1. I found that the two articles I selected to highlight were both very meaningful and gave information about two ends of the education spectrum. I took away a couple key points or impressions from each. With the new 'Sesame Street' article, the main impression or point that I was impacted by is the fact that half of the world's refugees are children. This is shocking in learning that while children in America face many hardships, children around the world are being displaced from their homes for long periods of time, for example the average time displaced from their home in Syria is 20 years. Another key point that I took away from this article is that less than 2% of all humanitarian efforts go towards education funding. This is shocking to learn that despite there being such a large number of child refugees, that they aren't given access to a basic right such as education. This clearly creates a gap and the potential for a future social entrepreneur to find a solution to increasing the funding for education within humanitarian efforts. 

Two key points that I took away from the article regarding technology in physical education include that when I was in P.E. as a child, I felt every kid, despite their athletic abilities and background were always pinned up against each other. I find that the teacher in this article, Coach Szychlinski, is wise in allowing the kids to improve through examining videos of themselves and looking internally at themselves versus comparing themselves to other kids. This is one major thing from the story that had an impression on me based on my past experience. Another point that I took away from this article is that technology has yet to reach its full potential in relation to education. For example, the software exemplified in this article could easily be incorporated into any elementary school or middle school level course in order for teachers to track individual student improvement. Yet, despite this, education isn't being incorporated into technology the way it needs to be and there is still a long way to go before education and technology enhance the lives and learning of students.

2.  With the first article that relates to educating refugee children in Syria I am in question as to why these types of programs aren't making wider public appeal and why this issue is so over looked. I feel like media outlets are focusing on the terrible war scenes and people getting violently displaced from their homes in an effort to remain safe, but the media rarely highlights the large number of children that are in dire need of developmental learning and rather focuses on gruesome war scenes. I think that this is a matter of how news is created to gain attention and that media outlets might not assume that a lack of child education will create "watchable" news, but it is shocking to me that I was relatively unaware of this issue until reading this article because I consider myself well informed and well read in regards to global news. 

In terms of the article that relates to physical education and technology, I am troubled by the fact that the entire school district dropped the use of the platform (Otus) that is being highlighted in this story. I think that it shows that in education, especially at a primary level, there is a sort of push away from using different technology outlets whether it be a software like Otus or one's that I even remember using in high school such as Edmodo. From what I have witnessed, and from how the article discusses that Coach Szychlinski is one of a few teachers to be incorporating this technology within his school, it is clear that teachers may be facing a sort of lack of interest in incorporating advanced technology in education. This I feel has something to do with a particular age gap between the teachers who are not as well versed in technology and their students, who are much more well versed with technology. There are several more underlying reasons why there is a lack of encouragement in using advance technology in education, and I am only at the tip of the iceberg in analyzing this, however, it is something from this article that I questioned and felt that it was important to note in my reflection.

3. I definitely gained a lot of insight and a new perspective by reading the first article that highlights educating children refugees. For one, I was already relatively unaware of the large number of Syrian refugees that were children (6 million). I found this to be eye opening in the fact that these kids are supposed to have a happy, care-free and positive upbringing that every child deserves. Yet, instead, these children are forced to uproot their entire lives, move, and escape warfare. I learned that not only are these children not getting basic health and safety needs, but they aren't getting basic education needs. It was surprising to learn that these children are sometimes too young to even be emotionally educated and I thought that it was interesting when the article noted that this program would teach children vocabulary so that they could express their current feelings towards being displaced. This entire article was extremely informative and eye opening and really reinforced my opinion that education is a huge aspect in the lives of children. School and education is the bedrock of what helps a child developmentally and it is such a large issue in a large part of the world. I think that this article really showed that a lack of child education can happen for so many reasons and that it is an issue that is in dire need of attention. In the second article, I learned that there was an entirely new education technology in learning of Otus. I was previously unaware that softwares such as Otus, where a child could upload videos of themselves and genuinely track their progress existed. Previously, I was used to tracking my progress based off of personal assessment of my grades and the work I produced. It is impressive to know that technologies are being developed that allows kids to actually record themselves and get developmental data in real time.

4. One article that deserves an honorable mention that I was interested in, but didn't want to include in this project was a story that describes how a school district focuses on teaching children social and emotional skills. I find that emotional intelligence is extremely important and that just know, mental health is gaining more transparency and talk. I think that this article was amazing to show an elementary school (Washing and Lee Elementary) is doing this with children at such a young age.

5. The only thing more that I want to include is why I chose to talk about articles that centered around education. As evident in past assignments in this class (Discussion 6) I talked about how I think education is extremely important. I talked about why if I could start a social venture it would be centered around educating children in Africa. Education is something that I love, as I love the process of learning, and I feel that it is important to the development of youth. For that reason all articles highlighted in my post are centered around education especially for young children. 

1. What are three to six key points or impressions that you will take away from these stories?

2. Write a 200-word reflection that engages, analyzes, critiques, expands upon, and/or questions what you read or listened to.

3. Share your reflections on your experience reading, watching or listening to the solutions journalism stories. Did you learn new information; gain new understanding; see things with a different perspective than you had in the past? Did the stories reinforce an idea or thought you'd previously had? Did you meet new people, or learn about opportunities you were previously unaware of? 

4. Were there other stories this week that you’d like to give an “honorable mention” -- that you enjoyed, but were not your top choice to share?

5. What else would you like to share?