The Student Room

The student room has the largest community of students in the world, with over 1.2 million members. The main purpose of this blog is for students from all over the world to interact with each other and ask other members for advice as well as offer advice to whoever is in need of it. There are a number of discussion topics which range from university to health to personal relationships. It offers free membership to users and is easy to set up an account. This blog would be useful for anyone who has a problem and needs advise but has no idea who to ask. Many students wouldn't be able to ask their parents or a teacher for certain advice, and that's one of the main advantages of using The Student Room. You will find many other people in the same boat as yourself or have already experienced the problems you are having. The live discussion is split up into three categories, 'latest discussions', 'most popular', and 'editor's pick'. So there is a wide range of posts to look at.

As well as the discussions, the blog itself also offers a number of useful links and expert help. There are forums split up into many different categories, hobbies, careers and so on. There are also useful articles, GCSE help, study and revision advice, help with personal statements, university, health&relationships, careers and finally student finance. The advice on this page is almost in a timeline, so students can use this blog during their whole time spent in education. I consider this blog to have many ideal features designed for students and would highly recommend it.

You can find this blog under 'My Blog list'.

Ted talks - Vik Nithy

Why we procrastinate
Vik Nithy is a young entrepreneur. He is the founder of 3 businesses at the age of 20 including his own marketing consulting firm. Being roughly the same age as myself, he is truly inspirational. The topic he is discussing in the video is procrastination, which is funny because I consider myself some what of a pro. He explains why we tend to procrastinate when it comes to completing essays, and revising for exams as well as chores, thinking about our future, saving money and exercise.

I found his video interesting because he talks about the brain and how the pre-frontal cortex tells us to work whilst the limbic system tells us to check Facebook or watch another television programme. I have recently been learning about the brain when it comes to learning so this was interesting to listen to. Vik then goes on to say how we can overcome procrastination, by planning goals, plan time, plan resources, plan the process, plan for distractions and plan for failure. I think everyone can relate to this video, I think everyone procrastinates, some more than others. This video is useful to me because I now know good tips to overcome procrastination and hopefully not leave things till the last minute.

"Don't wait. The time will never be just right" - Napoleon Hill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD440CY2Vs0

Twitter

Twitter is one of many social networking sites. Twitter is similar to a blog and allows users to send and receive 'tweets', which are like text messages. A user can type up to 140 characters and/or tweet a picture or link to a video. Twitter is primarily used to let people know what you are doing and how you feel. Like any social networking site there advantages to this as well as disadvantages.

Advantages

Twitter is easy to use, and allows you to personalise your homepage. You can follow all your friends and keep up to date with what they are doing. As well as your friends, you can follow celebrities you have an interest in and keep track of what they are doing each day. As well as following celebrities you can interact with them by replying to a tweet.  

Disadvantages

Users can be vulnerable to internet trolls (bullies) and hacking. Anything you say on twitter is there for good, even if you delete the tweet it may be too late, users need to be responsible for what they have to say and think twice before tweeting it. Below is an example of a harmless tweet that was interoperated by American police as terrorism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Bunting-Leigh-Van-Bryan-UK-tourists-arrested-destroy-America-Twitter-jokes.html

Albert Einstein

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

- Albert Einstein 

Wordle

Wordle is a free to use website which takes text and turns it into word 'clouds'. A user can simply copy and paste their chosen text into the box provided and with one click will turn it into a 'cloud' (as shown above). Words used most frequently in the text will be larger or bolder, which helps them stand out from the others. As well as copy and pasting text, you can also paste a URL link. For example you can paste your twitter URL into the box provided and see what things you enjoy talking about the most. You can also choose how many words from that text you would like to use, 10, 100, 200, 500 etc. You can also change the font style, font colour, background and shape of the cloud as well as other advanced settings.
Educationally speaking the use of Wordle would be great for an academic poster. As well as including other information on the poster, Wordle would look professional and catch the readers eye. It isn't necessarily something you would read through thoroughly if a lot of text is used, it is used to show key words and make them stand out from a large group of text. Students of all ages can use this because it purely depends on the information you put in what the cloud will look like in the end, so early years students could have a word cloud with the colours of the rainbow on it and each word in the correct colour. Blue Red Purple Green. I recently used Wordle for an academic poster on Karl Popper.

http://www.Wordle.net/

Process of reflection

Stephen Hawking

"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."

- Stephen Hawking

National Museum Cardiff

Today I visited Cardiff's National Museum. We needed to look at a context for learning outside of a school, and gather information on it. We got everything we needed to make a brief presentation, the museum offered plenty for primary school pupils including workshops, and educational packs.
Thoroughly enjoyed.

Photo Story

This is my attempt at making a short video using 7 photos. I used Windows Movie Maker to put the video together. I found it fairly easy to navigate because I used it last year for a presentation, so I already had a brief understanding of how to use the programme. Because I have a fear of heights I decided to make the video about my visit to 'Blue Lagoon', St Davids, where people can attempt cliff diving.  

Is dance a sport?

Competitive dance competitions are very popular within all age, male and female. The top dancers have to put in many hours of practice to become the best. Although it can be argued that dance isn’t a sport and is rather more of an art form.

Dancing on a night out I wouldn't consider much of a sport to say the least, although it highly depends on the level you are dancing at. You see backing dancers for international pop stars and you can clearly see it takes a lot of skill and stamina to dance how they do, this can also be said for classical dancers. I personally think dance is a sport as well as an art form if taken seriously.

Hi !
My name is Luke Thomas and i am 19.
I am currently studying Educational studies at Trinity St Davids, Swansea.
I chose this course because eventually i would like to become a primary school teacher.