October 28, 2010

1. Bell-Ringer:  Text Features on the Internet
2. Finish WebSite Evaluations/collect information in Computer Writing Lab
All WebSite Evaluations packets due by the end of class today.  This is the last day of the term for this class.
 ________________________________________
Here is a new bibliography maker to try.  I just found out about it yesterday.

bibme.org
You need to register, but that's free.  

You might want to try it.  When you first get to it, you need to click on the orange tab in the center for  "Website."

__________________________________________

Taylor Swift on Reading and Writing Webcast

I've registered for us to watch this in class.  We may have the time to do so on another day.  

 

Link to the WayBack Machine -- Archiving the Web: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

October 26, 2010

All Website evaluations due by the end of class today.  We will spend much of our class time in the computer lab.

October 22, 2010

No computer lab today.

Fluency Practice

Inner Voices

Supported Independent Reading

October 20, 2010

Bell-Ringer:  Read article about reliable sources and fill in "inner voices" sheet?

1. About research
2. About finding reliable sources -- the best sources
3. Receive website evaluations
4. Spend time in the computer lab, filling out website evaluations and recording information for the presentation.   
5. Website evaluations are due October 26.  (five for a pair of students, three for a student working alone).
6. Don't forget to create your citations using easybib.com. 

Boring Teacher Stuff 
More Teacher Stuff
And More  
Google Lesson on Reliability
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html 
pro Google/internet research:  http://engage.reading.org/blogsnbspnbsp/blogviewer/?BlogKey=0af31d99-00e2-4e1d-b2fb-d618995d35c3 

Finding Information on This Blog

Finding Information Here

Scroll down and then, if needed, click on "Older Posts" (at the bottom of the page), and continue to scroll down until you find what you want, or check out the "Blog Archive"  (table of contents) at the right, or use the search box at the upper left.

Look at the Blog Archive for posts on various subjects. Click on the arrow by a month to see all posts for that month.

You could use the search bar at the upper left to look for particular subjects.

On blogs, newer posts appear at the top, so as you scroll down, you are reading older posts.

Another useful item is the calendar at the bottom of the page.  Some of the events provide more information when you click on them.  B-Days are marked because that is the day we meet in our Reading classes.

FYI: You can access the district calendar on the district website or here. 

October 18, 2010

Bell-Ringer: 
We will also pass back the papers you handed in with ideas for celebrities. 
We will go to the computer lab right after I present a demonstration of easybib.  

You may sit with your partner in computer lab as long as you are productive.
Take your  handouts, a pencil or pen, and your planner.

Computer Lab 223:
1.  Select the celebrity you most want to learn more about. 
2. Write in your top three choices, with the one you'd like the most in the #1 spot.
3.  Hand in your papers
4.  While you wait to find out. . .
5.  Start looking for sites that would be reliable and provide you with the information you'll need.
6.  Create citations for the sites you find that you think might be helpful.  Create the word document and save it on your thumb drive  or e-mail it to yourself or (if you can't do the others) print it and hand it in with your other worksheets.

Read7 Comp Lab Directions Oct 18(2).doc 

______________________________________
Extra Stuff --

What makes a site reliable?  How can you tell if it's not reliable?
Do you believe everything you read and see?   Is it Reliable?  

Here is a lesson on deciding whether a site is reliable or not.

Time in computer lab to begin doing research.

Extra Credit:  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?  Find and record 4 answers at http://www.tootsie.com/gal_machine.php  
to earn 5 extra credit points.
Earn an extra ten by creating a citation for the page at easybib.com
Copy the URL from above or from the page navigation bar itself.
Follow the directions here. Using easybib.com
Print it and bring it to me or email it to dorsc405@alpine.k12.ut.us and put Parent of [with your own name] in  the subject line.

Image found at http://www.xconomy.com/?attachment_id=9119

Boring Teacher Stuff 
More Teacher Stuff
And More  
Google Lesson on Reliability

Article on Checking for Reliability

For #3 -- Article for Truth in Research: 

SIRS Discoverer ® on the Web
Copyright © 2010 ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

Read
(Vol. 59, No. 3)
Oct 2, 2009, pp. 30-31

Copyright © Weekly Reader Corporation. Oct 2, 2009. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Truth in Research

By Craig Nadler

• How to find the facts you need online
You've just been assigned a research project. You have the deadline and the topic. What's next? That's right--the research! Although it may seem daunting at first, thorough investigation into a topic can make or break your project. In the 21st century, we often head straight to the computer to begin our research online, where there are literally millions of places to cruise to for information. But while the Internet provides a fast and easy medium through which to gather data, you should always use caution when maneuvering along the electronic information superhighway. Anyone can publish a Web page, and there's no one policing cyberspace to verify that the content is the truth.

Take time to examine each site with care. Remember that Web pages are susceptible to change, and they can move or disappear without warning. Print out any pages that contribute to your research in order to ensure that your bibliography is complete and accurate.[Printing pages is not recommended while you're doing your research for your Celebrity Webquest.  Instead, carefully save the URL, create your citation, and take careful notes.]  You can also call on the help of librarians, who can guide you to trusted research sites.
Stop #1  Stop reading and notice what your mind has been doing as you read.  Has it been paying attention or wandering?  Were you using any strategies to focus or to help yourself understand?  Be honest.  Minds wander.  It will help you if you can notice what's going on in your own thinking.  Write down a couple of sentences about what was going on in your mind as you read the first part.  Do the same for the other three parts of this article. 

I recently came across an article on the Web that claimed a man named John Hanson was the first president of the United States. Hanson had been the first president of Congress in 1781, but could he really be considered the first president of the United States? I thought, "I really need to check out this source?" I used an online research checklist to analyze the credibility of the article. I looked beyond the text to see whether the site's information was reliable. Here's what I discovered.

Content with the content?

As I read the article that defended John Hanson as the first president of the United States, I kept an eye out for citations or hyperlinks in the text that supported the information provided. There were none. I also took note of opinion words, such as definitely, which took away from the serious tone of the article: "George Washington was definitely not the first President of the United States."

Who has the right to write?

After reading the article, I scanned the page for the author's name. The piece was an excerpt from a book. This excerpt's Web site was not controlled by George Grant, who penned the original piece the site referenced. I knew I had to be careful because I didn't have the original source in front of me.
Stop #2

Purpose shmurpose

The Web site--www.marshallhall.org--where I found the article was "[dedicated to the Preservation and Restoration of Historic Marshall Hall in Charles County, Maryland." What exactly does that have to do with the first president of the United States? It didn't seem that my goal matched the site's goal. I needed to rethink its reliability.

Who's in charge?

I could not find any contact information for the Web site's director, a mysterious Peggy Marshall. No information about her life or credentials is provided!

Link me where?

I checked out the provided links, but none of them steered me toward information about the identity of the first president. They were either dead or irrelevant to my topic.

After some online digging, it was clear that this site was not a reliable source of information. It failed too many points on the checklist. I wasn't going to trust this source.
Stop #3

Vocab

SUSCEPTIBLE: subject to some influence

CREDENTIALS: evidence of authority or status

Check a Web Site's Credibility

• AUTHOR: Search for the author's name somewhere on the Web site. Look for a link to his or her home page. Maybe you can find a biography or a list of credentials.

• PURPOSE: Find the goals of the site or the motives behind its creation.

• ACCURACY: Try to verify the material on the page, either with your own knowledge or with alternate sources. Look for primary sources--letters, records, or other documents created during the period that is being studied. Also, check the site for grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors.

• OBJECTIVITY: Try to find the author's point of view, and determine whether the Web site is fact (supported by other sources) or opinion (uses emotion-rousing words).

• CURRENTNESS: Find out when the page was last updated to ensure that its material is current.
• LINKS: Check out the links provided to see whether they are current and relevant to your research.

Stop #4

Our Door -- B2

Last Day for Late Work

The last day to hand in late work for the rotation you just finished (the first third of the semester) is 

October 13.

Link to Newspaper Article About A.F. Junior

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_8a796920-556f-5ea1-9300-dfdaf91db625.html

October 12, 2010

1. Bell-Ringer:
a. Work on the handout about some internet vocabulary words.
b. Work on the handout about the CelebrityQuest Assignment. Fill in the names of three celebrities you'd like to learn more about.

2.  Introduction to our class blog:  Look through this blog.
          We have assigned seating for classroom and for the computer lab (computer lab for when you will not be working in pairs).
3.  Introduction to reading the internet and our internet assignment.
      Learning from  BBC
Bring your thumb drive on October 18 and October 20.  Bring it to class every time.

Today we will learn about searching the Internet using an interactive tutorial at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/course
Go to the above web address (URL) and then  
click on START
then click on 06 Searching 

then do the Weakest Link quiz,

and if you have time play with the other games.

4. Internet project: Celebrity Webquest   Link to our blog about the webquest: http://afcelebritywebquest.blogspot.com/
Look through the assignment to get acquainted with what you will need to do. 

To select a celebrity, you will fill out this document: WebQuest Assignment Work-Sheet compatibleQ2.doc



Why this project?  Internet Literacy is  an important part of  our modern world.  We are practicing reading strategies while gathering knowledge and skills for doing research online and off.

______________________________________If you have time, read the information below.
Internet and other computer vocabulary
Thanks to Oprah:  http://oprahgoesonline.blackhammer.com/glossary/glossary_pop.html

URL
Simply put, a Web page's address. In the alphabet soup that is Internet-ese, URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. Just as every person on the Net has a unique e-mail address, every file and page on the Web has a unique URL. You can see the URL for the Web page you're on in that thin white horizontal box at the top of your browser. The first part of the URL (http) tells the browser it's looking for a Web page written (most likely) in HTML. The rest gives the name of the computer, then the directory that holds the page, and last but not least, the name of the file that makes up that particular Web page. (The file name typically ends with the .html or .htm suffix, which tells you and your computer it's an HTML file.) You can instantly swing over to any page on the Web by typing the page's URL into the white box and hitting the "Return" key.

Domain
The last two parts of an Internet address. Just as file extensions (such as .gif for GIF files) give some indication of what kind of file it is, the suffix at the end of an Internet site's domain name tells what kind of site it is. For example, .com means it's a commercial site, while other common ones include .edu, for educational institutions, .gov for government, .org for organizations and .org, for non-profit sites. For sites based outside the U.S., there are many others; .ca means the site originates in Canada, .au means the server's in Australia, while .uk means it comes from, well, you know.

Search engine
Your tireless cyber bloodhounds are your guides to the Web. The term search engine is usually used to include three different types of guides: true search engines, directories, and search agents. A "true" search engine uses a program (sometimes called a spider) to search the Internet for information and collate it in a database. A directory (Yahoo, for example) uses a database too, but the information in the database is researched by people, not programs. And an agent (Metacrawler) searches existing databases. There are also specialist directories and agents that search only shopping sites, for example.

About Primary and Secondary Sources (These are lesson materials for teachers, but reading through them gives you a good understanding about the difference between primary and secondary sources.)
http://www.cgrove417.org/cghs/KASL/sources.html

Things You May Not Have Known About Ms. Dorsey

Sometimes she is among the undead, and she hangs out in very scary places.

October 8, 2010

to Ms. Dorsey's part of your Reading 7 class!

We want to create a great door for Red Ribbon Week.  
Here's the information I received: We will be doing a door decoration contest with your B-2 class.  They can start decorating this week and the judging will be done on Oct 12th.  The 3 top doors will win a prize for the class.  They can decorate before school, CAVETIME, or after school.  We do have the late bus on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 4:00pm. that your students can use if they stay after to decorate.

Today's activities:

1. (B2 only) Bell-Ringer:  Ideas for the door for Ribbon Week.

2. Read articles from the internet and notice your inner voices.  

3. Supported Individual Reading Time

4. Fluency Practice
5. (B2 only) Work on the door

October 6, 2010

We'll do a couple of other things, too, but plan to bring a book, along with any or all of these optional items:
a pillow, a blankey, a snack, a drink, and readiness to read.  The last item is required.

Fluency one more time
Inner voices
Reading! 

If you still have work to hand in for this six weeks (Ms. Dorsey's part of the class), you may still turn it in up until Fall Break. 

Are you feeling as if work for school just won't LEAVE you alone?  Is it piling up around you?  Then you have noticed that it's much easier to keep up than it is to catch up.  
Don't FALL for the idea that you can mess around for much of the term, without 
FALLing behind.   

Catch up or stay caught up, and don't leaf it until the last minute.

If you still have work to hand in for this six weeks (Ms. Dorsey's part of the class), you may still turn it in up until Fall Break.  



I found this image at http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2008/02/27/the_big_picture_feature.shtml  It was taken by a fellow named Alex Burgess, The site is sponsored by the BBC.  

Red Ribbon Week

We will be doing a door decoration contest with your B-2 class.  They can start decorating this week and the judging will be done on Oct 12th.  The 3 top doors will win a prize for the class.  They can decorate before school, CAVETIME, or after school.  We do have the late bus on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 4:00pm. that your students can use if they stay after to decorate.

 

We will also have Drug Free Commercial contest where the students can make  a 90 second commercial.  They can pick up entry forms in the front office starting Monday, October 4th.  No more than eight people per commercial.  Everyone that participates will recieve a prize and the top three commercials winners will recieve bigger prizes.  The commercial will be shown on the TV's in the commons the week of Oct 18-22.  The students will vote on October 25th to decide the winners.

 

Monday  October 11, 2010

Sock it to DRUGS!  (Wear crazy socks to school)

Basketball Drug Free Throws in commons during lunch with the impaired goggles.

Candy jars guessing game during lunches.

 

Tuesday October 12, 2010

"Tie" one on against drugs. (wear a crazy tie to school)

Basketball Drug Free Throws in commons during lunch with the impaired goggles.

Candy jars guessing game during lunches

BALLON LAUNCH during CAVETIME

 

Wednesday October 13, 2010

Spirt Day (Wear school colors)

Basketball Drug Free Throws in commons during lunch with the impaired goggles.

Candy jars guessing game during lunches.

Former Miss Utah Heather Anderson will be a CAVETIME ACTIVITY replacing the movie.  She will tell the story of her brother who died from the use of drugs.  We will have CAVETIME on Wednesday, Heather is just replacing the movie for the day.

 

October 4, 2010

1) Bell-Ringer:  On a piece of clean lined paper, respond about the inquiry/research/internet/celebrity project: 

Journal Prompt:  

Part 1.  What did you think about this unit? Was it worthwhile to you? What did you learn that you didn't know before? What did you enjoy most from this unit? What did you like least? What suggestions do you have for me so that future students can have an even better experience?

Part 2.  Look at the chart of reading strategies on our classroom wall. Tell about how you used two or more of the reading strategies as you read from the Internet.   

2) Inquiry Reading and Thinking Critically with the iBrain!


3) Supported Individual Reading Time

4) Reading Fluency Practice

Important:  Hand in your PowerPoint and Website Evaluations if you haven't yet.

This Wednesday is the last day in this rotation.  You will then move(on Friday) to Mrs. Fugal's class. 


image from http://www.clipartheaven.com/show/clipart/anatomy/brain_-_mechanical-gif.html