One of the main parts of this article that stood out to me is the part where it says "Our identities as readers are decided for us. I am a slow reader". This mostly stuck out to me because I feel like it's completely false. I do not think that when someone is born they are just born a good reader, slow reader, fast reader, or a bad reader. I believe that reading is something that you work on, all throughout life. I will probably become a better reader in 10 years than I am now, because I will keep gaining more knowledge and information. 

Our "identities" as readers are not decided for us, we work at them! 

Another part of the article that stood out to me is "The problem is not in schools, it could be with parents". I would have to agree with this mostly because children spend more time at home than they do at school. If parents are not encouraging and supporting good and frequent reading at home, they cannot expect their child to become master readers... I was given the luxury of being able to read a lot in school and at home, especially during my elementary school years. 

Overall, I found a lot of personal controversy with this article, but I did enjoy that because it led me to think deeper and pull out more thoughts. Overall I enjoyed reading and annotating this article! 

I will admit to being a tad bit behind but there's some big news...

I'm moving!!!!

So, as the move is getting closer and I'm slowly getting more and more excited, I figured I would choose this to write about for my free write blog post. 

Since I was two years old I've lived in the same house. Never moved, never really even thought of moving. Then a couple months ago I was home for the weekend and my mom told me that we're thinking of moving because we owe more on our house than it's worth... Usually people get upset or angry that they're moving, but I was estatic! (Mostly because 1) It's only like 7 minutes from my house now and 2) because it's actually closer to my very best friend in the entire world) 

Since then I've been so excited to start all over again in a new place and make new memories and traditions. We will be all moved in before Christmas Eve, and we plan to be fully unpacked and set up by Christmas Eve because we will be hosting Christmas Eve at the new house with a bunch of our closest family and friends! I'm also excited because last Christmas and winter season was incredibly rough for my family and I. We lost my mom's mom (my Grandma), my mom's sister (my Aunt) and my mom's brother in law (my Uncle), all within two months from each other. I truly feel like if we were to not have moved and had to have Christmas in the same house this year, it just would have been sad for all of us. We all want a fresh start, even if it is less than 10 minutes away. 

We have already moved some things into the new place and I finally get my own bathroom attached to my room!!! I've always had to share a bathroom with my two sisters or use my parent's, and it'll be SO convenient to have my own! I won't have to wait for one of my sisters to shower or get ready (which they take forever to do) and I can decorate it however I want! I know, it's such a silly thing to be so excited over but I cannot wait! (I am also right next to the kitchen, so if I ever want a midnight snack, I can just walk a few steps into the kitchen and eat whatever I want, whereas in my old house I had to creep past my parent's room and try to go downstairs as quietly as I could.) 

All in all, I couldn't be more excited to start new in a new place (with a pool and hot tub and steam showers and a private beach all overlooking Candlewood Lake!!!!!!!!!!)! This will (knock on wood) be the best Christmas ever! 

Today's MakerMonday Challenge was to mashup two differnent kinds of commercials for children's toys (Lego). One column was for girls with Barbies and bright colors and the other was for boys with Star Wars, Pirates of the Carribean, etc. We were asked to mashup two of the commercials and boy was it funny.

The male commercials were voiced by a man with a deep, manly voice, had dark colors, was intense and included more violence, whereas the female commercials were voiced by what seemed to be a teenager, were fun and pretty and nice, incuded no violence at all, had bright, girly colors, and asked for parental permission, etc. 

I LOVED this challenge and thought it was so interesting and fun to play around with!

Personally, I believe gender is something that is important, and even though I'm not exactly opposted to boys playing with Barbies and girls playing with action figures, I think it is important for each gender to play with the correct toys. 

Overall I really enjoyed this MakerMonday Challenge!

Today I was thinking a lot about how far I have come in this class. 

When I was in high school, I had a "blog" (Tumblr) where I would sometimes write posts, but they were never too in depth. They were usually short, sweet, and somewhat meaningful to me, personally. They were never educational or insighful, but with this class, I have learned how to create meaningful posts for other people to learn from, read, develop insight on, etc. 

I definitely feel a lot smarter having had the opportunity to take this class... I love how this class works. I love how it's so open and it's basically all on the computer, but we still have a classroom setting where we can all talk and discuss the modules. I find you extremely helpful as a professor, and you explain all the tasks clearly, so I am never confused. 

To be quite honest, this is one of my favorite classes I have ever taken. 

I truly appreciate how this class made me into a better writer, blogger, and student. 

We are all chimpanzees. 

The Small Differences Matter: The DNA of Online Reading Comprehension reading really opened my eyes and surprised me at the same time. 

TWO PERCENT. "Only two percent of code separates us from our Chimpanzee brethen."

I could not believe that. Two percent is SO SMALL! Yet there are small differences that differentiate us and the chimpanzee species. 

This reading went on to discuss multitasking, the skills needed to read in online environments, divergent thinking, manipulating and molding information, and so on. I really liked this reading because it was easy to understand and the concepts were clear. The annotations of others helped a little bit, but not as much as they usually do. I feel this reading was so much more clear and comprehensible that I barely needed to look at others' annotations. 

One part of the reading talked about how the students who could manage multiple tabs, navigate search engines, and move between multiple sources did better, and I agree with that to an extent. I know a ton of people who aren't great multitaskers but are incredibly intelligent.. I on the other hand know how to manage a lot, and I mean a lot, of tabs and move between multiple sources, and I feel I do better than some who do not know how to multitask and move between multiple sources. I also know how to naviage multiple search engines such as Safari, Chrome, Google, Yahoo, etc. 

I really enjoyed this reading and thought it was really insightful! Kudos to the writer.