YouTube
Matt R : Staff Writer
A new craze is sweeping across the internet, and it is completely free. YouTube is a web site that has been up and running since February 2005. It was recently bought by the major corporation Google.
The website is set up so that users can upload their own videos and watch those that others have posted as well. Users do not have to pay for access to all these features. This encourages many to utilize this site as a way to share videos that they previously had no easy way to publish. YouTube also offers a forum and discussion section that encourages users to help each other with questions and to give advice helping inexperienced users make better movies.
YouTube was originally set up by three employees of PayPal, another online organization designed to make buying items off the internet easier and faster. YouTube was named Time magazine's “Invention of the Year” and is currently staffed by 67 employees. In a copyrighted story in Time magazine, Ryan Donahue said this about Chad Hurley (one of YouTube’s three creators): “But to hit gold with your first job out of college is pretty rare. And then for his first company to be YouTube, he’s gotta be a smart guy.”
In November of 2006, Google announced that it was going to make its biggest purchase to date: buying YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.
Many people and organizations are taking an interest in YouTube. “Good Morning America” is now featuring a YouTube Video of the Day, as well as a YouTube Video of the Year, and they are promoting these videos on their website. Many users are also becoming famous due to their internet debuts on YouTube. A man from England going by the user name geriatric1927 is one of the most famous users. He is a 79-year-old male, and he became famous by using YouTube to tell his life story in a series of five- to ten-minute segments where he reveals details about his own life: everything from his involvement in World War II to his love for motorcycles. He even hosts his own website http://www.askgeriatric.com, which has had over 369,000 visitors.
YouTube is one of the fastest growing websites on the internet, and many are taking advantage and getting involved. Duyun Chen, a junior at L.H.S., said, “I would recommend it to the mainstream audience, as it is a very good video hosting site.”
YouTube is a fun and easy way to show your creativity by creating your own videos, and also as a source for entertainment as you view others’
Schedule Change?
Jessica D : Staff Writer
A schedule change is coming to Logan High School because the state and district have upped requirements for future classes.
Starting with the freshmen who will graduate in 2011, the state of Utah is requiring all students to complete an extra year of science and math. The main requirements will then be four years of English, three years of science and three years of math. Thus the mandate has received the name “4-3-3.”
The district is also changing the curriculum, requiring core classes all year long.
Due to these new requirements, LHS is considering a change from the 5-period trimester system to a semester schedule.
Vice-Principal Dan Cox said, “Right now [the semester system] is not etched in stone yet, but it is looking like that.”
Many issues are being considered beyond simply meeting state and district mandates.
Cox said, “The top priority from the [scheduling] committee, which involves parents, as well as teachers, and people…is daily contact” between student and teachers.
Other priorities, Cox added, include preserving choices for students, adding a late-start day for advisory time, having easy and frequent teacher collaboration, and creating a schedule flexible enough to cope with future unknowns in the system.
The most hotly debated subject has been how many periods to have per day. Currently students have five, but a shift to standard semesters would require adding more periods to preserve students’ choices.
Recently the LHS administration has offered a proposal to the faculty. They are looking for teachers’ comments and ideas to further improve it.
The proposal is a seven-period semester with the option of a zero period before school. It incorporates either teacher collaboration or student/teacher consultation, every other Wednesday. It allows for extra electives and increases the amount of time teachers would be in direct contact with individual students. The amount of time students would be in school would increase slightly, although each class will meet for 50 minutes.
The school, departments, and teachers will have to adjust individual classes to fit into the proposed semester schedule. Some classes may be only a quarter long, half the length of a semester. Some classes may spread a trimester worth of information throughout the semester. Others may have more information added.
According to comments by LHS Principal Patt Hansen at a meeting on January 9, the high school administration will submit a schedule proposal to the scheduling committee this week. The committee will discuss and may revise the proposal and then submit it to the school board, who will make the final decision.
Until then, Hansen added, opinions and thoughts of teachers, students and parents are welcome and will be considered. Hansen is hoping the final decision will be made by March.
Multi Cultural Center Sorry, I was really short on time and didn't read this either. I believe it talks about the Multi Cultural Center. |
Letter From a Parent See a Parent's take on the proposed schedule changes. |
Opinions on the Schedule Changes See what students and staff at Logan High think of the proposed schedule changes. |
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Multi Cultural Center s
Kelsie P??? : Staff Writer
On December the 12, 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrived unannounced at the Swift and Company meat packing plant in Hyrum, Utah. Fifty-eight workers were criminally charged with accusations of forgery and identity fraud. 145 arrests were made.
Raids such as this one took place at Swift & Co. plants all over the country. Nationally, 1,282 arrests were made.
The impacts of the Hyrum Swift and Company raid, known as “12/12,” as well as solutions for problems and safeguards for the future, were the focus of a January 9 meeting at the Logan Multicultural Center.
In attendance were delegates from The Utah Office of Ethnic Affairs, the Bear River Association of Governments, Cache Employment Services, the Mexican Consulate, United Way, and the Department of Children and Family Services.
Among attendees were Luz Robles, director of the Utah Office of Ethnic Affairs, and Leo Bravo, founder and director of the Logan Multicultural Center.
“Our main concerns are shelter, food, clothing, utilities and child welfare,” stated Robles. According to Bravo, the community “response was amazing.”
Food donations are still pouring in, and the LDS church has opened the Bishop’s Storehouse to those in need. Deseret Industries, also run by the LDS church, has offered free clothing and other goods to families who have been affected.
The focal point of the meeting, however, seemed to drift repeatedly back to local child welfare: the profound effect the raid had on the children of those detained, and, more broadly, on the children in the Mexican community. Overall, a startling 400 children were affected by the Hyrum plant raid alone.
“The big impact is separating families,” emphasized Bravo. “Their mother or father is arrested, the kids stay with someone else... Relatives are overloaded.”
Homes, however, are not the only place tensions exist. “School districts are where the impacts are being felt,” expressed Robles in the meeting. “Parents are scared to take their children back to school for fear of being located.”
Ultimately, though, Robles, as well as the other delegates, had their sights set on the immediate need, raising money to “issue U.S. passports for children to return to their families.”
Because many family providers are being deported to Mexico, children need safe passage across the border. In addition to the standard passport fee, an expediting charge will be tacked on, amounting to about $170 each.
Robles emphasized, “Right now the problem is money.”
Another obstacle to obtaining the passports is the necessary signatures of both parents. This has become an issue because at least one of the parents of these children is incarcerated, sometimes thousands of miles and states away, awaiting deportation.
Robles is presently working with the District Attorney’s Office to get an “exclusion of signature,” which would waive one of the presently required signatures.
Robles echoed the feelings of other delegates: “Our main concern is the integrity of the citizenship of these children.”
Also introduced at the meeting was a flow chart, outlining steps to be taken for those impacted by future raids. Robles described it as a “process of what to do if this happens again...if your family member or loved one has been taken.”
She ended on a precautionary, pragmatic note: “What came out of this is that we know this many not be the only operation we see.”
Letter From a Parent
Russ Price : Guest Writer
Ms. DuHadway:
I applaud the decision of school and district administrators in allowing additional time for consideration of the scheduling options. Originally, the decision was to have been finalized in November. After considering the work that had been done over the last few years, many of us on the scheduling advisory committee felt that we simply did not have the information in hand that we would need to make a defensible decision. Since that time, quite a few good information-gathering events have been held. However, I continue to be concerned that a scheduling decision is premature, and that making a choice at this point will represent a missed opportunity to do something very important for the school and the community.
The committee has identified that it is possible to meet the new state graduation requirements without changing the current schedule. My daughter, Kathryn, graduated last year. I used her experience as a benchmark, and found that she would have graduated under the new requirements with only one class change in her schedule. She was a four-year participant in both band and seminary, and had several AP courses. My point is that LHS should take this opportunity to examine the school’s objectives, establish a plan of action and then make measured decision about the schedule. Choosing a schedule first is like choosing between chocolate syrup and ketchup before you know whether you are having a sundae or a hamburger.
Here are some of the important things LHS ought to look at before it finalizes its scheduling decision:
1) Establishing Professional Learning Communities. This has become a buzzword in the scheduling meetings, but I have not heard a realistic plan outlined that would lead to establishing this very important educational strategy as a foundation for change at LHS.
2) Providing differentiated instruction. LHS faces a major change in its demographics in the foreseeable future. The ethnic diversity of the school population will continue to grow. The school can use this as an opportunity to provide appropriate instruction for everyone, and by doing so build community cohesion. Or it can ignore this trend, and leave many of our promising student/citizens behind.
3) Adult/student mentoring and advisement. Recent research has shown that educational outcomes for all students dramatically improve when they feel personally connected to their school and its adult support workers. The adults can be teachers, administrators, staff members or even volunteers, but providing for a personal connection with someone that meets regularly with a student throughout his/her experience at the school is a key.
I’d like to see these overarching strategies addressed first, and in enough depth so that impacts resulting from them can be readily identified when a scheduling decision is made. My view is: Let’s bake the cake first, and then decide how to frost it.
-Russ Price, Scheduling
Opinions on the Schedule Changes
Various Sutdents and Staff From Logan High
“Constant education should be the goal here, it’s completely ridiculous to expect a student to learn math, English, science, or any class the first trimester, and then keep up with it for a full trimester without a teacher to help them, and then come in 3 rd trimester and fully remember and understand the subject.”
~Eric Farr
“It seems overwhelming to have extra classes just 10 minutes shorter then our normal classes now. Kids are already overwhelmed with different AP classes and even just the core classes. They take a lot of work and a lot of outside work and adding classes to that is going to be a struggle for a lot of people.”
~Amy Westenskow
“When we visited Timpiew High School, I was told they were the only school in the state that beat us on AP scores. They are on semesters with a lot less time than we have. If they can keep fabulous AP scores with fewer minutes in class – so can we!”
~Senorita Lugo
