Special Blog Post #1

          Yes many students did misinterpret the data given in Did You Know? and I was one of them. When reading Dr. Strange's post of misinterpreting the data and discovering a few things out for myself from the Wolframalpha Search I have changed my thoughts on Did You Know? It is definitely the population of the countries that the statistics have derived from. The skills or abilities Americans have has nothing to do with the numbers that are shown in the video. I found that ranked number one in the world is China with the population of 1.35 billion people, following in second is India with 1.21 billion people and the united States comes in third with 309 million people. "It is estimated that 18 million Chinese speak English now and 300 million are learners So...if the "learners" do learn English there will be more people in China speaking English than the ENTIRE population of the United States". This statement is true since the total of the two is 318 million English speaking Chinese and there is only 309 million people in the United States but what is this saying? Nothing other than numbers and statistics, the United States is just as smart. I found that the literacy rate for the United States is 99% whereas China is 93.98% and India is only 62.75%. I also found that the United States is ranked second with Internet Usage. China is in first and India follows in third. I believe that Wolfram is a useful tool when wanting to find the statistics or numbers of any given situation. I believe that within a classroom this site should be in the favorites file. It will help not only me as the teacher stay up to date but it will give the students useful information at a click of a button.

         The Media count is an interesting tool that demonstrates the media's very own time clock. Each second the media count changes. The amount of money made worldwide is constantly on a rise with different types of technology. I can see how much time is wasted on video games just as quick as I can see how many pirated movies were made.
         This is a neat tool especially if you want to show your students how quick the world is changing. The numbers never stop. Every decision they make in life affects a number somewhere. I believe all future teachers can get a small grasp as to how quickly things change by watching the count of different topics gradually becoming larger. Whether we are prepared or not, the world is constantly transforming into the future!