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.
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.
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!
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.
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)
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.
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.
