Post 10: Improving Child Literacy

Reading and literacy have always been major parts of education. Without the ability to read and comprehend the material, its nigh impossible to learn any subject of study. For this reason, I think the Rural Language and Literacy Connections program is very important for Nebraska communities. According to “UNL wins $2.74M grant to improve literacy”, from the Lincoln Journal Star, this program teaches language and reading skills to rural, low-income children from ages three to five.

I think this program is definitely something very worthwhile and I think its awesome that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was granted with such a large monetary grant from the U.S. Department of Education to go towards this program.

This is a very admirable feat and I’m a firm believer that a child’s education is extremely important and has a great effect on their future. If young children aren’t given the maximum opportunity for a good education, then where will our future be? The future rests in their hands and the one thing we can make sure they obtain is a good education. The one thing I don’t fully understand is why the only focus of this program is for reading. I would think that other subjects would be as equally important to teach, as well.

The program is to be conducted in Grand Island and includes 200 children and 50 educators. Hopefully this just marks the beginning of a more widespread literacy support program for other low-income children to give them a better start in the world. According to the article, “If children don’t have this background in literacy and the tools they need by third grade, they’ll stay behind, and they may never make that up.” This is a scary thought, because third grade is a very early time, especially considering how much longer they have to gain a better education. This just supports the fact that if a person starts down the wrong path at an early age, its very difficult to get back on course; for example, dealing with alcoholics, drug users, etc. Education is no different.

Post 9: iPod Technology Researched at UNL

Whether it be walking down the street, working out, studying, sleeping, or just relaxing, people use iPods " everywhere you turn. The allow you to listen to whatever type of music you enjoy without being a bother to the people surrounding you. It’s also lightweight, convenient, and can store thousands of songs. Walking around a college campus, it’s hard put to go even a couple of feet without passing a student with a set of headsets stuck in each ear and a cord running down, attached to and iPod. This is just one way that shows how important iPods are in our society.

I find it amazing how so many songs can be packed into something so small. According to the Lincoln Journal Star’s article, "Research leads to Nobel Prize and, more importantly, iPods"", the science that led to the technology used in iPods was developed in 1988. The two scientists who discovered this were later Nobel Prize winners. After reading this I wondered if these two realized just how important their discovery really was to our culture.

Now at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, researchers are focusing on this same science used to develop iPods. I think this is amazing because this major research is being conducted right here in Nebraska. Usually when I think of scientists, I think of people in big cities or foreign countries, so it really impresses me knowing that research of this caliber is being done right here.

Maybe some day in the near future, these Nebraskan scientist’ research will develop some new culture-affecting technology that’s even more advanced than the iPod. It seems like there’s always something new coming out. I think it’s amazing how people can come up with so many new ideas and develop them into extremely popular products, just like the iPod.