Apple Fires Employees

After reading this article I wasn't surprised that Apple did this but I personally believe that a stern warning would have been best instead of a firing. I have heard of managers or bosses looking at there employees facebooks or twitters during interviews and or just to check up on them. So if I was an employee I dont think I would ever post anything negative about my job or company I work for. At the end of the article is talks about how teenagers need to learn that there Facebook isnt personal and can greatly effect you by the things you say.

Decision Making Software

Technology has grown to the point were it can now balance out consequences with decisions and map out what course of action to take. I didn't really know much about decision making software until about this week when I started to read into them. This software can manage simple daily life decisions to more complex business strategy decisions. It can map out your daily diet and intake to your stock portfolio's risk to reward rates. An example of this is the MindDecider. This software can create to-do lists, budget households and planning, choice of best job placement or college, to buying the best car or home. With the growth of technology tasks seem to get easier and easier.  

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is very serious problem thats growing in colleges and schools everywhere. Plagiarism usually starts early around elementary school for most kids, with the kids next to them helping the answer a question on a test. It grows custom to kids and which leads them be accustomed to plagiarism and unknowing of its severity. Technology though is helping deal with plagiarism and catch students in the act. New technology scans students papers and compares them to all others on the database and of the internet and if enough sentences or fragments come back similar it will show it to the teacher. But at the same time the internet helps stop plagiarism it also enables it. Many students take work off the internet and put into there own work without mentioning the author. This happens all the time and on written essays it can almost be impossible to detect. Also many websites sell term papers and essays to students. All the students need is a mailing address and a credit card and they can pass all there classes.





-http://orange.eserver.org/issues/5-1/kennedy.html
-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57836-2004Sep2.html

Ethics

Ethics is vary important part of an individual and how they are perceived by others. I believe that as we grow older we learn from our mistakes and thus this shapes our personality. When I was in the 6th grade I had a test geology and I had forgotten all about it and didn't study at all. So what I did was I looked off the students paper to the next of me whenever I didn't know an answer. The next day when we got our scantrons back I received an F on the exam and then realized there was multiple versions to the test. I learned from that experience that its better to be do test on your own and earn your grade rather than cheat off someone else because they could be just as unprepared as you are.

Public Schools in the U.S.

I think one of the main reasons why our school systems are underachieving and continuously ranking poorly compared to other countries is because of disparity. Depending on were you live determines the level of education you will receive. For instance if you live in a nice suburban area you child will receive a good education were teachers are paid well and teach students to achieve their goals. But compared to living in a poorer rural area, the educational systems are in need of a makeover. Teachers salaries are low which causes schools to hire unqualified staff and many students end up dropping out well before graduation. For instance the average teacher salary for Montgomery County, MD, is 64,000. Montgomery County is were I grew up and it is a really nice suburban area to live. Then you have the state of South Dakota, were there average teacher salary is 34,709. So you wonder how can there be such a big gap between teacher salaries. It's not the Montgomery County is far superior because Maryland's average teacher salary is 54,324. So when you have such a disparity between it causes problems. This is why we have educational problems in the U.S. My suggestion is to put more funding in the poorer rural areas rather than the wealthier areas.

-References
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/vouchers/howbad/crisis.html
http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Teacher-l-Montgomery-County,-MD.html
http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state

Tech changing how students learn

In today's classes, technology is seen everywhere. From computers for each student to the new WolfVision which is similar to the old projector but instead is a camera and shows students and teachers work on a huge projection screen which helps students see better. I personally think this technology is helping students a lot because it involves the students more and gets them participating more. One cool new piece of technology is the clickers we use here at SU. They use a radio frequency which let students in class tune into the channel for the class and participate in questionnaires and even quiz's. I think that with the new growth in the educational technology that students will greatly benefit from it and help them perform better in school.

Technology in Accounting

Accounting is one of the hardest majors offered at University's and most accounting majors end up changing majors after taking the rigorous high level accounting classes. Learning accounting is like learning a new language because the average person has no idea about filling out taxes. This makes accounting a great field to major in because theres all ways jobs open for Accountants. With the inclining use and growth of technology, now doing your taxes and filling out required documents are becoming easier for the average person.

With sites like Turbo Tax it hurts Accountants and there job versatility.

How to efficiently waste your time on the internet

I waste my time on the internet a lot so I know which websites are good or not and Stumbleupon is one of the best. The reason why I like it so much is that you enter which topics interest you the most and the random webpages that come up will fit your interests. The pages that come up when your stumbling can range from funny pictures and videos to recipes of your favorite meal.

Achieving Goals

My name's Chris DeHoff, I'm a sophomore at SU and I'm taking Information Systems 211 this semester. My major is accounting and I hope to become an accountant when I'm older.

I went to Gaithersburg high school, where I played baseball and football.

Blogging is new to me, so figuring out how to work with it will be interesting. I'm not used to sharing my personal thoughts, especially publicly and on the internet. I'm hoping to get better acclimated with Microsoft Excel and Access so that I'll be able to use it in the future after college.