Welcome to Modern Educator

Here on this blog I hope to get a conversation going amongst students, teachers, administrators, and parents about who, what, when, why, and where we should teach technology skills for the 21st century. I am technology teacher at Truckee High School in Truckee, CA and currently teach classes like digital media, e-learning, applications, and keyboarding -- yes...still important! :) Please Join the Conversation!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

President Obamas's Speech on Libya

Today in web 2.0 class we discussed the use of social media and web 2.0 technologies by the White House and President Obama to get his message out to the people.  Students watched his speech about the military actions our nation has taken in Libya and listened to his explanation of why they were necessary and justified.  Students then watched other news video on the situation to see for themselves what is going on right now in this country and to try to understand firsthand how it relates to them back here at home.  They also listened to differing viewpoints on whether or not this was the right decision by the President to help them decide for themselves what they thought. 

After that, students blogged about their reflections below to my prompts and we discussed how to join in these conversations online in safe and responsible way.  This is an important issue with digital citizenship.

Watch the President's speech here:



Assignment for students
Now that you have watched the President's speech and researched the situation online on various news sources; please respond the following prompts.  Please sign in anonymously and just sign at the end of your post with your first name.  Mr. Halvorsen

1.  Do you think the President made the right decision? Why - explain.
2.  What do you think the United States and UN should do now in Libya?  How would your choice affect the future of this nation and the rest of the Middle East which is very unstable politically right now?

15 comments:

  1. Here is a what one Senator said today on the news who did NOT agree with President Obama's decision to become militarily involved in Libya. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42334849/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1. Yes I do think he made the right decision. I mean money is a problem right now, but if Gadafi stays in power it would be very bad and you cant let those people be slaughtered.

    2. Well we need all the allies we can get in the Middle East. Obiviously we are not friends with Gadafi, so we should make friends with the rebels so if they come to power we might have more allies and during this trying time friends are a good thing to have. Also we should get Gadafi out since he is a madman and a murderer. Grayson Forsberg

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1.) I believe that the president made the best decision he could in a siuation like this, the top priotity was to save human lives and try to stabalize the government in my opinion, and i think that he did that so yes he made the right desicion.
    2.) i think that we should just keep an eye on them and make sure that no more violence occurs. i think that this one thing wouldnt really effect the rest of the middle east but it would help stabalize Libya.
    -Andreas

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1. Yes, I believe that Obama made the right decision by stopping the attacks of the dictator of Libya (Muammar Gaddafi). The President is just trying to help Libya and even though this will cost us lots of money and supplies, I think it was the right thing to do because we are helping save many lives in Libya. I would like forgein help if our city was being attacked by our own army and therefore I think Obama's choice was right.

    2. I think that the United States and UN should exile Gadaffi far away or put him in prison. Gadaffi deserves to be punished for his actions and should no longer dictate his country in my opinion. Gadaffi was willing to kill his own people and I am glad Obama took action to stop the slaughter. I think my choice would make the Middle East more stable knowing that we ( the United States) and the UN have their back and are willing to help them in the case of massacre in their home country so now I think those countries will probably feel safer.
    -Nash

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am glade that we are helping, but we need money too. The peaple in libya ara in alot of trouble, they need alot of help and i hope the problem will be solved soon. I think that it
    would help more if we saved our money before we help another country. Many countrys are haveing problems and america is one of them.
    - Tanya

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think President Obama made the right the decisio because he saved lives and will save lots of money.The US should help but not spen to much on it because it will affect us too. The choise will affect us because Lybia and our allies have the oil that we need for the US and it will affect everything in the US. -monica

    ReplyDelete
  7. I believe that the President made the right decision in a moral aspect, but if it is truly just about the oil then it could have been thought out more productively. I believe that if millions of people are going to die then we as powerful people of the United States should do the best that we can to prevent such massacres. One thing about this though is that we are in an economic issue and if we are unable to help all of the little coutries in Africa in the same situation, then we should not help out Libya just because of the oil. Instead of spending all of the money that we do on intervening we could have spent on cars and others machines powered off of something besides gas so that we are not so dependent of other countries. After this is established we will be more able to spend from extra savings from not buying gasoline, on helping the other people.

    I believe that now, after we have done the things that we have done, completly take down this dictator, just snipe him out, and then deal with our own situation within the U.S. so that we can fix ourselves before fixing everyone else first. This would effect the Middle East mostlikely in harmful ways in the moment, yet in the long run, after we help ourselves we will have more money to help them with in the long run, and then we will mostlikely be capable of elping all unstable nations as our policy states and not just the ones that meen the most to our countries survival. -- Katherine

    ReplyDelete
  8. 1. Part of me says yes while the other says no. If we didnt help and watched in the sidelines as people got killed a lot of people would feel guilty but for someone like me who doesnt watch the news or keep up with what is happening in the world it wouldnt really affect me. I feel that the US doesnt have the money for this either.

    2. Now that we are already in Libya we should continue to help them. In the future if we get rid of the current dictator and Libya gets a new one that respects the rights of the citizens then we can get another ally. There is a lot of oil in that area which the US uses so the sooner we resolve this issue the gas prices should go down.

    Rosston

    ReplyDelete
  9. It thik the president Obama is making a corect deciosion, becaous it's saving alot a money, i think We shoul help but also not tike spending all of the money on that, i agree that we can help but also let other countries Help, USA is not the only country that can help

    Somehow if We dont help or if we don't do something to win the country's trust we may ont get the fuel that we need, so that the gasoline woun't cost more.----- GIOVANNI

    ReplyDelete
  10. i think that the us needs to stay out of the middle east. we are in a massive debt and we need to save the money we have. not spend it on helping lybia. it seems to me that the us is the fist to help everybody but when we need help it seems like no one jumps up to help us. if it was up to me we would never have gone into lybia because it is not our buisness. let them deal with their own problems at the moment. it would be more reasonable if we werent in debt. but we are and we shouldnt be spending our millitary money on other countries. troy

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1) yes i believe the president made the right choice by taking action in lybia. if he didnt then i feel it would have hurt our economy more because lybia is a major oil producer.

    2) i feel that if we just sit back and monitor our allies progres that should be good enough. the best case senario would be to have Gadafi step down from power and establish a demorcracy.

    Dillon

    ReplyDelete
  12. Great comments class.....I don't envy President Obamas job right now. We know one thing; there are no easy choices in the Middle East right now.

    ReplyDelete
  13. 1. Yes, I think the President made the right decision to stop the attacks in Libya by their dictator Gadhafi. It's our job as Americans to help out other countries in need and especially if innocent people are being killed. We have already spent so much money, time, and supplies by helping out but we have saved many lives and I hope if something like that were to happen in our town, we would recieve foreign help in return of what we're doing.
    2. I think that the United States and UN should exile Gadhafi to ensure no more harm can be done by him. Gadhafi would deserve murder for all the lives he's taken himself, but murder is exactly what the United States is trying to avoid. This choice would make Libya more stable because their dictator wouldn't be controling them anymore, they would have more freedom, and a new, hopefully better leader would come into office and would make right decisions for Libya.

    -Zoe

    ReplyDelete
  14. I think that the president made the right decision because he didnt have many options to choose from.
    I think that the US and UN need to supply the libyan rebels with arms but not troops. We cant give them help a little bit then just ditch them as soon as they need us for more than airsupport. All in all I think we should supply the rebels with weapons.
    Max

    ReplyDelete
  15. Will
    1) The president made the wrong choice with Libya; we should not get involved in another countries revolution. We should not get involved because now we will have to intervene in all revolutions that happen in the Middle East. This intervention will also cost the USA more money, which we don’t have, and we may never get paid back from the new leadership.

    2) The US and UN should stay in Libya and see the revolution through, because if they don’t they be seen as groups that can’t be relied on.
    My choice to not have ever helped Libya would affect the rest of the Middle East. The affects of my choice would just create more political uprisings throughout the Middle East. My decision would also affect the USA. To stay out of Libya, it would keep our debt down, if we ever send soldiers to help, it would save American lives, and we would keep the same relations with the Middle East. Also if we keep helping these people in the Middle East, we are stretching our military, and it leaves us open to be attacked, and taken down by a powerful opponent.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for joining in on our conversation!