Learning Log-February 6, 2012

Learning Log-February 6, 2012

Hi everyone, sorry for posting a bit late. I came back a little late from basketball practice, I ask for your forgiveness. Anyway I’m here now and I’m posting for today’s Monday afternoon Humanities 8 class!

What We Did Today

Today was another day that we had to see the pros and cons of different posts and to see what we had to improve on when we post. In other words, we looked at blog posts from many different blogs in our class. “Pudgie’s Tasty Pizza”, “The Five Hairy Hairless Wolves” and a few other blogs were part of what we looked at including our own “City of The Wolves”. Special congratulations to one of our own bloggers, Fredrick N. Great job on your post that got a 5 from this afternoon’s critique session! Keep up the good work! O hope we will all be able to achieve 5’s but this is our last week doing the Learning Blog so remember to make this last one extra good. We will be shifting the focus of the blogs sometime in the near future and we might get split up into different blog groups L

After looking for a while at the posts we watched a video clip on “Ted Talks” about “trying something new for 30 days” which was interesting. 30 days is enough time to form a habit and enough time to break one. We were all told to post a goal that we were going to try to accomplish for the next 30 days and see what happens. This is a good opportunity for us all to set a goal and reach it because we know there are others in our Humanities class who will be setting a goal, too. This is great because we can all lament and get moral support from our friends who feel our pain! Sometimes you just need a shoulder to cry on then you’re okay. Think positive and don’t give up, at the end of it you’ll feel really good about yourself and your self esteem will be boosted. You really have nothing to lose!

Why We Did What We Did “a.k.a.” Learning Intentions and Connections/Reflections

I don’t know why but I always seem to muddle up these two sections so I decided to combine them. I hope that’s okay with all of you.

Today we went over the blogs again because although we are getting better, there’s always room for improvement. I notice (at least with myself) that the level of the thinking in the posts is inconsistent and it’s good sometimes and bad at other times. I don’t really know how to remedy this... Looking over our classmates’ posts helped to show us what we were doing well and what we were aiming for by the time we finish this Learning Log blog. We all saw how thorough a post has to be to receive a 5 and we all want to achieve that, it’s the time, effort, and thought we are willing to put in that will get us there at that level. Every post has something for us to be proud of and we shouldn’t feel discouraged because we are all at different levels of writing and that’s why we are helping each other improve.

The “Ted Talks” video clip was the push I needed to set my resolution. I just kept putting it off and procrastinating. I thought to myself, Next week I’ll resolve to practice piano every day and give myself a chance to get better and it never happened... until now! So I’m very glad that Ms. Lees shared that with us.

I hope that by the end of the 30 days, it will be a habit to sit down at the piano and play all the boring technique and play the not-as- boring songs in order to get to the level I want to be at by the time I graduate from high school. I want to be able to teach beginners, it’s a lot of work but I’m willing to take it on and I know I’m almost there.

Homework Tips and Reminders

I learned that since we are supposed to do some tips, we should be putting this section in a paragraph by itself and not just a bulleted list.

For the homework we have to post our goal for the next 30 days which you’ve all completed except for me. If you haven’t read chapter 5 of There Will Be Wolves you should do that. I don’t believe that we have to do the questions for the chapter yet. They haven’t been assigned but if I’m wrong, let me know as soon as possible. It would be really bad if I told you not to do it when it is due the next day. Also, post on your day because this is your last chance to shine! Make it good J

Finish up the story questions and leave space at the bottom of each question. Leave 2 lines if you think your answer is thorough and 4 lines if you think that you need to add more detail. Remember to cut out “I thinks” and omit one sentence answers.

If you want to you can watch the “Ted Talks” video clip again. Here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfBXjWm7hc

We were also told to think about how this could relate to school just like the way we thought about the Ideo: Shopping Cart video.

Remember to comment on posts at least 2 times a month.

Here’s my goal for the next 30 days.

I would like to practice piano very day for at least one hour to get better. I need to do this because I am taking an exam during the summer. I should practice between 6 and 9 so that I still have time for other activities. I’m always making excuses so I hope I can sustain this self improvement project.