or gang games.. Some can be educational and have good meanings

Debate topics

1. Same sex marriage should be legal.
2. Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports.
3. Students should be able to leave school for lunch.
4. All students should have an after school job.
5. The legal drinking age should be lowered to 18.
6. School uniforms should be required.

Reflecting on poems

From this project I learned that spoken word poetry comes from a wide variety of places. There are many different types of it and it is used to express many different things. Some spoken word poetry sounds like rap, others send a message, and there are some that describe times or places in someone's life. I can apply this to other things in public speaking because it changed the way that I perform. Since spoken word poetry is very dramatic it makes it deeper and more emotional. Because of this, I will be able to put more emotion into all of my other types of public speaking. I think that Caroline's was very effective. I think this because she used good hand motions and she had good diction. She also put a lot of emotion into her poem and it seemed really natural. It was nice to watch the presentations that were well memorized and presented with emotion and had good music. I think the music really killed some of the poems, but in some cases the music worked really well. I personally think that I only did a few things well. I had good diction and I spoke loud enough and I really thought my music went well with it. But I was unable to memorize it and because of this I had to read off of the iPad. Since I was reading off the iPad i wasn't able to do hand motions or make eye contact. Those were the most difficult things for me. This time I wasn't as shy and nervous as I was the first time. I think that since I'm getting more use to the class I'm opening up more. So that's something I've improved on. I just need to work on memorization and emotion I think.