The Hillwood Herald is the news blog of Hillwood Academic Day School. Written and published by the school’s upper grades (fifth through eighth), this blog tracks student, staff, and family happenings at the school.
Many of your favorite sites, like Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube, were protesting. Wikipedia even went as far as shutting down for a day. Regular Joes protested in the streets, while the sites protested by posting signs of protest on their sites all over the world. Which one do you think was more effective?
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a U.S House bill designed to stop online copyright abuse. Copyright abuse is when any type of media is used without permission. There are two sides to this story. One side — the side that dislikes the bill (Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube) — think the bill is to extreme and think it will prevent the public from sharing ideas and innovating. The other side, including companies like Disney and Magazine publishers like the bill because it protects their creative work.
The following Khan Academy video explains more about SOPA:
Did you know? That's the phrase this short video clip asks time and time again, and it's backed by quite a few interesting statistics, which help remind us that we -- as students -- are really living during an interesting time, as in, it's really no surprise that some call it the Digital Revolution (and with capital letters!). Or, why students today are called "digital natives." Many of us were born AG ("after Google") and after Wikipedia. (Read Clara and Angela's article about Wikipedia's 10-year anniversary.)
Many don't know that the dimensions exist beyond the third. To learn about the other dimensions, check out this youtube video. It will be especially compelling if you're interested in physics, parallel dimensions, or anything else of the like.
Legos are used everywhere in the world by people of all ages. Also people use Legos to make videos and put them on the Internet. This first video is very interesting because a person used Legos to recreate a video game.
Most people who make these videos are very artistic. Usually the videos are two minutes which is pretty long for a normal video. It is also pretty hard to make the characters, back round, and vehicles.
While President Obama was delivering his State of the Union speech, the White House opened a moderator platform on YouTube so thousands of Americans could post their questions for the president in response to his yearly speech. The best questions were used to interview the president on January 30. The questions were not filtered by the White House and were not seen by the President prior to the interview with Mr. Grove at the White House.
The questions were mostly about health care, the economy, foreign relations, education, and renewable energy.
Being an eighth-grader, the part of the questionnaire that really stood out to me, was the part concerning education. The president proposes that "you will not have to pay more than 10 percent of your income on those loans; that after 20 years they'll be forgiven; and if you've gone into public service, they'll be forgiven after 10 years." The Pell Grant program will also be expanded.
President Obama also declared that by 2020, we will make it a goal for America to once again have the highest college graduation rate.
He explains that it is crucial to the economy to have an educated public of critical thinkers, good workers, and good citizens.
To promote higher graduation rates, the Obama Administration has initiated the Race to the Top Contest.
For more about the president's State of the Union speech, read this article. To learn more about the White House YouTube page and to read its blog, click here (you can read many of the questions submitted to the President).
Sources: White House Official Website by: Brigette W.
I think that Obama is a good president, someone who wants to take care of his country. But I think that he is offering to much all at once. But like he said, he cannot do this all by himself — everyone needs to help, not just the government. That includes the citizens of our country.
I think that if everyone helps, we could maybe could get all the things that he promised accomplished, like getting the economy back on track, getting our people jobs, and get our troops back home.
This image, from Newsweek, shows factors in President Obama's first 12 months in office. As the stock market and unemployment change, so do Obama's approval rating.
This image is also from CitizenTube, where you can submit questions for President Obama to answer. According to the site, the President will respond to questions in a live YouTube interview at the White House on Monday, February 1, at 1:45 p.m EST. The deadline for submitting questions is Sunday at 8 p.m. EST.
Marin Luther King Jr. is known by everyone for giving rights to blacks.
He began his career as a Baptist preacher. He went on to lead the civil rights movement, and he also made history.
Jim Crow laws were terrible. They did not let blacks sit in the front of the bus and they had to give up their seats if a white person was standing. They had to eat in separate restaurants, go to separate public restrooms, and even separate public schools. But in 1954 Jim Crow lost to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declared separate schools for blacks and whites was unequal. The case was called "Brown v. Board of Education."
Black people were tired of the racism, so they boycotted the bus system because a woman named Rosa Park in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white person. Thirteen months later the bus gave in because of the cash flow problems with no one riding the bus.
The Montgomery boycott inspired more people to join him. In 1963 Dr. King and other civil right leaders organized the march in Washington. More than two hundred thousand people came to for demand equality for blacks.
The Civil Rights movement was changing the nation. In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights act which made racial discrimination in public places legal. He also got the Nobel Peace Prize.
On April 4, 1998 Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray. But, still Dr. King's words, speeches and his legacy lives on with us. He inspired Hispanics, women, and even the disabled.
Below is an interview with Martin Luther King and several journalists on the television show Meet the Press, which ran on national TV, in the mid-1950s. Meet the Press is a news show that still airs on regular TV today.
Hillwood Herald readers: Don't forget school is closed on Monday in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King day.
Student Assignment: Irene X. The US Department of Education launched the "I Am What I Learn" 2-minute video contest for students 13 years and older on YouTube. Three winners will receive $1,000. (The above video does not work. After it went live, the government pulled it for further review. Apparently, there may be some issues about the amount of data that will need to be collected. Still, we proceed with assignment)
Click around on the government's "I Am What I Learn" website, if it is working. You may also access a governmental document to teachers on Google Docs. Do not take time to read the entire document. Rather, scroll down to "Video Project" and use that information in your story.
Tell Herald readers about the contest (remember the five W's). Also, write about how schools can enter and include how Hillwood might go about submitting entries. (Include information from the "How to Qualify" section of the website's frontdoor.)
Answer the five W’s of any good news story. Then include one or two good examples of how what Hillwood students could do. Then, make a call to action — ask that people leave video ideas for Hillwood in the comment section of your post.
Who:
What:
When:
Where:
Why:
Irene, after you write your story, use the Flip video camera to film a brief interview about the contest. Work with Zack O. to create three to five questions about the contest. At the end, make a call for ideas to your audience — the Hillwood community — for ideas about how the school can participate in this contest. Should, perhaps, the entire school submit a video? Or should the upper-graders do something? Or should each upper-grader student make his or her own?
Until the contest's entry deadline, October 20, you will help lead Hillwood's effort in making and collecting these videos.
