Student Life

Any student would say student life is great.
And many people who weren't a student would say that it's an easy life and have their stereotypes for the 'typical student'.


As much as I love the night life of being a student and having fun and laughing with all the new friends you make - there is also work too. And being a first year student it is hard to stay on top of work and get deadlines done and make sure you do the work and not stay in bed all day! 

But as important as the work is, it's great to have fun and enjoy peoples company. I believe that when you meet your friends in Uni, that they are your friends for the rest of your life and you never forget them. I have met amazing people not only on my course, but in the building that I am living in too. I feel blessed to have met such amazing people.

Dance

From a young age one of my strongest passions has been dance.
From modern, to hip hop, to ballet and jazz dance. I have been passionate about dancing since the age of five.
When I dance I feel as if I'm letting all my worries and stresses in life go, and I feel like a different person when I'm dancing.

Throughout primary school and secondary school I have participated in all dances and have also choreographed many dances too. 
I have performed in Her Majesty's theatre in London doing dance and drama at the age of fifteen. I though-roughly enjoy performing in front of audiences and it has been a big part of my life.

In my secondary school I choreographed many dances for competitions and school plays.

One of these dances was for a competition, which I also participated in with fifteen other students who had dance auditions to determine whether they could be apart of the dance and had the level of dance skills needed for the dance. 

This dance was filmed and put on youtube. We came in first place and won the competition.

This was a very happy moment in my life, and I felt so proud of myself that all my hard work and efforts had been accepted and admired by people that we were the winners.

This is the video:

CHRISTMAS!

At Christmas time my whole family comes together and we spend several days mainly in one house celebrating the festive season with one another. 
We all spend it in mainly my Nans house in London where my aunties, cousins, uncles and distant family often come to visit as well.
Playing games, receiving presents and coming together at meal times to eat and talk about what gifts we had and what other games we could play.

Its a special time for me, as I feel part of something strong. I love my family being together and laughing and having fun makes it extra special. Also, some children and families tend to base Christmas around gifts and the presents and money spent on tons of presents for their children. Whereas in my family we don't see Christmas time as a time JUST for presents and gifts, we base it around food, games, walks and having fun and capturing the special time with pictures to remember. We tend not to just focus the day around presents as best we can.

Stop Animal Cruelty.

I've decided to talk about a subject I feel strongly about and which brings me to tears every time I witness some of the shocking videos that are made. I want to make people aware of the horrifying stories that happen everyday.
























We see various videos being advertised on TV every day and trying to get their point across to everyone and make everyone aware of animal cruelty. But I don't think the shocking and disgusting videos and pictures are made fully available for people to understand the real stories and shocking events that are behind all of this abuse. 

Many people today don't take action and forget that it is really happening, but ignore it and don't contribute to charities or choose not to listen and watch the videos.

So therefore, I hope that this video makes people shocked and highly more aware of the horrific stories and images behind animal cruelty, and in that case more people contribute and give money to charities to STOP animal cruelty forever.

Nan, I love you!

I love my Nan.

Grandparents are special. They do everything for their children and grandchildren and are caring and loving towards their families.
I have been close to my Nan since a young age. And there has always been a special connection between us.
My Nan lives in London, and being quite far away from her is very hard, but when I see her it makes it extra special.

Recently, I got a tattoo designed and inked on my body, which was a special saying my Nan tells me and has done since the day I was born. She used to tell me "i love you to bits". I had this tattooed on my ribs, so now it's on me forever and close to my heart.

I love you, Nan.

Web 2 Apps in Educational Context

'Voki' is many of the Web 2 apps which I have decided to discuss, about how it could be used in an educational context.

This website is a great way to motivate pupils and teachers to learn and teach as best they can and to work to their highest ability. 

 http://www.Voki.com/

The aim of this website is to create a 'talking avatar' that is made online via the website and can help motivate and make it more fun to learn for students/pupils. This way, it shows that education can be fun and interesting and using this website in an educational context is definitely achievable. 

The link above will take you to this amazing website that could be used in an educational context. I believe this website is educational and benefits students/pupils and teachers in education and could be used in an education context because of the following;

- It offers free lessons on learning languages online and has made 'education' seem fun and interesting for pupils



- it enables pupils to have fun whilst they are learning and whilst having fun, gives them an education at the same time

- teachers are able to create 'learning pages' for the classroom to look at and work on in lesson time in the classroom 


Feedback about the website has been positive, and attached is one of the many videos that shows how this website is great for education and proof that it can be used in an educational context for students and teachers to learn and have fun.

Web 2 (Pros and Cons)

A Web 2 website that I am familiar with would be Facebook.
Web 2 is basically the newly updated web, where people can share information with one another and communicate on line to each other from far distances. 
Facebook is a perfect example of this.

https://www.facebook.com

The pros of web 2, looking at a communicating website such as Facebook, would firstly be the amazing ability to share information on line with family and friends. You are able to post pictures, status', blogs and many other things to share with other people on line. It has made it easier for families to communicate with each other when they live far apart or when they rarely see one another. Another important pro of this, would be that considering the popularity of people who use the Facebook website, it has made millions of pounds and been successful. 

However, cons of communication websites like these, would be that privacy is restricted and that there may be scams or viruses present and easy to download without knowing. Also, harassment and bullying can be easily done on websites such as Facebook, and this becoming more common can cause serious problems for young children in school, or paedophiles stalking people via Facebook.

Blog Review

There is a wide range of education blogs that I have followed and found extremely useful, and have benefitted from.

However, the best education blog that I have found online is 'Edublogs'.

Edublogs has over a million blogs about education. And the reasons to why I think it is a valuable blog to follow, would be that it has:

1) blogs not only for teachers, but children and students too

2) It has the widest range of different topics and subjects compared to any other education blog

3) There are guides and free trials and its so easy to create your own blogs on the site

Click on the link below to be taken to the 'Edublogs' website

http://edublogs.org/campus/

Other reasons to which I chose this site to be of great value, was that it was eye catching, easy to follow, and a great first start to reading about and creating education blogs as a student.

I've also done some extra research on Edublogs and found this video via youtube on Edublogs, it simply shows you how to organise your posts and how to use categories and tags. It's very straight forward and worth a watch.

TED Talks 'What fear can teach us'

Karen Thompson Walker talks about "What fear can teach us" on TED Talks. This particular video inspired me to talk about 'fear' and how we visualise fear in our minds from children to adults.
Karen mentions that fear is often seen as a weakness and represents danger. But can we overcome fear? As children, fear comes together as a story in the mind. And Karen believes this is an amazing act of the imagination.
Then as we become adults, fear tends to leave our minds and we do not get the worry and danger as much, as when we were young children. However, Karen notes that maybe fear still does carry in our minds as we are adults in some cases. Stories like 'Jane Eyre' carry fear and danger, and the author might have carried fear throughout her childhood into adulthood, creating this amazing story through her imagination. Therefore, fear can teach us to imagine lots of different stories, and how they come together to create ideas for novels, like this one.
I think it is amazing how Karen has noticed these similarities, and it is fascinating how our minds put stories together when we think of fear. 
From listening to this amazing talk about 'What fear can teach us' it has taught me that fear emerges in our minds, and that really, they are just stories we put together in our imagination.