1st TASK 3th Term: EDUCATION

Redefine how you view education. Understand its true meaning. Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book on someone else's opinion on a subject to pass an exam. Look at it, Picasso was educated in creating art; Shakespeare was educated in the art of [word] that was written. Colonel Harland Sanders was educated in the art of creating Kentucky Fried Chicke. 

As the paragraf says, first we have to understand the meaning of education. When we think about education what comes to our mind is students memorizing pages and pages, entire books. The most intelligent of them is the one who knows more, or in other words, the one who has copied the book's information in his head. 

Education it can be seen in different ways. Every one of us has maybe a talent or an hability in doing something. You can play the piano since you are a little kid while you don't pass history exams. But who cares? When you grow up you may become an expert musician. Or you can start writing stories that are amazing but be bad at maths, where is the problem? You are a good writer! The big deal is that our society has an idea of what education is, they treat us like if we were machines, when in fact each of us is different. So let's start from there, from changing our view. Education is how you focus your life, how you use your tools to be who you really are. 

Emerging Technology Has Positive Impact in Classroom

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SUMMARY:

Stacey Roshan is a mathematics teacher of a private school that made an experiment through technology to see how the results of her students increased. Roshan could see during three years how her students were confused and stagnant.

Most of them wanted to work just problems in class, for this reason Stacey changed her lessons plans: by using Camtasia Studio, she uploaded her video lectures so they could listen to them in their house (as homework) and once in class, only work in problems. In this way, students were more motivated and had and active participation in class. Stacey Roshan experienced how her students marks increased rapidly by this method. Lots of teachers start to use technology in their class and all of them saw the positive benefits of it.

Tracy, director of an Academy who implant technology in his center, said that having a flexible budget helps to innovate in education. He is sure that: If it's successful, it's designed to be replicable in the public schools." Regarding to public schools, new initiatives have been promoted, for example, the use of Ipads in class.

VOCABULARY:

Replicable: aplicable

Lectures: conferències

Stagnant: estancat

PERSONAL OPINION:

Being in 21st century, we might change some things in education that for us are normal and traditional. We have to adapt our lives with technological advances and take profit from it, in all the fields. Stacey Roshan is a PROOF that a good use of technology can help students in their marks, and use the time in the best way. She is still doing her job, but in other way, a way that really works and motivates students.

In my case, we use technology in class (as in English, Psychology or History) but I really believe that we could improve it and expand it to all the subjects. Although it seems to be difficult, I don’t think that we will carry on with our traditional method much longer. I hope in a future we can enjoy technology as a normal fact in education and admire how can helps us.

Can mobile apps help to improve our health?

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SUMMARY:

Mobile applications will help us to improve our health. In fact, some experiments created by experts work currently. Professionals from Belfast and the EU, all of them are participants of the World Health Organization Network, are sure that technology is the key to face and tackling diseases such as Alzheimer's. In 2015, a convention for Alzheimer's revealed an app that simulates persons to establish life goals as exercise or nutrition to manage stress and brain stimulation (those two aspects are reasons of the beginning of the memory disease).

Moreover, it exists another app, Experior, that helps doctors in training to polish and hone their readings X-Rays. Experior was created by Tom Lynch, head of Nuclear Medicine, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. Since 2014, they are starting to think about using the same technology as the Experior one to apply it in other medical fields, like gynaecology or obstetrics. The main countries which are working on this, are Northern Ireland, Finland, Wales and UK, among others as EU and US.

VOCABULARY:

Hone: perfeccionar, pulir

Unveiled: van revelar

Tackling: fer front

PERSONAL OPINION:

Technology is always a discussion topic that presents us if it is beneficial to our lives to be involved in it. We often relate technological advances to social networks and the vice that they cause. But, have we thought about the benefits that technology can provide us in fields like health?

We've seen practical cases as bionic arms and legs, deaf people who finally could hear through a device, blind persons who thanks of special glasses can see. So, don't you think that it would be incredible to prevent diseases like Alzheimer with an app?

From my point of view, experts are the engine of our era and those discovers are really surprising. In a future, if all this experiments develope and turn popular, we will thank all the experts that made possible the prevention of having a grandfather with Alzheimer, or being an Alzheimer victim, you never know.

CAN TECHNOLOGY MAKE A BETTER WORLD?

Are humans controlling technology or is technology controlling us? Where is the limit? There is no clear answer.

On the one hand the incorrect use of technology can drive us to bullying situations, in the case of kids psychological bullying is increasing; moreover ir changes relationships in general, talk face to face is more difficult nowadays. Also we can find false information on Internet. Technology took to a high level of consumerism, we buy more than what we need as a consequence of it, the production has increased in the last century and that fact caused dramatic pollution.  

On the other hand, it presents a lot of advantages; for example, it provides bionic body parts for those who need it. Plus, it expands your opportunity to achieve your objectives. Everybody can discover you. Also it’s easier for enterprises to be disclosed because of publicity. Definitely technology makes our lives more comfortable.

To sum up, bearing in mind that technology can be negative in some aspects, the vast majority are positive. So yes, a good use of technology can make a better world.

Auschwitz survivor is world's oldest man - Guinness World Records

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SUMMARY:

Yisrael Kristal, borned in Poland in 1903, is 112 years old. His life is full of historical facts: he lived two world wars and the Holocaust. He was a student of a religious school when the first world war began and had to be separated from his parents. Then he moved to Lodz, to work in a confectionary business. His family and him were sent to Lodz concentration camp. His two kids died in the moment of the ghetto liquidation, and once moved to Auschwitz, his wife was murdered and he survived working as a slave.

In 1945, he was found anorexic. In 1950, with his second wife and his son, he returned to work in the confectionary business. As his daughter explains, Kristal continued with his beliefs and he shows an incredible optimism.

Having lived a life full of injustices and misfortune, the survivor Yisrael Kristal do not know the reason of his long life. The previous oldest man died in January, and the oldest woman alive is believed to be an american woman, Susannah Mushatt Jones (115 years old).

VOCABULARY:

Lodz: Is the third largest city in Poland.

Ghetto: Put in or restrict to an isolated or segregated area or group.

PERSONAL OPINION:

“I see humans but not humanity”. This is the sentence that comes to my head every time I remember historical facts like the Holocaust, the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, or the nowadays Syrian conflict.

No one can know better the nazi extermination, that murdered almost 7 million jews, as Kristal. It is unbelievable that there are people who think that the Holocaust is the product of myths and fables (yes, it is an ideology currently active).

When we are in history class and we talk about wars we just think that we are going to memorize what happened in the past and write it in the examn. But then when you see news like this, you realize that it is not too distant to our present. The case of Yisrael is really admirable and surprising, who would have said that the oldest man in 2016 would be a survivour of the Holocaust?

Description: THE TOWER BRIDGE

Tower Bridge is a bridge in London, England, over the River Thames. At the second half of the 19th century, the commercial development of the East End of London led to the need to build a new step under the London Bridge. Jones's design was a bascule bridge of about 244 m in length with two towers, each of 65 meters high. The central light of 61 meters between the towers is divided into two sheets, which can be lifted up to a 86º angle (almost vertical) to allow river traffic.

The construction of the bridge began in 1886. There were spent eight years with five major construction and almost 500 workers. When Jones died in 1887, his chief engineer, Sir John Wolfe-Barry, continued the project. Wolfe-Barry replaced the original design of Jones medieval style  with Victorian ornamentation. The towers and sidewalks contain an exhibition of the history of the bridge, including the original steam engines that had moved the bridge. The bridge is on the Tower Subway, the first line of tube (underground railway) in the world (1870).

The second day, after going to Shakespeare Globe Theatre, we went to Tower Bridge freely. I was with Nadia and Mireia, and we made like thousands of photos in the bridge. My first impression was that it was bigger than what I thought (this happened to me with the Big Ben too). The Tower Bridge is gorgeous, it left me speechless.  

REFUGEES CRISIS

Hundred of thousands syrians go through the ocean to REACH peace: Europe. Sometimes fifty or sixty persons arrive in small boats, and always some of them die in the way. Men, women, girls, boys, babies, old people, pregnants, SICK. All of them want just to live a life worthily, because in their country there is a war, and their houses are under the rubble.

I will not talk about the whys and the reasons of the war or who is implicated. This your say I want to focus it in the arrival of refugees in Europe. When all started last summer, borders were opened and every refugee that arrived felt like he was in paradise. People start volunteering, giving them food, clothes, and shelters. But they were millions and millions and they reached the pont of collapse. Now that this is turning into a problem, all what we see in televison is people burning those shelters, hate to them and the closure of the borders. The intention was good, but now we need a solution.

Another aspect to consider is the support and hoste that Europe provides them and the abandonment of arab countries. The Arab and Muslim (and moreover rich) countries turned their back to their neighbours. 

The question is, what is more important: to make up the problem of the refugees or stop the Syria war? All we know is that syrians will still try to enter to Europe and the shelling will carry on.

The amazing love story of the 77-year-old husband pleading with strangers on the street for a kidney to save his sick wife

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SUMMARY:

Larry Swilling is a South Carolinian man who is married with Jimmie Sue, a woman who was born with only one kidney. They have been married 57, and now that she needs another one to survive, her husband looks for an organ on his own. While the couple waits for a donor (that could TAKE three years minimum), Larry asks strangers in the street if they would donate a kidney for his wife. Swilling wears a signboard where it can be read “Need Kidney 4 wife”.

Swilling has not found someone compatible with Jimmie (also he is not a match), even they recieved hundreds of callings of volunteers to be tested. The Swillings are happy because maybe the volunteers will donate their kidney to another patients, who are needed like Sue. As Jimmie Sue said: “If I get a kidney, fine. If I don't, I hope omeone else does”.

VOCABULARY:

Kidney: ronyó

Match: a person or thing able to contend with another as an equal in quality or strength

PERSONAL OPINION:

“In health and disease” is what we say when we marry someone, but we'll really act properly under these circumstances? What will you do for your better half? Larry and Jimmie are the kind of relationship that any one would like to live. They are made to love and take care of each other. All what Larry does for Jimmie is a prove of his love. It is crazy to think the idea of going down to the street with a signboard looking for somebody compatible with the love of your life.

It is also a good gesture from the volunteers the fact that if they can't help Jimmie, they may be compatible with OTHER persons in need and they will save their life. Larry will continue looking for an organ for the love of his life, meanwhile, he is indirectly helping another people. Love can do incredible things, and Larry gives us a life lesson.

Starved to death and left to MUMMIFY in the world's worst zoo: Once proud animals including lions and crocodiles are now no more than horrifying 'statues' after carers had to stop feeding them

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SUMMARY:

Mohammed Awaida inaugurated his zoo South Forest Park in 9 years ago in Khan Younis, a city of Gaza, Palestine. He spent millions of dollars into bring animals from around the world, by through a tunel, as he explains in the video. A year later, in 2008, when Palestinian and Isreali conflict reactivated, the rockets attacks made staff unable to take care of them, so most of them died because of neglect or starvation. In addition of the almost 2000 Palestinians killed, 80 animals have died in another Palesinian zoo, the Al-Bisan zoo.

Furthermore, there is no animal rights movement in the region and the zoo don't have supervision. Khan Younis zoo started to emblaming those animals who died and return them to their enclosures. Awaida said that after the Gaza war, he began to mummify his dead lions, monkeys, tigers, etc., by learning online how to do it. Whatsover, the dead animals outnumber the living ones.

Amir Khalil, the director of Four Paws, said that Khan Younis zoo “It's a prison”. His charity provided care to 40 animals of the zoo, with the help of volunteers.

VOCABULARY:

Neglect: descuidar, desatendre

Enclosures: recintes

Outnumber: supera en nombres

PERSONAL OPINION:

Honestly, if I have to write a personal opinion about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I will never end. I'll just tell that a “war” between and expert army and civilian, it can't be named war. It'ss outrageous, but let's focus on this new.

Personally, I believe that the idea of mummifying tha dead animals, even if it is shocking to see the images, is the only way to see the lives lost because of the conflict. Once the rockets kill Palestinians, and then they are buried, they fall into oblivion. But in this way, we realize the reality.

Only showing what happens, we are aware of the damage caused. It doesn't matter if is a human or an animal, it is a life, and nothing justifies the killing of an innocent.