December 2, 2010

Parent-Teacher Conferences Tonight from 4:00 to 7:30 Bell-Ringer: Pick up your website evaluations: 3 for an individual and 5 for a pair.

Bring your thumb-drive!

Computer lab for research on celebrities.  You need to fill out your web evaluations including notes on information you've found that you might be able to use on your PowerPoint.  As an individual you will need at least three sources (three web evaluations with notes).   As a pair you will need five sources (three web evaluations with notes).

Roll and celebrity check. 

#1 -- Look for your celebrity on Pioneer -- Sirs Discoverer
Using Pioneer:  Use Pioneer to search for useful information for school projects, etc. For access from home --
Go to http://pioneer.uen.org
from home: User Name:   Password:

Search for your celebrity at Sirs Discoverer.

Notice that you can email articles  to yourself.
Information on Sirs Discoverer is reliable! 

#2 -- Link to the Celebrity WebQuest Assignment: http://afcelebritywebquest.blogspot.com/ 
Use some of the tools and sites to search for your celebrity. You may search with Google. 
Don't forget to create a bibliography entry/citation for each site. Save it on a document and save that to your thumb drive or e-mail it to yourself.

  http://www.bibme.org/

November 30, 2010

Bell-Ringer:  Students worked on fluency by reading "Ladies First" by Shel Silverstein.  They practiced individually, then read to each other in pairs, picked the best reader to go on in competition, gathered in fours to select the best out of the two previous winners, gathered in eights to further narrow the field.  Those best at reading fast (while remaining understandable) and those best at dramatic presentation competed for the class championships.

Sample PowerPoint for Celebrity Quest
Link to the Celebrity WebQuest Assignment:   http://afcelebritywebquest.blogspot.com/ 
Sample search and reading a site

http://rachelmcadams.org/ 
This site turns out to be a fan-made site, made by an 18 year old girl who goes by Lindsey, and who has been making fan sites since she was twelve.  There are a lot of photos available here, but all facts should be double-checked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_McAdams
How trustworthy is wikipedia?
There is lots of information here that would be useful for the celebrity project.  However, be aware that anyone can edit this.  Wikipedia has staff that checks it, and others check articles for accuracy.  On the other hand, someone could slip in untrue materials and you could read it before the errors are caught.
To see who has edited an article, see the "history" tab at the top of the page.  To find the date and time last edited, see the bottom of the page.  Also look at the References and External Links. 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1046097/bio 
How trustworthy is IMDb?
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Col_Needham
IMDb has useful information on Rachel McAdams, and many other movie stars, including short biographies, trivia, filmography, and quotes from the star.    This site is owned by Amazon.Com.  They purchased it from Col Needham who originated the database in 1990.  I googled him and was able to find out about him.

Works Cited -- Put it together with bibme.org
For articles from Sirs Discover, use the information given with the article to identify the source. 
For websites, click on the Website tab, and enter the URL for that site.

Example from Sirs Discover:  "Rick Riordan." biography for beginners Spring 2010: 63 - 75. Print.

November 23, 2010

site organization:  a WEB

Website Evaluation Form R3.doc

Individual Reading Time

November 19, 2010

Bring your thumb drive today!

Bell-Ringer:  Crossword about Internet Terms

Computer Lab 223

Important!  Open this blog again in a new window.  Copy and paste the URL.   Leave this window open while you click on links from the other. 


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 

Searching -- Quiz -- Advanced -- Quiz 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.


5.  To help you make a final selection of a celebrity --  Look through the following sources for famous people you might be interested in.

• Take notes on the organizer provided to you. 
• If you brought your thumbdrive, or have an email account, you could open the organizer here, type your notes on it (make sure you copy the URL where you found the information), and save the document onto your thumbdrive or mail it to yourself.  

Organizer for Selecting a Celebrity(2).docx

or  

Organizer for Selecting a Celebrity(2).doc

Important Note:  You will need to end up with 3 to 5 different sources about your famous person.

1. Click on the Resources Tab.
2. Click on Academy of Achievement  either here or there.   Consider possible celebrities/famous people you see there.
3. Check the list at  http://www.people.com/people/celebrities/0,,,00.html 
4. And http://www.rd.com/interviews-celebrity-actors-musicians-athletes/ 
5. And http://www.notablebiographies.com/ 
6. And Incredible People.com   

To select a celebrity, you will fill out this document: WebQuest Assignment Work-Sheet compatibleQ2.doc 
If you are here today, you should already have it.  If not, ask Ms. Dorsey.



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.

6. ______________________________________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

November 17, 2010

First Day of the third rotation!   
If you were just with Miss Gadd, you should be coming to Ms. Dorsey's class. 


We are going to focus on Reading the Internet and doing research -- especially online. 

Today:
Bell-Ringer:  Fill out the lower half of the Celebrity WebQuest Assignment Worksheet 1.
Start brainstorming celebrities -- famous people you'd like to research.


Reading strategies -- receive chart, discuss strategies
Inner Voices and read "Truth in Research."
Inner Voices  Individual Reading Time: 

Hand in an inner voices sheet for the article I assigned and one for you independent reading today.



Next time we will go to the computer lab.

Last Day for Late Work

November 15th is the last day of the second rotation. 

The last day to hand in late work for the rotation you just finished (the second third of the semester) is  November 19.  

If you had Ms. Dorsey for the second rotation, hand it in to Ms. Dorsey.

November 15, 2010

If you have not shown your PowerPoint, or if you would like to add points to what you have earned on your PowerPoint -- have it ready on the 15th -- the last day of class for our rotation.   Make sure you have included citations -- not just URL's  on your bibliography slide.  (Use bibme.org to create your citations using the URL of each site.  Remember to copy the URL from the page where you found the information, then click on the tab for websites before you enter the URL.)

Finish poem fluency presentations.

Write about the experience of completing your celebrity webquest.

From Pieces of Flair

     What reading strategies did you use?

 ____________________________

Extra Credit:  Be the first to come tell me the meaning of the word Penultimate. See the information below.

Brian P. Cleary The word PENULTIMATE means “the next to last.” If someone refers to the penultimate scene in the play, it’s the one before the final. The word “vacation,” for instance, has its accent on the penultimate syllable.

Lemony Snicket wrote a book called The Penultimate Peril, so it is about the next to the last peril. 

November 11, 2010

 Bell-Ringer:  Receive form you will  use as you view the Powerpoints.  Prepare to go to the computer lab.

Students will use this form to record their viewing of their classmates' PowerPoints:
Student View of PPTs.doc


The teacher will use this form to grade the PowerPoints: Celebrity PPT Grading.doc


Computer Lab 223.   Move around the room to view everyone's PowerPoint Presentations.
Share

• If you have not shown your PowerPoint, or if your grade is low, please complete it and be prepared to show it on November 15.   
• Do not forget that you need to create citations for the bibliography.  
• The URL is not enough.  Enter the URL on bibme.org to build the citation for each source. 

Places You May Go if You Finish Early

Reading by the Light of the Moon -- From Moon Games -- See a link below to the whole article and other photos.

Learn much more about computers at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/   

Use Pioneer to search for useful information for school projects, etc.
Go to http://pioneer.uen.org
 There's also a link on our school web site -- at the bottom of the home page.
Get acquainted with the resources at Pioneer.  

You don't need the user name or password at school, but you do from home.
User Name:
Password:

World Book Web
http://worldbookonline.com




Here is a site with word games:

http://www.fun-with-words.com

Play a punctuation game at
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/adventure/grammar2.htm

Wonder how to pronounce author names? Go to http://www.teachingbooks.net/pronounce.cgi?aid=3090
and begin with a very popular author. Use the search to find others.

Or look at some neat articles: 

You can fly (a camera on a ladder)  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129429199&sc=fb&cc=fp
Notice that there are fifteen pictures to look at.

Interesting article:  Dad's Bionic Hand! 

World Cup Soccer Ball

Paul the Octopus Predicts World Cup Winners 

Bug Highway in the Sky 

Ants Invade 

Playing with the Moon http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131063948&sc=fb&cc=fp  

A stadium built from legos: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/19/133058130/master-builder-makes-legos-bend-to-his-will-in-ohio-stadium-replica?sc=fb&cc=fp

 

November 9, 2010

B2 and B3 -- to the computer lab to work on Celebrity PowerPoints -- B2 in Lab 201 (by Mr. Wright's room), B3 in English Computer Writing Lab.

Don't forget your thumb drive.
 
They are due by the end of the period.

November 5, 2010

Don't forget your thumb drive.

B2 -- view sample PowerPoints
B2 and B3 -- to the computer lab to work on Celebrity PowerPoints
Save them as compatible PowerPoints, not docx.

November 3, 2010

1. Bell-Ringer:  Individual Reading Time
2.  More sample powerpoints (B2 will do this next time.)
      We will be in the computer lab next time to work on our      PowerPoints.
3.  Fluency practice

Notice that this rotation ends on November 15.

November 1, 2010

Happy New Term!
New seating charts

1. Bell-Ringer:Individual reading time.  Quickly grab or get out a book, and read!  (reading logs)

2. See and discuss the sample powerpoint.
3. Scholastic Literacy presentation with Taylor Swift  (B3 still needs to do this.)
 
4. If time, present group fluency poems. (B2 needs to finish presenting.)

Friday and next Tuesday –  We will be in the computer lab to work on and finish PowerPoints.