Topic Selection for Final Project

Fist, I picked the TED talk theme called Ocean Stories. The topic that I've decided to focus on is bioluminescence in deep sea creatures. Bioluminescence is the production of light by an organism, most fish use it to hunt, keep from being hunted or attract a mate. I'm interested in this topic because it amazes me that fish can spontaneously create light. I also think more people would be interested to learn about it because it's not well known yet and seems to be a phenomena. I think it will be a challenging thing to learn about, because it is a specified topic and not very many people research it. The two talks that got me interested in the topic were both given by Edith Widder. The talks are called Glowing Life in an Underwater World and The Weird, Wonderful World of Bioluminescence. After the talks I had several questions about bioluminescence that I hope to answer over the course of this project.

• What causes bioluminescence? 
• Where and why do sea creatures use it? 
• What percent of ocean animals make light? 
• What kinds of creatures use it? 
• When comparing internal and external  bioluminescence, which is more effective and why? 
• What effect does bioluminescence from one sea creature have on other sea creature that cannot create light?

Internet; Pro's and Con's

I’ve always been amazed by the amount of information we can access on the internet. My first TED talk I’d like to share is by Tim Berners-Lee; he talks about the amount of people using the internet and constantly updating it to have more current information. The point of the talk is to show the advantages of having an internet that everyone can contribute to. The second TED talk I’d like to share this week is given by Eli Pariser. His talk explains how the internet limits us through online filters. My learning goal is to find out how drastic the filters are and how you can push past them. Be thinking about how different your life wouldbe without the internet. 

It amazed me at how large of a response the internet had when it first came out. I have been used to having it around my whole life and it hadn’t occurred to me that it hasn’t always been here. Like when Tim showed the map of people who update road maps on the internet. It seems like a simple thing but was actually very amazing to most people when the internet became common; being able to change how map looks in seconds is a pretty powerful thing.

The thing that most intrigued me about the two talks is the fact that when you type something into Google, not one person will have identical search results. They’re swayed by where you are, what you click on the most, what you click on first, your type of computer and more. It’s shocking to find that sometimes people don’t learn new things simply because they can’t find something new on the internet easily. Search results are favored towards your current interests which creates a problem when it comes to acting on new interests.

The specialized results reminded me of a debate that some of my classmates were having after watching another talk called “Where’s the Learn This Button?” We kept arguing that specialized learning is good when you already know what you want to do and you’re old enough to put that goal into effect. We also came across the idea that specialized learning is not so good when you’re young. If you try to specialize early, you may end up feeling obligated to do the same career your entire life, even if you don’t enjoy it. It would be better if Google had less online filters, that way people can get a variety of information and can decide what they want to do after seeing more than one thing or even have enough information to change jobs later in life if they ever desired.

If you have achieved the learning goal, you should be able to answer these questions. What is an online filter? How does one person's differ from another's and why? How drastic are different people's online filters? What are some ways you can avoid filters and obtain new information?

Learning Adventure Update

Last time, I said finding time was my biggest setback. That proved true for my research too. Since it was the part of my project that wasn't directly related to my intrinsic motivations. One thing that helped me be successful is that I already had what I wanted to research planned out. This helped me when it came time to do the research, since I already had an outline; I just needed to gain the specific information I was looking for.

I still find my idea of success to fit for my project. Success will come when I can honestly say that my love for photography helped me learn something new that I'd never known before. I tried to integrate my intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to keep the project engaging. Throughout the two weeks I feel like I successfully accomplished my goal. I learned about how Chihuly got started and some background knowledge on some of his pieces I've seen in Washington.

Learning Adventure Progress

For the past week, I have working to complete my learning adventure about photography and research about Dale Chihuly artwork. So far there have been positives and negatives while going through my adventure.
The part that has worked well was getting the initial photos take at the Chihuly bridge of class in Tacoma. That is the main intrinsic motivation in my project, which is why I got it done earlier and made room for it. The negative is the research. It's been very hard to find time to do any research. Since it was connected to my intrinsic motivations I've been looking forward to it but my homework load for school has prevented me in furthering progress in my learning adventure. Since I have a three day weekend, I'm planning on setting aside time to increase my knowledge on Chihuly, but most of all how to tie together intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

Learning Adventure Path to Success

For my learning adventure, I'm going to Dale Chihuly's bridge of glass and the Museum of Glass to take pictures of his work. Then I'll pick my five favorite pieces to research. For me, success will come when I can honestly explain how my love of photography has helped me learn something new that I never would have known. Through this adventure I want to be able to say that taking pictures is more that seeing beautiful things, but also learning the history behind them and knowing how they came to be.

To achieve my learning goal, I need to learn about the 5 art pieces created by Dale Chihuly of my choosing. First, I'll need to have some background information about Chihuly. For example, when he became an artist, his intrinsic/extrinsic motivations and the challenges he had to overcome to achieve his dreams.

For what I want to learn, I need some resources. I plan to use the pictures I take to decide witch Dale Chihuly pictures I want to research. I'll find my information on the Dale Chihuly website, and see if there is information by the museum of glass or Chihuly's glass bridge (where I'll be taking the larger portion of my pictures), and from books in the library about Chihuly's work and the art of glass blowing.

If I run into challenges, I plan on getting help from my dad or asking my teacher how I could better achieve my goal. My dad is greatly interested in Chihuly's work, knows where to find valuable information about his work and even met him earlier this year. Like I said before, Dale's website is the best place to find information along with the book written about him.

Learning Adventure Proposal-Revised

You know that feeling you get when you’re teacher brings up the word project? When you sulk in your chairs and give out a loan groan? Well, my teacher is trying to change that. Our project is basically, to create a project. We have to create a learning task for ourselves that will be highly engaging and motivating. There are two types of goals that we use in our everyday lives, performance goals and learning goals. A performance goal is normally considered “playing it safe.” With a performance goal you’re only using extrinsic motivations, and usually look for some kind of reward. With a learning goal you’re trying to increase your competence or in other words, trying to improve your knowledge.

With this project we’re imbedding learning goals in our plan, and we are given complete autonomy. We get to pick what we do, how we do it, when we do it and who we do it with. For my project, I’m proposing a sort of research project mixed with intrinsic motivations. Pick who you want to work with, then go to a museum, gallery, national park or something similar to visit. Then narrow your topic to a specific thing or person to take pictures of and research. If you don’t like research projects make sure you pick something you’re interested in and you don't know much about yet. For my project I want to re-visit the museum of glass, where there are incredible glass sculptures created by Dale Chihuly. Then photograph the pieces that interest me the most and learn more about them by researching him on the internet, watching documentaries or any other way you’d like.  

This project will be challenging because of the amount of time it takes, and the small amount of information given on the subject. I'll have to find new tool that will help me obtain onformation other than the internet. Examples, movies or books. Also, I haven't had much time to take my pictures outside of school because of homework load. My main learning goal is to stretch my knowledge beyond my hobby of photography. This time I want to find out the history behind the things I love to take pictures of.

You can also include autonomy by how you present your new found knowledge to your class. You can write a speech, create a power point, or film a short movie. I've decided to create a photo powerpoint of the Dale Chihuly pieces I find most interesting or unique and explain some background information to the class. Last time I went to the museum of glass, I took a couple pictures but would like to have much more that I could use as visual aids for my project.You’ll have two weeks to complete your final product.  

My project is all about autonomy because you get to decided how many people are in your group, what kind of place you want to go to, what you want to research and how you will narrow down your topic, combining your hobbies while giving an insightful presentation, and when you work over a two week period of time. It also deals with learning goals more that performance goals because the object isn’t just to get a good grade. It’s about finding something you’re passionate about, learning more about it and sharing your knowledge with others.

The Brain in Love

This week, I decided to watch a TED talk that everyone can relate to. This one is about love; it was given by a woman named Helen Fisher who talks about why we crave love and what happens in the brain when you’re in love. (She also had another TED talk called "Helen Fisher tells us why we love and cheat.") For a long time I’ve always wondered, why do you fall in love with one person over another?  

When she said that 95% of people have dumped someone that loved them and have been dumped by someone they love really interested me. I knew that relationships don’t work out but I wasn’t aware of how often it happens with people that are truly in love. She said that the brain releases dopamine and natural stimulants in your VTA. These cause a rush similar to the one of cocaine. It was weird to think about how severely addictive love is. You become obsessed and lose yourself. Love is something that everybody searches for, and people will do just about anything for it.

The second thing that surprised me is when she said people that get dumped tend to want love more passionately. The common misconception that many believe, including me, is that after people get dumped they’ll try not to love for fear of being rejected. But in fact it makes people what love even more. The brain is more active when you can’t get what you want and you’ll start to calculate what went wrong and why the other person in the relationship let you go.

Something that I disagreed with is when she stated that with romantic love, you focus on one person. There are situations I’ve witnessed where you can romantically love more than one person at once. Do you believe you can only truly love one person at a time? Why or why not?

I agreed with Fisher when she sad that with love, you go through the same effects as addiction. You have to see them as much as possible, you experience withdrawals and relapses. I’ve seen it first hand with my friends. They start to ignore you because they don’t have time, they feel anxious if away from their boyfriends for too long, and just can’t stop thinking about them. I also thought it was interesting how she described love at first sight. She said it was an attraction the may only last for a second, but is instant.

Now they juicy stuff, why do you fall in love with one person over another? As of right now, nobody knows. There are been many studies on the subject, but none have been conclusive. Even if I could, I don’t think I would want to know what exact type of person I would fit with perfectly. True, it may save some broken hearts. But going through the process of breakups, you’ll be able to appreciate your true “soul mate” when you do find them. 

Learning Adventure Proposal

You know that feeling you get when you’re teacher brings up the word project? When you sulk in your chairs and give out a loan groan? Well, my teacher is trying to change that. Our project is basically, to create a project. We have to create a learning task for ourselves that will be highly engaging and motivating. There are two types of goals that we use in our everyday lives, performance goals and learning goals. A performance goal is normally considered “playing it safe.” With a performance goal you’re only using extrinsic motivations, and usually look for some kind of reward. With a learning goal you’re trying to increase your competence or in other words, trying to improve your knowledge.

With this project we’re imbedding learning goals in our plan, and we are given complete autonomy. We get to pick what we do, how we do it, when we do it and who we do it with. For my project, I’m proposing a sort of research project mixed with intrinsic motivations. Pick who you want to work with, then go to a museum, gallery, national park or something similar to visit. Then narrow your topic to a specific thing or person to research that you’d like to learn more about. If you don’t like research projects make sure you pick something you’re interested in. For my project I want to re-visit the museum of glass, where there are incredible glass sculptures created by Dale Chihuly. Then learn more about his work by researching him on the internet, watching documentaries or any other way you’d like.

You can also include autonomy by how you present your new found knowledge to your class. You can write a speech, create a power point, film a short movie, or in my case, bring in my pictures I’ve taken of Chihuly’s work. Last time I went to the museum, I took a couple pictures but would like to have much more that I could use as visual aids for my project and get more ideas for things to research. You’ll have two weeks to complete your final product.  

My project is all about autonomy because you get to decided how many people are in your group, what kind of place you want to go to, what you want to research and how you will narrow down your topic, combining your hobbies while giving an insightful presentation, and when you work over a two week period of time. It also deals with learning goals more that performance goals because the object isn’t just to get a good grade. It’s about finding something you’re passionate about, learning more about it and sharing your knowledge with others.

Flow??

This week my teacher gave us an assignment. We were supposed to use Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's techniques to measure flow. This test would help me and my other classmates learn about how we mastered things. We conducted the experiment by setting 40 reminders on our phones to go off and random times, then we wrote down what we were doing, how we were feeling and if we were in flow. 

Over the past two weeks I did not find myself in flow very often. The only time I did was when I was taking a test, in Language Arts, where I had studied and knew all of the material. My thoughts and ideas about the book we were required to read just seemed to flow onto paper. (No pun intended.) 

Different times of day seemed to alter my mood significantly. In the middle of the day I was anxious or bored, and became more relaxed as the day went on. The most stressful time of day was when school started every morning. The different days of the week also altered the patterns of how I felt. At school we have three classes a day. It so happens that I have all of my easy classes on one day and all of my hard classes on the other. Obviously I was more stressed on the days with my hard classes, and the stress seemed to carry through the night on those days.    

The weekend also differed from week days. On the weekend I was relaxed or in control more often. I felt this way while being out with my family or watching a movie. While during the week I'm stressed and anxious about homework assignments and tests. 

Another big impact was who I was with at the time. I was more stressed when I was with my mom because we don't get along, and more relaxed or in control with my dad.  He and I do things that tend to interest me more; like going on a walk down the river and taking pictures. With him I felt more relaxed and in control.  

I could reduce the moments when I felt disengaged or distracted by doing important things when I'm most focused, which is about five or six pm. I could structure my day better and release more stressed by spacing out time in between important things I need to do during the day.  

Through this project I realized that I have more extrinsic motivations that internal, especially with school. I know this because I have more anxiety if I don't have time to do my homework compared to if I don't have time to do more of my hobbies. For example, if I don't finish an assignment I'll feel nervous until I complete it or talk to my teacher about it. But if I don't have time to go on a run, I'll just brush it off and make an excuse to do it later. 

The main form of intrinsic motivation I have has to do with my pictures. I love being behind my camera for hours. It's intrinsic considering I don't get paid for it and I do it on my own time. It's important to have intrinsic motivations among your extrinsic motivations. Having something that you love to do purely because it makes you happy is a good outlet from other problems and a great stress reliever.

Blind Driving

This week I found a TED talk a man named Dennis Hong gave. He talks about the technology that was put together to create a car that can be driven safely by a blind person. Even though a couple years ago it seemed like a crazy idea, it has become possible.

I read the short description and had several questions. What type of technology is used to aid the drivers? How would a blind person know when to turn? How would they know to speed up or slowdown? And how would they be able to avoid obstacles?  The description said that they used robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS and smart feedback tools. I knew he would probably explain more but I wanted to what a laser rangefinder was and how it worked. So I did some research before watching the video.  It is just what it sounds like; a laser rangefinder determines the distance between two objects. It operates on the time of flight principle by sending a laser pulse in a narrow beam towards the object and measuring the time taken by the pulse to be reflected off the target and returned to the sender. For this talk I was less interested in what the description said and more interested in what it didn’t say.

The technology used to create this car is incredible! I’d heard of blind people wanting to drive but never thinking it was possible. I really liked this talk because it was something that I’d never heard of and Dennis Hong answered all my questions. Did he leave you with any?  

I learned that there are several small components of technology that come together to create something new. The drivers would know when to turn by using drive grips that give instructions on which way to steer and how much. They have a speed grip that instructs the driver when and how to adjust their speed and they avoid obstacles with laser rangefinders and AirPix.

I found it amazing that technology can do so much. I have a hard time driving without any disabilities, I’m terrible at parking and I never know what speed to go. Adding in the factor of losing one of your senses would make it that much harder. I also thought it was really cool that the National Federation of the Blind said that they didn’t want a car that could drive blind people around, but a car where a blind person can make active decisions and drive. Many blind people wrote back to him saying that he gave them hope. Technology is advancing and changing lives, and the fact that technology can create things more people can do instead of can’t makes me realized that we’re heading in the right direction.

Wrong can also be right?

This week I watched a TED talk given by a women Named Kathryn Schulz. She introduces new ideas about right and wrong and how people deal with both situations.

Kathryn Schulz talked about how the world feels about being wrong. I completely agreed when she said there was a difference in being wrong and realizing you’re wrong. If you don’t know you’re wrong you still think you’re right, and everything seems good. It’s not until we realized that we made a mistake that we begin to feel embarrassed. Like the cartoon when people run off a cliff and don’t fall until they look down. We cling to the idea of being and feeling right because we don’t have something internal that tells us when we’re wrong, like Kathryn said. We don’t want to make errors so we won’t look for them; In other words, “error blindness.”

When she said that the preconceived notion of human beings is that they way to be successful in life is mistakes, I realized that it is drilled into us from the beginning. If we make a mistake in school, we get bad grades. If we make a mistake at home we have to do extra chores or we lose our privileges. This makes people feel the need to be perfect. Do you feel this? If not, how do you avoid it?  Growing up I felt like need to be perfect all the time. I would see my sister getting punished for bad grades, so I would get anxiety that the same thing would happen to me. I’ve come to realized that being successful is all about making mistakes. The things the dictates success is not if you fail, but if you learn from your failures and decide keep moving forward.  

I found it interesting that a woman went to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for a knee surgery and the surgeon performed the operation on the wrong knee. After the event, the senior vice president for healthcare quality said “For whatever reason, the surgeon simply felt that he was on the correct side of the patient.” This showed that your internal sense of rightness isn’t always right. The attachment of feeling this rightness makes people want to prevent the feeling of wrong more often, and can lead to treating others badly when someone has a different opinion.  

I wish I could have been in the audience to ask her after misreading the signs and sharing her knowledge of wrong if she still tries to stop mistakes or if she now embraces them. I would want to know if being aware that people prevent mistakes to keep from being wrong helps with the embarrassing feeling if you do end up being wrong.

Reading Other People

I want to show you all a TED talk given  by a woman named Rebecca Saxe. She talks about how the brain thinks about other people's thoughts and how the brain judges other peoples' actions. Be thinking about your own set of morals and how they vary/change over time.

It fascinated me at how you can see how children develop ideas about morality. With the puzzle of the pirates and the sandwiches, it shows that at first we can’t analyze other people thoughts very well. But as we get older our brain are more capable of understanding how other people think, and to understand that they may have different morals and beliefs.

She also said that adults can struggle with the same thing. Since everyone develops differently, it also means that everyone think and acts differently as well. When comparing the results of the sugar experiment, adults thought Grace should be severely punished for a failed attempt to harm her friend and only slightly punished when she accidently killed her friend. Which do you think deserves more punishment? Why?

But the amazing part is when she talked about being able to change people’s thoughts using magnetic pulses. After she used the magnetic pulses to disorganize the neuron function in the brain regions, people’s morals changed. They now thought that Grace should be punished more for an accidental death compared to a failed attempt at harm. This new technology is hoped to be used to help children learn how to make fair moral decisions in the future.

3 A's of Awesome

This week I will be sharing a TED talk about a guy named Neil Pasricha. He talks about the simple things in life that can change your mood, and shares his perspective on how to have a happy life. During the video, try to think of some small things that can genuinely make you smile.

As I watch this video I thought about the little things that make me happy. Like when strangers hold open a door for you or you’re 32 cents over what you have to spend and the cashier acts like they didn’t see anything. Neil says the three “A’s of awesome” are attitude, awareness and authenticity.

What I took out of the section he talked about attitude is when he said “You can swirl and twirl and gloom and doom forever or you can grieve and then face the future.” I completely agree with him. Throughout my life I’ve had to deal with some rough times, but who hasn’t? Everyone has their own problems and everyone has their own ways of dealing with things, it’s just a lot easier to move on when you decide it’s time to move forward. Never forget the past, because the past is what makes you who you are, but don’t let it overwhelm you. Even if you’re going through a rough patch in your life, it’ll only be that way if you choose to stay there.    

The second thing that truly impacted me is when he talked about being you. Everyone struggles with questions of “Who am I?” and “What is my purpose?” It’s a natural thing that everyone has to deal with. Nowadays peer pressure can change how kids see the world and they see themselves. Always be yourself, if people don’t like you for you then they aren’t worth it. True friends won’t make you change who you are and there is always going to be someone that’ll like you for you. 

What are some ways you have been able to deal with difficult times? For Neil he used writing as an outlet, and for me I had a lot of support from my family growing up.

Bunny Ears and Bow Ties Revised

One of the most time consuming things when I was a kid was tying my shoes. I would have to sit down and sing the little rhyme to myself for about ten minutes until my parents became impatient and tied them for me. But when I finally learned how to do it myself, I had a huge feeling of accomplishment. Today while watching Ted Talks I stumbled upon one with an interesting title... "How to tie your shoes." While watching this video, be thinking about how you were taught to tie your shoes and how simple it seems to be.

This video made me think that even though we all have our own ways of doing things, listening to other people's advice might give us a greater advantage. We've always been told to listen to others and be collaborative workers, but outside of school most kids don't continue to listen to the point of view of another. In this case, it was a small change that Terry Moore taught is, but to me it had more meaning than just saving a little extra time in the day.

A quote that really intrigued me was when the speaker said, "Sometimes a small advantage some place in life can yield tremendous results some place else." This had me realize that in school, my teachers knew what they were talking about! Weekly we had to read off habits of mind from a white poster hanging in the back of the room. They had been trying to engrave it in our brains since sixth grade that they can help us be successful. As soon as I heard this quote I thought of applying past knowledge to knew situations. It was one of the main, and most dreaded, habits of mind we learned about. If you use the advantages from your past by remembering what made you successful, you can remain successful in the future.

What I want to know is some other unique ways of doing simple things that can help you remember better or get things done quicker. Like tying the knot on your shoes the other way or writing in a planner so that you don't forget to do things. Everybody has some interesting way of getting things done and I'm always up for learning about ideas other people have!

Bunny Ears and Bow Ties

One of the most time consuming things when I was a kid was tying my shoes. I would have to sit down and sing the little rhyme to myself for about ten minutes until my parents became impatient and tied them for me. But when I finally learned how to do it myself, I had a huge feeling of accomplishment. Today while watching Ted Talks I stumbled upon one with an interesting title... "How to tie your shoes." While watching this video, be thinking about how you were taught to tie your shoes and how simple it seems to be.



This video made me think that even though we all have our own ways of doing things, listening to other people's advice might give us a greater advantage. We've always been told to listen to others and be collaborative workers, but outside of school most kids don't continue to listen to the point of view of another. In this case, it was a small change that Terry Moore taught is, but to me it had more meaning than just saving a little extra time in the day.
A quote that really intrigued me was when the speaker said, "Sometimes a small advantage some place in life can yield tremendous results some place else." This had me realize that in school, my teachers knew what they were talking about! Weekly we had to read off habits of mind from a white poster hanging in the back of the room. They had been trying to engrave it in our brains since sixth grade that they can help us be successful. As soon as I heard this quote I thought of applying past knowledge to knew situations. It was one of the main, and most dreaded, habits of mind we learned about. If you use the advantages from your past by remembering what made you successful, you can remain successful in the future.
What I want to know is some other unique ways of doing simple things that can help you remember better or get things done quicker. Like tying the knot on your shoes the other way or writing in a planner so that you don't forget to do things. Everybody has some interesting way of getting things done and I'm always up for learning about ideas other people have!