Special Blog Post Assignment #1

Compare Populations of India, China, and the United States
When I first watched both versions of the video "Did You Know?" for Blog Assignment #2, I unfortunately misinterpreted the data. I originally thought that it meant that India had more honor students than the United States had students altogether. However, after doing the comparative searches through WolframAlpha, I now have a somewhat different opinion. According to the data in the searches, India is home to 1.21 billion people, China has 1.35 billion, and the United States has a population of 309 million people. One thing that I did find quite interesting is that, when looking at the graph of demographics, India, not China, had the highest population growth rate of 1.44% per year, whereas China, who has the largest population of all three nations, had a growth rate of 0.63% per year, and the United States' rate was 0.969%. The United States surpassed the other two countries in having the highest life expectancy of 78.1 years of age. China's average life expectancy trailed closely behind in second place with 73.5 years, and India was the lowest, with 69.9 years. When looking at the population history of these countries, China has showed the highest increase of population growth; India is second, and the United States was last. Not surprisingly, China has the highest number in recent population history (showing from 1970 to 2010) and India came in second, with both countries reaching nearly 1 billion people in total. The United States fell in last place, having almost 400,000,000 people in total population by 2010. Though many sharp comparisons were made between all three countries in the "Did You Know?" videos, it does not necessarily mean that the United States is in any way inferior to the other countries listed. After looking at the data found through WolframAlpha, I now see that the populations of these countries play a crucial role in the statistics found in the videos I watched last week, and I realize the mistakes in my comparisons from those videos.
Other Comparative Searches
By using WolframAlpha, I was able to conduct two more searches of my own choosing. The first search I chose to do was entitled "Compare number of honor students in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States. Because these two countries have been fresh on the minds of most Americans in the last few years, I was interested to see where our own students fall in ranking with them. The population comparisons alone were quite surprising to me. The United States had the highest population of these three, with 67.62 million, while Afghanistan had 6.757 million, and Iraq had 6.453 million. Although the United States still surpassed these two by far, their populations were still much higher than what I would have imagined. This comparative search was a little different than the ones comparing the United States with India and China. According to the information in the graph of student history from 1982 to 2004, the United States takes the lead with slightly over 50 million students, with only a small increase in numbers throughout those years. Iraq was very similar, with over 5 million students by 2004. Afghanistan, however, showed the largest increase, ranging from about 0.6 million to nearly 5 million by the end of that time frame. The United States continued to be the leader in these comparisons, being number one in the highest number of students in primary school (24.39 million), secondary school (24.19 million), and college (18.25 million). Afghanistan had the second largest number in primary school (5.279 million) against Iraq (4.864 million); Afghanistan also showed to have more students in secondary school (2.044 million) than Iraq (2.038 million). Iraq, however, had the higher number of students in college compared to Afghanistan, with 424,908 people compared to 95,185 people. Lastly, the United States had the highest number of combined primary and secondary school teachers, with 3.553 million. Iraq came in second with 435,253 people, and Afghanistan finished in last with 143,129 people.
The second search that I made through WolframAlpha was "Compare populations of Egypt, Libya, and the United States". I chose this because after conducting searches on comparing the United States' populations with that of Asian and other Middle Eastern countries, I was curious to see how our country compares to those that we have been and may continue to deal with more in the near future. From what I found, the overall population of the United States was 309 million (which I found odd due to the fact that this number was different when compared with the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan). Like the last search, I was also surprised by the populations of these countries; Egypt had 84.5 million and Libya had 6.55 million. From 1970 to 2010, the United States showed the largest increase in population, reaching a little over 300 million. Egypt showed an increase to almost 100 million, and Libya showed almost no increase at all, reaching barely 1 million by 2010. The information that was shocking, however, was that Libya showed the higher rate of population growth of all three countries, with 2.03% per year. Even more surprising than that was the fact that Egypt, who had a growth rate of 1.83% per year, beat the United States, whose growth rate was only 0.969% per year. The average life expectancy of the United States was the highest with 78.1 years; however, the other two were not far behind. Libya's life expectancy was 77.3 years, and Egypt's was 72.1 years.
Before today, I had never even heard of WolframAlpha. Now, however, I can be sure to use it quite often in the future. After three various searches, it proved to not only give me the comparisons that I needed, but it also went above and beyond giving me extra information that was also useful. This seems to be an excellent search engine and will most definitely help with my classroom in the future. For example, I plan to be an English/language arts teacher within the next few years. If I were to give my class an assignment of comparing authors, poets, writers, or even different works or pieces of writings, I believe that WolframAlpha would be a great tool for them in getting all of the information that they needed. They can also find statistics that could help them obtain extra information they may need for future assignments and other classes, as well. After using WolframAlpha, I will be sure to also use this for future and current assignments throughout my years in college.
Gary Hayes Social Media Count
The information gathered from Gary Hayes' "Social Media Count" website, in my opinion, were absolutely mind-blowing. If there are people in this world who still think that technology usage has nothing to do with them, they are sadly and gravely mistaken. By looking at all these statistics as a whole, it can easily be concluded internet usage is not only dominating our extracurricular time, but our career fields, as well. Even activities such as watching television shows and reading books can now be done by using apps on a Smartphone, personal computer, or Apple products. The convenience and quickness of using the web can help people all around the world, and from all walks of life, to communicate, get tasks done, work in their career fields, and experience places and cultures in ways that they never thought possible. One look at all of the statistics found on Gary Hayes' page will turn even the person with complete doubt in and fear of technology usage in everyday life into a believer.
Because I, myself, will one day be an educator, it is my job to ultimately prepare students for the outside world. After seeing the information under the "Social Media Count" website, the idea that the same ideas and principles of technology usage now will be the same by the time I am teaching classrooms is completely invalid. As anyone can see from the timers that continually run on the page, technology usage in a wide variety is growing at a rapid pace each minute; what is contemporary now will be way past its due date by the time I am teaching students. In the next five years, if school systems do not make aspects such as Twitter, Skype, blogging, and iPad usage an everyday part of a child's learning experience, they will be doomed to keep up in businesses, social gatherings, etc. Whether most people like it or not, technology and media affect almost every part of our lives now. The generation that is coming will be so much more advanced and able to take technology to the next level, but only if we educators train them to do so. If technology has been able to allow us to watch videos in the most remote parts of the world, or speak to someone face to face through an app that is found in cell phones, think of the endless possibilities it can bring us in the next few years! The facts do not lie. The world is changing- and quickly. We are already behind the rest of the world in schools as we know it. If I refuse to empower my students to be technologically literate, I am not only holding them back from their full potential; I am dooming the generation who will one day be my caretakers, as well.