Tuesday 26 October 2010

Assignment #9: The Golden Rule


Hello R8A,

Your newest assignment is a collaborative one. Ms. Crosbie's students have been reading and thinking about The Golden Rule. They will be posting a response to her assignment on their blogs.

Your buddies' names are listed on the right hand side of my blog, with links to your blogs and theirs. Please check on your buddy's blog (or buddies' blogs) often and make sure to leave thoughtful comments and questions. You will be evaluated on this.

For this assignment, visit your buddy's blog, read his or her post about The Golden Rule and, in the comments section, do a 3-2-1. 3 things you liked about the post, 2 other ideas that could be added (maybe links or your own personal connections), and 1 question for the poster.

Layout your comment like this:
3 things I liked
-
-
-
2 further ideas
-
-
1 question
-
Remember to be thorough, thoughtful and respectful in your comments.

Monday 25 October 2010

Kenneth Oppel

Hello eights,

As you know, this is Ottawa's first ever Teen Author Week. There are lots of free events being put on in libraries around the city to promote reading and writing for teens.

Tonight, Kenneth Oppel was in town. He is the author of many books, including the Silverwing series (great books about a bat named Shade), the Airborn series (set in airships) and a brand new novel called Half Brother (an only child gets a chimp as a little brother).

Jeffrey arrived with his mom and little brother and I ran into them in the parking lot. We found seats in the front row and enjoyed a GREAT show! Ken Oppel was entertaining and engaging. The audience gathered in the theatre at the Nepean Centrepointe Library was in the palm of his hand.

Mr. Oppel told us about his writing process, his inspiration and read to us from Half Brother. The book is both hilarious and heart-warming. I wish you all could have been there tonight, he was inspring. I was amazed by the amount of reserach he does before he even starts writing. He becomes an expert on a topic and makes book after book of notes before the story itself begins. He showed us photos of his many, many book drafts. Together, one book makes up a pile about the height of my two-year old nephew, Andy! His earliest editors are his two oldest children, to whom he reads aloud and gauges their attention and interest. Mr. Oppel rewrites his book four times before sending it to his three international English language publishers. Editors at each of the three offices (in London, Toronto and New York) send back tons of notes and he takes those into consideration before writing his final draft.

Jeffrey bravely asked the final question of the evening. Mr. Oppel had showed us a photo of his inspiration board (a bulletin board full of images in his office) for his new book, it was like a display of Flair! There were a few old maps, a photo of a strange looking bird and a photo of a bright blue fish. We tried to make inferences based on our observations. I thought maybe he was writing about mutations of some kind. Jeffrey asked Mr. Oppel what the book was about and he answered! Now, we have a sneak preview of the book that will be coming out next fall. Ask Jeffrey if you want to know about it. I was incorrect in my guess, but it's way cooler than what I thought of. Perhaps, he'll even write a blog post about it!

At the very end, Mr. Oppel offered to sign autographs and gave everyone a bookmark (that he had promised us at the beginning of his presentation!). There was a huge line of fans waiting to meet their favourite author. When we met him, he signed our books (he signed mine, "To Miss Pollock") and we snapped a quick photo.

I have several of Mr. Oppel's books in the classroom and I strongly recommend them to all of you. Now that it is the Read-A-Thon, you should think about checking out one or more of his books. Tyler has already devoured Half Brother.

It was a wonderful evening, and I hope you all think about attending some of the other events this week, and I hope this becomes an annual event.

Live Blogging from a Workshop

Hello friends,
I am at a workshop this morning with Mr. Glossop, M d'Entremont, Mme Martel, Mme Dorion and Mrs. Eliasson. We are using a cool new program called "Smart Ideas". We will play with this in class. It's super fun and a great way to organize your ideas.


Here's what I've made so far:
I got to eat some dragon fruit, too.
See you this afternoon!

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Assignment #8: HOW are you Creative?

Hello pups,

I was asked a very interesting question the other day, which is "HOW are you creative?" This person took for granted that everyone IS creative, but we are all creative in different ways. I loved that attitude and I totally agree with it. Sometimes people claim, "I'm not creative." All I can say to that is WRONG! Each one of us is creative, but sometimes in very different ways.

Your task is to tell and to show us how YOU are creative. Some of you have wonderful talents that I already know about. Willeme denies it, but he is an AMAZING dancer. Noah can navigate a basketball court. Tyler loves to draw. Amy is a writer. Haneen is a poet. Melissa is a songbird. Hannah is an empath. Jeffrey is an animal tamer. Sara is a rocker. Charlotte can express herself through art. Qavi is a stand up comedian. Reshad is an artist. Mateen is a programmer. That's not all you are, though. Each of you is so much more than that, you may not even want to focus on those talents that I've listed. There are SO many talents that you each have and you often keep them hidden. It's time to bring them out into the open!

Our classroom FLAIR was a great way for you to demonstrate your passions, and I'm going to let you do that again, on your blogs. Not only will your classmates and I see what you have to share, but so will your buddies in Ms. Thurow's classes in Toronto (hi!) and your buddies in Ms. Crosbies classes in Oshawa (hello!) and my classmates in the course I'm taking at Queen's (hola!). In fact, anyone, anywhere in the world with Internet access, can see where you shine and HOW you are creative.

I want you to be creative in how you complete this task. After all, this is a task about your individual creativity. Your requirements are: start a new blog post and in it, tell us (with words) and show us (with music, pictures, video...) HOW you are creative. Your posts will be very unique, but I want you to make sure you really showcase your abilities. In the words of your post, you need to include a description of HOW you are creative, HOW you express that creativity and WHY it is so important to you.

Some examples: you may want to record yourself dancing and post a video of that on your blog with a description of why you are passionate about this and how it helps you to express your point of view. You may want to photograph and post examples of designs you've created for clothing. The sky is the limit on this one. You may want to embed samples of your video game designs.

If you need access to a video camera or digital camera and do not have one, you can make an appointment with me and we'll use mine. I'll even show you how to upload and embed videos and photos.

You'll notice that this post is a lot of text and not much else. That's deliberate on my part. I don't want to sway you too much one way or another. I want you to create posts that are meaningful and exciting to you.

There is a lot of freedom in this task and I don't want you to rush into publishing your post. You can always hit "Save now" and come back and work on a post in the "Edit Posts" tab. This is a very personal, innovative task when I want you to reflect honestly and share creatively. I cannot wait to see what you come up with!

Good luck!

***when you start your post, make absolute certain to link back to this assignment post*** (you should be doing this on all your assignment posts)

Assignment #7 - World of Work!

Hello friends,

Exactly one week from today, we will be on our first field trip of the year! We will be at Landsdowne Park at The World of Work. This is always a really fun morning for our grade 8s and I'm sure this year will be no exception.

In preparation for our trip, make sure you've returned your permission form by Friday. If it's not in by then, you will be staying behind! If for some reason, you've misplaced your form, please email me right away and I will get one for you.
The purpose of this event is to highlight opportunities in our communities and schools to support you as you transition into the world of work, the trades and college. There will be more than 60 presenters with interactive, informative booths at this event. When we are there, you are encouraged to seek out the booths that interest you, ask questions and pick up materials. There will be presenters there from the following sectors: Construction Sector, Design & Manufacturing Sector, Service Sector, Information & Technology Sector and Transportation Sector. All of us will, at some point in our lives, work in the trades. This is a very important, informative assignment and field trip.

Start a new post and follow these steps:
-Link back to this post
1. Do some research on these sectors (I've linked to some helpful sites to get you started, see below)
2. Think about which sector appeals the most to you. Why? List at least 2 reasons
3. List at least three specific jobs for each sector (5 sectors x 3 jobs each = 15 jobs listed) (you may make some inferences or guesses here)
4. What do you hope to learn more about on our field trip? Write at least 4 questions you have.
5. What pathway do you plan on taking after high school? College? The world of work/trades? University? Why? What do you specifically want to do as a career (or careers!)?
6. Include some relevant photographs to your entry (at least 2)
7. Link back to the sites where you found your information at the bottom of your post under the heading: References

Some places to start looking for information:
Careersintrades.ca
Skillscanada.com - especially THIS page
World Skills Portal
Skilled Trades Guide

It Gets Better - Part 2


Hello R8A,

I'm sorry that I'm not there with you today. The cold that I've been had for weeks has gotten even worse. I'm going to a few appointments and hopefully I'll get much better really soon! I miss you all. Please make sure to read through the new posts and prioritize your tasks. I've changed your SOLE assignment due dates, so you can do your individual assignments and tasks first.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 20th is the Day of Purple. People all over the world will be wearing purple clothes to show support for people's individuality and in memory of the young men who have taken their own lives because of LGBTQ bullying.

I will be decked out in a cool purple dress and purple nail polish at my doctor's appointments. Will you wear purple tomorrow?

Click here to read my post, It Gets Better. Reflect on reasons why it is important to show your support. For a bonus, link back to this post and create a new post on your blog.

Assignment #6 - URGENT- Comment settings!


Ms. Thurow's students from Toronto are visiting and reading your blogs and would like to comment on them. Unfortunately, some are unable to comment on your blogs. Each of you needs to make absolute certain that you have set up your comment settings properly. Please visit this post and make sure you have followed ALL instructions.

Anyone needs to be able to comment (allow for anonymous commenters) and you need to ensure that word verification is OFF.

This is a priority.

Make sure you have set things up properly, and then leave a comment on this post, so I can check.

Monday 18 October 2010

Mystery Photos



To prepare for upcoming lessons, examine these photos, observe what you see and make inferences about why I am sharing these with you. We will be working with these images later this week.


For a bonus, leave a comment where you make several observations and inferences about these photos.

Tweet Up

Hello R8A (and other readers out there in Blogville!),

This afternoon, Mateen and Noah stuck around after school to take part in a "Tweet Up" (a twitter meet-up) with professors and students at Algonquin College. Twitter was not being terribly reliable (it was VERY slow), but Mateen had a chance to answer lots of questions about his interesting part-time job (app developer). If you are interested in seeing what went on, you can see a summary here.

I am having such a blast with you this year, R8A and I can't wait to learn more about ALL of your hidden talents. We'll do an assignment very soon called "HOW are you creative?", where you'll have a chance to showcase your unique talents. Feel free to leave a comment below giving us a clue about what those are!

Assignment #5 - Island Man: Work With It

Today in class, you were introduced to the poem, Island Man. I want you to work with the poem on your blog.

Copy the text of the poem to a new post on your own blog. Link to this post. Select the 10 most important words in the poem (in your opinion) and put them in italics. Select two photos or images from the Internet and embed them in the poem at appropriate places.

Finally, answer the question: "Where would you most like to wake up?" (answer in at least 5 lines describing where you would like to wake up and your reasoning)

Here is the poem:

Island Man (for a Caribbean island man in London who still wakes up the sound of the sea)
by Grace Nichols

Morning
and island man wakes up
to the sound of blue surf
in his head
the steady breaking and wombing
wild seabirds
and fishermen pushing out to sea
the sun surfacing defiantly
from the east
of his small emerald island

He always comes back
groggily groggily
comes back to sands
of a grey metallic soar
to a surge of wheels
to dull North Circular roar
muffling muffling
his crumpled pillow waves
island man heaves himself
another London day

For a bonus, practice reading the poem aloud. Do you read it the same as I did? Differently? You may be asked to perform it in class. We still have more work to do with this one!

Here is one reader's interpretation of Island Man.

Does this look familiar?

Sunday 17 October 2010

Assignment #4 - Self Organized Learning Environments

Embedded below is a video that I LOVE and try to watch at least twice a year, I find it hugely inspiring. This is video that comes from TED conferences (Technology, Education and Design). You might remember that earlier in the year, I spoke about a woman named Aimee Mullins who has lost both of her legs and is still able to do all kinds of incredible things. I first saw her speak on the TED website.

Sugata Mitra speaks in this video about some amazing experiments he has conducted. I want you to watch for yourself and see what you think. If you would like the speech translated, you can click on the link and pick a language from the pull down menu below the video.

You do not have to watch the entire video. You can start at 7:15 and stop at 14:55. You are welcome to watch the whole thing, but the key stuff I want you to see is in the middle and you're probably eager to get down to work.



Once you have finished watching this video, you have a task to complete. You will work in a group of four students (hmm...I wonder why I picked THAT number!?) to complete this task. You may use only one computer among the four of you. Figure out how that will work in a fair way, you will need to figure out seating and turn off all but one of your computers, sitting in such a way that you can all see what is going on with your computer monitor.


Your groups and your topics:
Group A - Aaisha, Amy, Melissa, Reshad - Cyberbullying
Group B - Claire, Qavi, Shahad, Zuhair - Kiva, Freerice, The Girl Effect
Group C - Haneen, Jumanh, Tyler, Will - Plagarism on the Internet
Group D - Hannah, Mateen, Connor, Charlotte - Privacy on facebook
Group E - Jatinder, Tara, Zak - Your Digital Footprint
Group F - Jeffrey, Noah, Sara, Walid - Teenagers and Sleep

If I do not have your name on this list, it means you have not completed all the steps of Assignment #1. Make sure you get those done and I will put you in a group (and link to you) post haste.

Along with your group, research your topic. Pretend I'm not here. Help one another. The key thing I'm looking for in this task is that you REALLY understand your topic. The writing comes after great, in-depth research. While you research, save the web addresses of the really helpful sites you used. After you have a good grasp on your topic, select one student on whose blog you will post the answers to the following questions. You will collaboratively write a post that is directed to your peers. You will post this assignment on only ONE of your blogs. Other group members will link from their blogs to the completed post. Make sure you write IN YOUR OWN WORDS in a way that is appropriate and all conventions are followed (spelling, grammar, punctuation). Make sure to layout your work well, lots of white spaces, bold headings, etc. so it is easy and enjoyable to read. Remember, you are writing for your peers.

In your post, you must include:
-title of your topic
-a note that this is an assignment for class and a link to my blog, specifically this assignment
-names of all the researchers and links to each of their blogs
-3 or more great sources for information on this topic (hyperlinked)
-2 or more well placed, carefully selected images to help add clarity for your reader
-a description of what this issue is (think of "who, what, where, when, why, how" to guide your research and writing)
-a reflection on why this issue is important in the digital classroom
-a summary of how your readers (your peers) can use this information to make their own lives better (this could be in jot notes or sentences, but must be clear and easy to understand, it could be a list of tips for your reader)


Good luck and enjoy your SOLEs.

Our Student of the Month Empathy Presentation



Remember this? I don't know if our friends at Hillsdale can watch this at school (it's a Youtube clip which we cannot watch at school), or if they'll have to wait until they're home. Many of you wanted this to be accessible online.

Saturday 9 October 2010

Editing Reminder

Ms. Crosbie has just made a wonderful post and reminder to her students. I encourage you to head over to her blog and check it out.

She reminds her students that these are professional educational blogs and that there are high expectations for your layout, spelling, grammar and punctuation. I can tell that most of you already are, but make sure to always proofread before posting your new posts and comments.

Friday 8 October 2010

It Gets Better

I am so proud of all of you today. We had a wonderful, thoughtful discussion at the end of the day before our long weekend. I am proud of you for listening to one another, supporting one another and showing maturity.

There was a lot of heavy stuff that we talked about and you are all probably processing the discussion in different ways. In fact, I heard one of you educating a student in another class about the importance of the words we use.

I wanted to make some videos available to you if you are interested in watching them. These are some of the things I was referring to in class today. I have embedded youtube clips, which you will not be able to watch at school, but you can at home.

For a bonus, write a post on your own blog (link back to this post and leave me a comment to let me know you've done it) reflecting on what we talked about today and/or relating the issues to your own experiences. Not everyone got to share their stories today, but now you have a chance to share them online. Start a post, write a poem, a story or your thoughts.

Remember:
When things get rough, you'll get through it. It gets better.
Words are extremely powerful. Be cautious about how you use them and how you respond to the ways others use them.
There are people out there who love you and care about you more than you'll ever know. When you need help, turn to them. (One of those people is me, by the way.)



On Glee, Kurt's dad, Burt, responds to Finn's hurtful words about his son.



My favourite actor, Neil Patrick Harris tells you it gets better.



The wonderful Ellen Degeneres talks about teenage bullying and the crisis that we have been hearing about this month.



Chris Colfer (Glee's Kurt) tells you it gets better.

For more information and support, you can check out The Trevor Project.

UPDATE: Please take some time to visit Hannah's blog and read her response to our talk. She has written beautifully and honestly.

Thank you for your tolerance, empathy and support of one another. I am a proud teacher.

Be safe and happy this Thanksgiving weekend!

Creating a Link List

Hello R8A,

Now that we're starting to link up with students at Hillsdale, I want you to be able to create shortcuts for readers (and you) to be able to visit their blogs super quickly without having to type in the blog address every time.

Once you've logged in to blogger, go to your Dashboard. Select "Design". On the design page, select "Add a gadget". Scroll down the list of gadgets until you find "Link list". Select the "+" sign. This will open a window for you to edit your link list. Begin by adding my blog. Enter the blog address (http://pollockdigital.blogspot.com) or copy and paste it from another window. Write a title for my blog "Miss P's blog"/"My teacher's blog". Continue by adding your Hillsdale buddy's blog and other classmates' blogs that you refer to often.

A Happy Teacher

Thrilled am I.

I'm so absolutely ecstatic to see that Fielding and Hillsdale students have begun to connect. Please keep me posted on how your interactions are going and if you have any great ideas for collaborative digital tasks.

This is going to be really amazing, our new partnerships!

Thursday 7 October 2010

Student of the Month Reflection due Friday, October 8th

Date: _________________ Name:____________________

Class:______

Empathy Student of the Month Presentation

Reflection

Please answer these questions with detail. You can submit your answers by email, on your blog or on paper. This is due tomorrow (Friday, October 8th, 2010).

After watching the video of our Empathy presentation, reflect on what you saw and how it felt creating the performance, practising and performing.

Please answer in full sentences with lots of detail and juicy words.

3 Things that I think would have helped to improve our presentation

2 Things that I think went really well

1 Piece of advice I have for students who will be performing in the future

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Welcome Hillsdale Students!

Welcome to our new friends from Hillsdale! We are so thrilled that we're going to be working together digitally this year!

Ms. Crosbie is a teacher in Oshawa who just got married last weekend (CONGRATULATIONS!) and who teaches grade 6, 7 and 8 students at Hillsdale. She found me online and we decided to hook up our classes and try some new ways of learning collaboratively.

I was intrigued to learn that Ms. Crosbie's school is called Hillsdale, because it reminds me of Hilldale, a fictional neighbourhood in one of my all time favourite movies, Back to the Future (warning: this link makes noise. Turn your speakers down first!).

Ms. Crosbie's students will be working on their first assignment this week. They'll be making their welcome posts and visiting R8A's blogs. Don't be surprised when you see that they've commented on the things you've written! Our next step is to check out their blogs, answer some of their questions and pose some of our own.

Yay! This is about to get REALLY good!

Hillsdale students, settle in, take a look around and enjoy yourselves! We're eager to hear what you think about the work we've been doing.


Behind MY Name

I saw how much fun you were all having with Assignment #3 - Behind Your Name and I decided to join in! Also, you can take a look at this as a sample for completing your own assignment. Make it juicy!


Behind My Name - Shauna Elizabeth Pollock (Salvatore) (when you do your post, include only your first and middle names unless you get parental permission to include your surname/s. I'm a grown up so I didn't need parental permission. Yes, it rocks to be old!)

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was pretty great, because it's uncommon enough that I feel pretty unique and when I meet another "Shauna" (especially if it's spelled the same!), I get really excited and feel like we're somehow linked. I also like that it rhymes with Madonna, iguana and banana (if you say it in a British accent).

I think my parents chose this name for me because they thought it was a nice name. My Aunt Lisa says that she pressured them to use it because she had a crush on Shaun Cassidy. My dad says he knew a nurse that was named Shauna and she was really nice. My mom seemed pretty clueless about girls names, as she was SURE I was going to be a boy and she wanted me to be "Jared Daniel". I was almost named "Jana" which is a name I don't like as much as my own, but there was a cool story to it. My maternal grandparents are "Jack" and "Verna" so "Ja" from Jack and "-na" from Verna = "Jana", plus, I was born in January. However, my aunt got pregnant for my cousin shortly after my mom got pregnant with me and my aunt wanted to name her baby (if it was a girl) "Jenna". Many of you know that Jenna is like a sister to me and her babies, Andy and Will are my precious nephews. I'm glad we're not Jana and Jenna. That's just a little too precious.



After searching on Behind the Name and Baby Names, I learned that my name means "God is gracious". It took a while to find it on Behind the Name, because it took me through all the versions of my name: Shauna - Shaun - Sean - John.

Some other interesting things I learned are that Shauna has only once in history been in the top 300 girls names. When I was born, it was the 299th most popular girls name!

I think my name does suit me because I like the way it sounds coming out of my mouth, I love writing it and, like I said before, I like how unique it is. The meaning of my name doesn't really have anything to do with my life, but it's a great name, in my opinion. (Plus, "Shauna Pollock" sounds a lot like "Shopaholic" which is funny to me.)

If I could give myself a new name it would be something really funky and gender ambiguous like Vaughn or Hendrix (after Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jimi Hendrix, really amazing guitarists).

Other information: I looked up the origins of my full name.
Shauna = God is gracious
Elizabeth = my god is a vow
Pollock = coronet (a horn)
Salvatore = rescuer

Basically, I'll conclude that I am a gracious, promise keeping rescuer who is as loud as a hooting coronet. Do you think that's about right?

This is the actual Pollock family crest. The logo means "boldly and strongly" and the boar pierced with the arrow means Pollocks fight to the death. Awesome.

Student of the Month Empathy Presentation


Hello R8A,

You did a great job on your Empathy presentation today. M. d'Entremont, Mrs. Leafloor and Mrs. Seabrook all extended their compliments and the other classes are really excited to get to do their presentations.

Tomorrow during period 2, we'll be watching Connor's video of your skits and evaluating them.

Creating a Hyperlink


Blogger is extremely user friendly and some of you have already figured out how to create a link to another website on your own.

It is very simple to create a working hyperlink.

When you are creating a new post or editing an old post, decide on the word or phrase that you would like to link to another page.

As an example, I am going to link to our class twitter right here.

All you need to do is highlight the word or words you would like to hyperlink, then click on the little hyperlink icon on the top of your posting menu bar. Enter the web address of the site you would like to link to (include http://) (you can copy and paste for this). Once you publish your post, check to see that the link is working.

Voila. You are linking pages on the Internet!

Assignment #3 - Behind Your Name


Good morning, bloggers.

As you probably remember, at the beginning of the year, I asked you to fill out a questionnaire so I could get to know you better. A few of the questions centred around your name. I asked you what you liked to be called and if you knew of any special significance behind your name.

Inspired by the wonderful Mrs. Burke, I have decided on your next assignment.

I would like you to do some research about your name and write a post telling us what you learned. As well, you are going to learn to create a hyperlink for this post.

First, go to the website, Behind the Name. Open it in a new tab in your browser so you can still have my blog and your blog open. Search for your name. You can type in your name to the search bar or search alphabetically.

Another site that has lots of interesting information about names is Baby Names. Once you have found your name, you can click on "more info" and see a chart demonstrating how popular your name has been in different years. At the bottom of the "more info" page, you can fill out a survey about your name to help the administrators of the website enhance their information. You may do this when you are done writing your post.

Tip: Search your full first name, not a shortened part. For example, if you are Isabella, but everyone calls you "Bella", search "Isabella" to get the most information.

Find out the meaning or the root of your name. My first name is Shauna and when I searched for it, I was directed by a link to "Shaun", then "Sean", then "John" before I got information about the root meaning of my name. You can have a look and see why I am gracious. You may have to follow a similar path to find out where your name started (the roots of it).

Start a new post. In this post, you will answer several questions in full sentences. You may need to copy my text and fill in the blanks.

Start off your post by linking back to this assignment.

Behind My Name: ________ (fill in your name)

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was ______, because _________.
I think my parents chose this name for me because __________________________.

After searching on Behind the Name (create a link here), I learned that my name means ____________ (use your own words here).

Some other interesting things I learned are _______________________ (maybe there was extra information, you learned the root of your name or where it comes from or who are some famous people with the same name, maybe you looked up your middle or last name).

I think my name does/does not (select one) suit me because ___________________.

If I could give myself a new name, it would be ______________, because _________________. (Connor, this would be an OK time to talk about "Dragon"!)

You may add any extra comments or reflections about your name at the end of the post.


For a bonus, look up the name of a character in a book, movie or TV show that you like and write about why that name does/does not suit that character's personality.

For a sample of how you can do a great job on this assignment, check out mine or Hannah's.

Please leave a comment at the bottom of this post when you have completed this assignment. Make sure you are logged in so I can easily access your blog.