Thursday, September 4, 2008

 

Hello, Seniors!

Today we are going to walk through the process of submitting articles for the school's online newspaper, The Code. After reading these instructions, please return to the home page of my wiki and click on the article submission link. I will take you step by step through the process of writing an article for the newspaper. I would like everyone to have an article submitted by September 10, 2008. Please pay close attention to the instructions I give you about plagiarism and copyright laws. You may choose any topic you like for this first article. Remember, spelling and grammar count and your articles will be read by MANY people online. Make sure you are submitting your best work. Use word to begin and edit before you cut and paste onto the article submission screen. As soon as everyone has clicked on the article submission link I will begin instruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, September 8, 2008

 

Hi! Today, we are going to continue working on responding to the blog (I'm still missing a few) and writing the newspaper article (we only have two so far). Also, I need everyone to go to www.pbwiki.com to set up a personal wiki page. I will walk you through the process if you need help. You may name your page whatever you want- but remember, once you name your page, it is extremely difficult to change that name.

Once you are on the website, click on the green button to Create a Wiki. Fill in the appropriate fields (use a password that you WILL REMEMBER!!!!). Once you click on Create My Wiki, you will be sent an email with a link to complete the process. If I can access email from my laptop, we can complete the process in class. Otherwise, you will need to check your email from home or from the library in order to complete the process. Once you have answered the email, you will be able to edit your wiki in class.

Remember- newspaper articles are due by the end of class on Wednesday. You must have a wiki ready to edit by TOMORROW!

Call me over if you need assistance.

BTW:

4 GB Sandisk- $19.99 at Best Buy

4 GB Verbatim- $19.99 at Office Max

2 GB Verbatim- $11.99 at Office Max

2 GB PNY Technologies- $9.99 at Circuit City

 

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Hi! Keep those articles coming. If you were able to set up your wiki from home- you rock! If not, hopefully Connors was able to convince the powers that be downtown that we REALLY need access to that site. If we are able to get to the site, I can access your personal email accounts from my laptop in order to finish the process. In the meantime, check out other wikis from last year in order to get some ideas for your own. I'd also like you to spend time reading the blog responses of your classmates and, of course, read the newspaper articles that have been submitted.

 

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Hello! The articles have been great- keep them coming. Today is the last day to submit articles (end of class deadline). Hopefully, you were able to create a wiki from home or the library. If so, you need to go straight to your wiki page and start editing! Add pictures, music (we are still stumped on that one!), and add a few details about yourself. Check out last year's wikis for inspiration.

I am going to be working on creating links for all wikis from my home page. Please visit some code sites such as 123mycodes.com or google search some other possible sites. Just remember, not all codes work with the wikis. Also, use the photo site to resize photos or images that you find online. I am also asking that students who know codes etc. help out the students who are new to this kind of thing. Thanks!Try Shrinkpictures to resize pics.

BTW- Make sure you take some time to read the paper and the blog responses. I edited the newspaper articles (because that's what editors do!) But, i did not make corrections on the blog responses. My advice to you is to BE MORE CAREFUL about punctuation, spelling, typos etc. It all counts against you. Reread what you posted and what others have posted and ask yourselves if you like the way you sound and if you are giving the impression of well-educated young adults.

 

Thursday, September 11, 2009

WIKIS WIKIS WIKIS

 

Edit your wikis. If you have not made one yet, see me ASAP. I'm looking for those of you who have experience with Myspace and facebook to help out your peers who are having trouble with the diting process. Thanks. I'm still working on editing the newspaper articles- give me a little time to get those posted.

 

Friday, September 12, 2008

In spite of our computer problems, you all seem to have been moving forward with creating wikis. Please spend some time editing your front page. I would like to see progress by Monday. If you have finished your front page, please give me your url (address) so I can link your wikis on my front page.

 

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Wikis will be graded starting today. You need to have your front page completed (I need to see progress and attempts at trying to add things)

Today, we are starting a new project that will coincide with "Banned Books Month" (it's actually banned books week from September 27–October 4, 2008, but McDermott and I are going with a month!) Anyway, I would like you to visit the website http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.cfm for a list of the top 100 most challenged books. Look through the list and find ONE book that you have read or that you are at least familiar with. You will be creating a movie about this book using One True Media.  Go to www.onetruemedia.com and sign up for an account. Then, play around with the things One True Media has to offer. Try to figure things out for yourself- try different things and be OK with making some mistakes. It's all about trial and error. Make a "practice video" to see what this site is all about. Your challenge is to create a movie about your banned book. Make it original- and creative. Use various images from the book and think about images that relate to Freedom of Speech and Press and book banning (or burning). You have one week to create an awesome movie that we will be uploading and viewing in class. Your movie should be between 30 and 60 seconds long.

 

Thursday, September 18, 2008 

Today, you should be continuing to complete your movie on onetruemedia.com

After playing around with the montage, I noticed that when you send a montage by email, you lose some of the premium features. Therefore, what we are going to do is sign-on to separate accounts from the main computer and view each montage with the projector. All montages must be completed by Monday.

I have been correcting wikis and they are looking good. 

I'll give grades on Friday.

GET TO WORK!

 

Friday, September 19, 2008

How are the montages going? Have you found out anything new about your challenged or banned book? If you are finished, please be patient with your classmates who have not completed their montages. Maybe you could give some assistance to those who might need it? Otherwise, you may work on things for other classes.

All montages should be completed by Monday.

Monday, September 22, 2008

We will begin viewing montages today (provided all of our equipment works correctly!) I have wiki grades for you- most of you received 100%. Some of you received lower grades because I felt there was not enough progress made on your wiki OR because there were cuss words used even after I warned you to remove them. I will give out your grades at the end of class.

 

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I'm not sure how many of you will be in class today because of the college fair. We will view any remaining montages today. You all did very well with this project. I especially liked the projects that explained WHY the book was banned and included images of censorship and book banning.

We will be working with PowerPoint next. Some of you are familiar with PowerPoint, others have never used PowerPoint before. I will explain the particulars of the next project on Wednesday when everyone is back.

 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

IMPORTANT: Any student not on task at all times will be told to shut down his/her computer.  As always, all projects are posted on this wiki page. There are no excuses for incomplete assignments or missed work UNLESS I am notified by the administration that there are medical reasons for incomplete assignments. Otherwise, all students are expected to complete all assignments. Extensions will be given on a case by case basis. Students MUST see me if extensions are needed BEFORE the assignment due date. Otherwise, no extensions will be granted.

 

Thursday, September 25, 2008 and Friday, September 26, 2008

Please continue working on your Powerpoints. I saw a lot of great ideas yesterday- keep it up! If you have a digital camera- start taking pictures of things that define who you are. (Your room, your friends, your job etc.) Make this a fun project to complete and a fun project to watch. If you need help, try to work through the problem yourself. If you can't find what you are looking for, ask your neighbor or me- chances are between the three of us, we'll figure it out.

 

Monday and Tuesday- September 29 and 30, 2008

Please continue working on your Powerpoint projects. You are all doing a great job. If you have questions or need help, don;t hesistate to ask another student.

 

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Continue working. If you need help with music, please let me know. You can use a CD or you can save the song/songs to your flashdrive. I will show you how to insert your music and get it to play throughout your presentation. The project is due on Monday. If you believe you have finished, go back and think about adding additional effects, or changing backgrounds. I know some of you have worked at home. Make sure your project plays the same way on our computers as it does on your home computer.

 

Friday, October 3, 2008

OK- You have two days to get this done. If you need assistance with music, please call me over. Don't forget, you can apply effects to  all of your pics and text. Any questions, just ask.

 

Your next project:

POWERPOINT AUTOBIOGRAPHY   Project Deadline: Monday, October 6 by the end of class. Guidelines: Each student must present his/her autobiography in a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation must have no fewer than 10 slides (no more than 15). There must be text and graphics (pictures or clip art or imges, etc.) on each slide. There must be music that begins on the first slide and continues throughout the presentation. You must add effects (animations) to each slide. (DO NOT INCLUDE SOUNDS AS THEY WILL INTERFERE WITH YOUR MUSIC) The project must be TIMED to run on its own (no mouse clicking allowed). The project and THE MUSIC TRACK must be saved onto your flashdrive. Give the flashdrive to me when you have finished. LIMIT the amount of text you use. We do not want to READ about who you are- we want to SEE who you are.

 

MONDAY,  OCTOBER 6, 2008

Your projects are due today. If you have them completed, hand me your flash drive and I'll transfer the data to my computer. MAKE SURE your music and any video clips you have are also saved SEPARATELY on the flash drive (open a new folder and name it (your name)'s powerpoint. Put everything that I'll need to transfer into that folder (your powerpoint, your music, any video). That way, I'll only have to transfer the one file to my computer. See me if you have any questions.

 

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Great job on the Powerpoints!!!!!! I'll have your grades by Tuesday. Today, we are going to work on c writing another newspaper article for our eleventh edition. This time, each of you will pick a topic out of a hat and will be required to write an article on that topic. Some of the topics require a little research. ALL articles should be of OUTSTANDING quality. I will give more weight to the topics that require a little more research. After choosing your topics, you may NOT trade topics with another student. I want you to challenge yourself (and you should want that too). All articles are due by Wednesday, October 15. Remember, this is a DEADLINE.

 

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

OK- you should all be working on your newspaper articles (due tomorrow). Today, I'd like you to grab a video camera and video tape someone for a few minutes just to get a feel for the camera. Everyone should have a turn using the video camera and then playing it back on the camera itself. Our next project is an ISpeak.  I need you to choose a piece of poetry or an excerpt from a passage that you like. (Yes, you can write your own poem). The passage needs to be about 30 seconds in length. You will be signing out video cameras and recording ONE SHOT scenes that reflect your piece. (I will show you some of these tomorrow so you will get the idea). You will recite your piece using digital video. We are going to put video and voice-over together and create a short film. This is the first attempt at using Movie Maker, so I'm going to rely on those of you with experience to help out.

 

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES #1 PRIORITY

I asked you to start looking for a piece of poetry or prose to work with. YOU MUST HAVE A PIECE BY TOMORROW. Start/continue looking for a piece (look online).

If you already know what you will be using, and you've timed it out already, you may sign-out a camera today. The deadline for these projects will be Thursday, October 23rd. I will accept early projects by all means.

 

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I am slowly working on getting the newspaper articles posted. Unfortunately, there are TOO MANY ARTICLES that need MAJOR editing and it is taking a great deal of time. Some of you did not put nearly enough effort into your articles. EVERY article needs to be at LEAST 10 sentences in length. EVERY ARTICLE should have a picture or graphic. I have a digital camera---use it if you need it. I will approach students who need to rewrite articles.

There are three powerpoints that we have not seen yet. I am planning on showing those first thing. I then want you to work on your ISpeak.

 

Monday, October 20, 2008-Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I will not be in for most of the week as my grandmother passed away Sunday morning. Therefore, we are going to have to suspend our iSpeak projects until I return. If you have a camera, please give it to Mr. Connors and ask him to put the camera in the safe.

 

What I would like you to do in the mean time is:

 

1.) Respond to the latest blog posting- "He's a Maverick..." (use the link on the front page of this wiki)

2.) Add a new page to your personal wikis. Call the new page "Where I will be in Ten Years". Use text, pictures, graphics to show me where you think you will be in ten years' time. You can be comical- I can use comical right about now. Have this completed by Thursday.

3.) Use any extra time in the lab working on www.freerice.com or www.collegeboard.com

Be good for the sub...I know you will be

 

Email me if you have any questions: kmonacohannon@buffaloschools.org

 

ATTENTION DEBATE TEAM MEMBERS!!!!!

Our first debate is against Hutch Tech. We are the NEGATIVE!!!

 

Monday, October 27, 2008

OK- Back to work-

I have decided to suspend the iSpeak project until we can figure out the moviemaker software and find a way to save our projects without losing anything. Therefore, what I would like for you to do is pair up with someone in the class.  You will video tape eachother. You must say, on camera, "One thing most people don't know about me is..." or "One thing most people would be surprised to find out about me is..." and tell the camera what that thing is. Then, working together on one computer, upload that footage to MovieMaker. Edit the footage, play around with the effects (even if you choose not to keep the effects), learn how to use all of the things that MovieMaker has to offer. Save the footage ON THE COMPUTER. Create a new folder on the desktop for the footage. When finished, you will need to create a movie. I will have students who have used MovieMaker showing you how to do this. I would like these movies completed by Thursday. Make them great!

I will get all of the cameras from the safe and we will get going. Save all video ON THE COMPUTER and not on your flashdrive. Create a new folder with your name on it. Keep your movie in that folder and work on it from there. (I am hoping that will work!)

I looked at your wikis Sunday night- you guys make me laugh! (Antonia, I better not look like that in 10 years!) Nine of you did not create a new page- not good... I have also read your blog responses- good stuff!

Monday, November 3, 2008

We are going to look at our videos toady.

Next Project: A Reality-Type video.

Group Project

I want you to think of a parody of MTV's True Life, VH1's Behind the Music, E!'s True Hollywood Story, MTV's Parental Controls, MTV's Real World or even Cartoon Network's Total Drama Island (or any other reality-based show.) This is a COMEDY or a PARODY of what these shows are about. Make something up that is FUNNY. Use people from other classes, family, friends etc. You will be signing out the cameras for this project. REMEMBER, you can only sign-out the camera for ONE night. Therefore, you have to PLAN AHEAD.

 

SPECIFICATIONS OF PROJECT:

Use MovieMaker

Video must have music somewhere

Video must be at least two minutes in length

Video must have an introduction and credits at the end

 

DUE DATE: Tuesday, November 18th