Blog

I will start blogging here on March 1st, 2012.

March 1st- Today is the last day of my 3rd quarter elective: Extended Learning Opportunities. I loved this class, and I wished that it would never end. Without this class, I probably wouldn't be doing this right now. This, by far, was my favorite elective. This was barely writing stuff down and doing homework. In this class, everything is on computers! (No, it is not a computer class)! This is a class for people who have been identified as gifted. We have about 8 assignments in this class, and they are all on wikispaces. If you don't know what Wikispaces is, you are looking at a Wiki. Anyway, here were all of our assignments: I'm sorry about the different fonts; I tryed to change the spacing.

Assignment 8: Google Earth Tour

 * Create a tour of at least 5 places on Google Earth
 * Include photos and/or explanations of your places
 * Link your Tour on your PLE

Assignment 7: Creating Your PLE

Your PLE (personal learning environment) should include:A format/layout of your choice
Your links should not show entire URLs __**AND**__ you should annotate your links. Your navigation menu should match your pages.
 * A home page and at least one other page
 * Color and graphics on the home page
 * a widget of your choice (calendar, audio, counter, etc.)
 * quizlet link (quizlet.com)
 * your survey
 * link to Rubistar, and your rubric
 * link to EBSCO
 * links to at least 3 other resources you find useful
 * Video/audio presentation (Glogster, Xtranormal, etc.)

DO NOT use your entire name or other identifying information anywhere on your wiki.

Assignment 6 : Using Video and Audio tools:
Investigate Voicethread, Xtranormal, Glogster, Prezi or another tool of your choice. Record a short movie or make a poster with sound and animation. Post your product on your wiki page.

Assignment 5:

For this assignment you will learn to make a form and survey your classmates.

1. Consider something interesting to investigate in a group of 6th graders (music preferences, vacations, pets, favorite movies, books, restaurants, etc.).
2. Log in to your Google account 3. Go to "Create" and choose "form" 4. Click on the box for: "Require **Littleton Public Schools** sign-in to view this form." AND "Automatically collect respondent's**Littleton Public Schools** username." This way you will be able to see who responds to your survey. 5. Give your survey a title

8. Continue for each of your questions (after you've used the pre-made sample questions, you'll need to use the button at the top for +Add Item to make more questions.
9. Embed your survey on your wiki page. 10. Invite people not in this class to take your survey. You can send a link to your survey via email.

Assignment 4:
1. Add at least 2 widgets to your student page. Go to the widget tool in the "edit" window on your page. Explore the many different widgets you can select to add to your page. Choose at least two. Save your page, then check the function of your widgets to make sure they work properly.

Assignment 3:
For assignment 3 you're going to create a Google Doc to link on your wiki page. 1. Go to your Google Docs account and create a new document. 2. Write a short paragraph about your 6th grade goals for this semester. 3. Download your document to your netbook. 4. Create a link to your document on your wiki page. 5. Send me a message when you've completed this assignment.

Assignment 2:

For assignment 2 you're going to take an online learning style inventory. Learning Style Inventory 2. Take the inventory, then look at your results (you can print them if you want). 3. Go to our class' discussion under the discussion tab and follow my instructions there.
 * 1) Please go to this site and read the instructions:

** Assignment 1: **

 * 1) Read the help menu to see what you can do on a wiki.
 * 2) Click on the discussion tab and add a comment on the topic you see
 * 3) Edit your page to add some color.
 * 4) Find a picture to paste on your page.

March 2nd- Today was basically getting ready for the potluck that we are having tomorrow. I had to clean the house, and go to get the food and prizes that we'll have. I had very long discussions with my friend, who helped set this whole event up. We planned the scavenger hunt clues and talked about what we neede to bring. I live right next to an elementary school, so we will have the scavenger hunt there. We'd have little clues located in the hiding area and taped to prizes. We used the same five clues for every person, so it was a whole lot easier than having to write 35 different clues. Anyway, the scavenger hunt will take place right after we eat, and then we will come back to my house and play games/dance/talk etc. We invited 8 of our friends, and let my sister invite one of hers. So that means, if everybody shows up, them we would've had 12 people total. Two replied no, and I haven't heard from one of them yet, so it was hard trying to guess the amount of gifts to get. For most of them, we got eight things. That is enough to include the planners and everybody who has said yes. Some we got a little bit more, just in case the person who hasn't replied comes. We have invited parents, too, as long as they behave. We were actually planning on doing water balloon stuff, but it was supposed to snow. We hope that all goes well tomorrow and that the party isn't canceled because of too much snow. I am pretty sure that we will still have the party tomorrrow, though. Just in case you were wondering, today is a furlough day, meaning we have no school. Because it's a Friday, we get a three day weeknd! Perfect time to party! I am so excited, I probably won't be able to sleep. My room is all clean, but I still have to finish cleaning the messed up basement. I am way too lazy to do that today, so I'm going to do that tomorrow morning. My friend is coming over tomorrow to help me set up at 2:30. We will go to the playground and set up the clues. Since we are setting the hunt up, we obviously can't fo it. I think one of us will be at home judging and one of us will be monitoring the strangers and making sure they don't take anything. Anyway, the party starts at 5:30, so we will have a good three hours to set up and make the finishing touches. Chat with ya tomorrow!

MArch 10th- I apologize for the lack of blogging on this page. My mind has been on other things. I know that you've been wondering how our potluck went? All in all, the party went exceptionally... except for the scavenger hunt. My friend and I had set up the scavenger hunt at the school about 20 minutes before we actually started, so we guessed that someone had been there in that twenty minutes where we weren't present there. Most of it was probably the wind, but everything was messed up. Tape apparently isn't strong enough, because all the clues in one location were gone. It wasn't just the wind, though; the lollipops that we'd set up were opened and licked. Either some three year old did it while his mother wasn't looking, or just some stupid teen that was interested in ruining our scavenger hunt. Still, that would be stupid-" Hey theres a lollipop that is probably bad by now, but I'll eat it anyway..."