Monday 17 March 2014

Skype Reflection

(1) What topics did you present? How did you go about making in "stick" with your audience?

Our group presented a mini lesson on the basic forms of punctuation. It included periods, commas, exclamation point and question marks. To make the topic more interesting, we compared punctuation to traffic lights; red lights for periods, amber for commas, and green for exclamation points. We drew these on a piece of paper that we used during our lesson. We used potholes to represent question marks (the idea being that when you see a pothole, you wonder why it's there and drive around it). For this visual we drew a car on the road, driving around the pothole in the shape of a question mark.

(2) How do you feel your mini lesson went? Strengths? Weaknesses?

I thought it went well, generally. The pothole/question mark visual was especially well received, and those who spoke did a great job speaking in a way that engaged the kids. One weakness was that not all members of the group spoke during the presentation. Although they did do their part preparing for the lesson, it would have been interesting to see how it would have gone had everyone spoken aside from introducing themselves.


(3) What did you learn about the process of teaching and learning?


I think I was reminded that to teach kids well, it's very important to present the material in an interesting or unique way to make sure that they retain the information. Apart from that, I'm not sure I learned anything new about teaching; there wasn't really any feedback from the kids on how they enjoyed the lesson, or how much they understood. 


(4) What should we do next?


It might be a good idea, after we've correctly guessed their book title, to play a game with them that we create on Twitter.










Tuesday 11 March 2014

Reading Assignment - 15 Tweets

Better late than never! Here they are.

Tweets from @ma_maddy:

It's hard to believe Kira really said that. I've always known, I guess, but it hurts to hear it aloud... #frenemies

I don't what to feel about this plan of Kira's. It just seems so unlikely. I should probably be all for it; it could save my baby. #motherfail?

Tweets from @emeadowkira:

What does Marcus know? We're trying to save humanity. It's not impossible. I don't care if I made him angry #sorrynotsorry #oops

I'm on edge. One of us is a partial, but we have no idea who #frenemies

Scruffy just finished saving our lives, and Haru goes and kills him! Ridiculous #fail #sad

Manhattan looks like it was an amazing place. If only I could remember more from the old world #iwish

Weird seeing these animals here in the city. How could panthers and tigers have gotten into Manhattan in the first place? #whoah

Remember when I thought I could go to Skousen for help capturing a Partial? #tbt #lessonlearned #stupid

To see a partial in person - it's surreal. They don't look vicious #deceptivelooks

Can't believe we're going to take one of these home with us #neverletyourguarddown

Tweets from @philosophicalharu:

To be honest, even though I believe in this idea, I have no clue how this will work, either #oops #fingerscrossed

That'll teach me not to invite guys I hardly know on a mission this dangerous. Goodbye and good riddance! #sorrynotsorry #lessonlearned


Tweets from @marcus:

If this plan fails and she dies, I'll always feel responsible. #worried

Tweets from @sargeant_van_rijn (Jayden)

Haru really thought he was in charge, and then we find out he brought a traitor. #fail

I realize this is stupid, but what other chance does humanity have? #iwish we didn't have to do this in secret.











Saturday 1 March 2014

Personal Addition - Say Something - Pentatonix


 
Music is a huge part of my life, so I thought today I'd post something I've been listening to recently. This is "Say Something", a very popular song at the moment - originally by Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, now covered by Pentatonix. Pentatonix is an a cappella group that won Season 3 of "The Sing-Off" and afterwards became very popular on Youtube. They're one of my favourite groups/artists. I thought the video was shot in a way that made it easy to focus on the music and their arrangement, which was very creative and different from the original track.

Reading to Kids


https://www.fireflybooks.com/media/475/9781554512287.jpg
Today, our class had the opportunity to skype into Ms. Bettess' grade three class in Thompson, Manitoba, to read them "Mortimer" by Robert Munsch - a classic children's book. Reading to kids is a unique experience, because, especially when it's over Skype, and they know they're on camera, it makes them do a lot of things that generally only children do; they make silly, exaggerated faces, gestures and noises to react to the story. These are things that remind people why and how much they do or don't like children. It means if you already like kids, reading to them will usually be a great experience for you, and on the other hand, if you don't like kids, reading to them will remind you of every reason you don't like them.

Quick Write - Maximalism and Minimalism






I show him to the visitors, telling them he's a bit strange; he notices, and his legs, all resting silent on the ground, begin to prepare, and as they extend a deafening storm of sharp, piercing clicks and clacks starts and then ends every bit as quickly, beige and red-brown hairs scattering in every direction, and his hairy, but softly textured face curiously looks and sniffs about, his unseeing eyes unable to tell him what has changed in the room, until suddenly, the wet skin that forms the point on his narrow head meets the arm of one of my visitors.

When I showed my blind dog to my friends he got up and accidentally stamped one of their arms with his nose.