December 17th, 2012 Learning Log Post!

What We Did
      Some people came in class late today because of the snow. Snow is always exciting and fun but it could be annoying sometimes! Snow means more traffic since people usually don't like walking in the snow and getting their shoes wet, and it's hard to drive in! We are expecting more snow tomorrow so, you should get ready and prepared! Hopefully, nobody will come in late for class tomorrow morning! The block order is 3412, not 3311 because of the final exam dates for grades 10-12. 
     Right as we came in the class, we had to sit with our novel groups in our usual spots. Ms.Lees gave us time to get all our information on the poster (Concept Map) today. We were supposed to have all our information at school today about our novels, if not it meant our homework wasn't complete. Ms.Lees wasn't happy about that because we already had a couple days to finish them. She warned us by saying if we don't do our assigned work from our group, we might eventually have to work on the posters by our own which would mean more work and it'd be horrible! 
     If we haven't picked our poster paper yet, we got to choose if we were going to use the half sized one or the big one. Basically, our whole group got 3 categories for each person and we had all of our information already. The categories would be like eg. transportation, culture, occupation, and e.t.c. We would split the paper in different sections and each person would work on their own categories! When writing the information down, Ms.Lees doesn't want us to write them in full sentences on our webs. She wants them in point form or words. Ms.Lees also wants some images like pictures and diagrams on our webs such as venn diagrams, charts, and more. If you want to back up with some more information, I recommand you doing some research on the computer! Your novel is your first resourse and if you don't have enough you could do some research with other supplies.  
     We worked on our webs for the whole block and Ms.Lees said that she'll give us one more block to finish them tomorrow. She'll expect us to finish them by the end of the class, if not, we'll have to find a time with our group and come in for flex. We had time to discuss with our group about the lay-out and our group started writing down the ideas we already had. If you didn't have your information at school today, just make sure you have them tomorrow! My group planned out about what kind of pictures and diagrams we were going to place when one person was writing the information down. Our goal today was to use our time wisely. 
      At the end of class, Ms.Lees wanted our oral reflection sheets out and fill them out for today. There are 4 categories asking you "Tell your idea?" , "Ask questions?" , "Listen respectively?", "Keep the conversation going?".  Just a reminder, IF you haven't finished the paragraphs yet, don't forget to finish all of them and hand them in because it was already due yesterday (Monday). You need your narrative, descriptive, explanatory, and persuasive paragraphs with all their rubrics, outlines, drafts, and good copies!

Why We Did It
     It's a great way to learn about the middle ages (history) by doing this group project. By doing the assignment, you can prove you've read the book and you learned new things about the middle ages. The main point of doing this project is so that we get the idea about the middle ages by reading interesting books. You can learn many things about the middle ages by what kind of transportation they had, the culture, government, geography and more. You could find out how different it is from now to back then by comparing the government and even geography. The book I am reading right now, had Lords who ruled the country in Japan but today, we have presidents and prime ministers. It's a lot more fun to read if you compare the things we have right now to the things they had back then.  Since the novel has more interesting story to it, it makes it more fun to learn about the past than just reading the boring textbooks that just talks about the facts.
     Not only do you learn about the interesting facts about the middle ages, you get to know how to make concept maps. It's an important skill to have because you can use it before almost any writing. They teach you how to jot down the main ideas in particular groups, and organize them by colour coding, and making digrams to provide more image and information. Knowing how to make concept maps could help you a lot in the future. Such as before you write a big essay, you could write all of your ideas and use it as a brainstorming method. It'd help even when you're doing a big project because you'll know what goes where and you'll be able to make sure you have all the information. It'd be way better than just adding informatino along the way because it could get confusing and messy even.
     The reason why Ms.Lees gave us time in class to work on it was that so we don't have to use our own time and it's hard to find available times for all the group members. If the group can't get all together, it'd be very hard to work on it at home and such because it's very important to get other people's ideas and work on it together. If this happens, it could lead to having one person doing all the work by her/himself which wouldn't be fair AT ALL. By working together, we can make sure we are all on track and everyone has done their job. 
     It's very important to know how to work in groups together because most likely, everyone will eventually have a job something to do with that. It's important to know how to listen respectively to others and share ideas. It'd be very bad in the future if you don't get used to it and always talk about your own opinions because it wouldn't make any other people happy. Jobs such as firemen, police officer, doctor, a person who works for a company. By working well together, it could help you increase your mark, and lead to having no arguments. 
     Ms.Lees wants us to fill out the oral reflection sheet because she knows that collaborating skills are really important and she wants to know how our groups are doing and check if everyone's doing their work and everyones cooperating each other. It's good to concentrate in class and finish most of the work because I'm sure nobody would want to have extra homework. It's good to get ourselves used to completing most of our work in class, not at home.

Reflection/Connections
     I really enjoyed "The Sammurai's Tale" and I love learning about history because it's always interesting when comparing right now to back then. The social ladders are always interesting to me because it's so different to now. They had so many different classes back then and everyone was treated differently by what class they were in. Nowadays, it's not as important as it was a long time ago. I know I learned about different country histories and it was a lot of fun because I got to know so many new things like their religion. I thought Greece and Rome was especially interesting because the few women rights they have. It's so different to modern day because now, we are almost treated equally, but I do think men still have more power. I always wonder why women never hardly get to be the president and everyone thinks men would do better. I believe there will come a day where there will be  presidents who are mainly women! :) 
     I know that the concept map that we are doing right now, will help a lot in the future for me. At first I thought it was a web but it's a little more develped than a normal web. They have many diagrams and they're colour coded. It's a lot more useful than a web. I could use them before doing a huge project or when I'm doing a research because it'll help me organize all my information neatly and I'll be able to know that I have all the information I need.
     I'm very glad Ms.Lees is giving us enough time to work on our concept maps because I'm usually a procrastinator honestly, but this time, I've promised myself that I'd work on my project on time and be on track so it doesn't affect my group members. Like Olivia said on her last post, I remember last year, I'd stay up till 3am finishing the group projects because some people wouldn't do their work and it led to procrastinating at the end which was horrible! I'm a type of person who likes to do most of the work because even if one of my group member is really good and perfect, I'm worried that they won't do something. I really hate myself for having a personality like this but sometimes it's good because it leads my work to being perfect most of the time. 
     I'm very happy that my group is working very well so far because I was a bit worried at first honestly but we're not having any problem at all! It feels like to me that everyone's working very hard on their assigned work and we're all helping each other if someones having trouble finding certain information. My oral reflection sheet has always been positive so far and I hope it continues on like that. 

Homework
- make sure you have ALL your information for the concept map tomorrow! 
- If you brought your poster home today, make sure you work on it a bit so that you'd feel comfortable in class tomorrow! 
- If you haven't handed in your paragraphs yet, you better hurry! 
- complete your oral reflection sheet for today

Tips
- If you weren't at school today, make sure you check your peers' learning log blog posts or contact Ms.Lees! (her e-mail is on the school website)
- If you have any questions about your homework or you're not sure of what to do, contact one of your buddy to ask!
- If you aren't able to finish certain homework, make sure you discuss the problem with Ms.Lees by e-mailing her the day before!
- If you don't have any homework, look through your binder to see if ALL your works done incase.
- If you have some catch up to do, go in for flex this Thurday! Try to finish all your work by next week Wednesday because I don't think you'd want to come to school next week Thursday and Friday when everyone's home resting. 
- Make sure you study for your finals even though we are not having finals for humanities! 
- If you're not sure of what to do for your blog, check other peoples' posts or even check out the grade 9's! :) 

Schedule
Monday : Olivia B
Tuesday : Alice B
Wednesday: Daniel
Friday: Luke

DANIEL will be doing his blog tomorrow! :)