I taught two periods of a literacy class at McLoughlin Middle School this past winter term. I gained valuable insights from the experience and it was rewarding, exciting, and challenging. Throughout the term I became more comfortable with being in front of the students and more confident in my instruction. I learned so much about the work ethic of middle school students, what motivates them, and what kinds of things that they enjoy outside of school.
The experience was very rewarding because I was able to help students succeed in their academic endeavors as well as generate positive relationships with them. I felt very fulfilled when students thanked me for my help or told me that they enjoyed what we had done in class.
The experience was exciting because everyday was different from the last one. Different school related issues would come up everyday and every student had different needs depending on the day, thus there was rarely a dull moment. This made the experience go by extremely quickly in my mind.
The experience was also challenging because it was my first time teaching an eighth grade class so everything was new to me. I had to figure out which activities worked well and which ones didn’t. I also had to figure out how long an assignment or project would take a group of eighth graders to complete. These were things that I learned as a I went, but the biggest challenge was to engage 30 eighth grade students for 50 minutes with activities that were interesting and educational. This challenge is one that I will face throughout the rest of my teaching career.

In the Medford Mail Tribune on Sunday the 6th of August an article was printed about a Klamath Falls man, Leslie Maxfield was who was hit with a federal copyright infringement lawsuit for illegaly downloading music off of the internet. Maxfield had around 800 songs on his computer that he downloaded from a peer to peer sharing site on the internet. His crime has been labeled as "songlifting" and he has agreed to pay a settlement of about $5,000 which in reality he doesn't have. Now, because of this lawsuit Maxfield is afraid he might have to sell his truck to cover the costs of the lawsuit, which will hamper his ability to commute to and from work.

It is my opinion that this punishment is anything but fair. Leslie Maxfield is forced to pay $5,000 for 800 songs that he downloaded off of a website that millions of others use everyday. $5,000 dollars is a lot of money for the Klamath Falls man, so much money that the loss of that wage will have a direct effect on his everyday life. He sees this situation as the Record companies robbing him as opposed to him robbing them. I would imagine that the legal costs of the record company for suing Maxfield must have been near that amount of money. This in my mind is not an attempt by the record companies to recover lost profits, but to make an example of Maxfield and use him as a scare tactic for other internet users.

I don’t think that this is the best way to combat “song-lifting”. It seems as though they are addressing the wrong end of the problem. I don’t think that any justice was served by punishing Maxfield.

It is undeniable that technology has been an increasing influence in the education of United States students. It would be a true shame to enter a public school in any region of the US, who is so rich in technological resources, and find out that the students of that school did not have access to the World Wide Web. The internet is taken for granted almost everywhere in this country, but would most certainly not be in other parts of the world. As mentioned in Bob Sipchen's article "Our Students' Future May Sit in Their Laptops" from the LA Times, the internet could soon be as common throughout the world as it is in the United States and other first world countries. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a low energy using, $100 laptop that is hoped to be distributed throughout the world so that the internet will be available to the entire world and not just the economically advanced. These laptops could be powered with or without electricity by using a crank or even connecting the laptop to a bicycle for wheeled power. Not only will these laptops give the people of world access to a plethora of information and opinions from other parts of the globe, it will also give those people who have been without internet access an opportunity of self expression that could be shared with the rest of the world. I think this could be as advantageous to the people who already have internet access as it is to those without, because it will give them access to points of views and opinions that were previously inaccessible.
One of the greatest gifts that technology can give and has given is its ability to bring people closer and closer together. The world has become smaller with the advent of automobiles and airplanes; the internet is just another technological advancement that will make the world seem more accessible. Who knows what else will bring the world closer in the future, but it is interesting to watch the evolution of world relations as technology marches on.