Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Post date: Sep 2, 2015 7:24:07 PM

What fun today! I had a great time using new technology, and I truly appreciate my first period class being my guinea pigs for Plickers.

In Literature 9 we used a new technological device "Plickers". I think everyone had a good time - even the teacher who really didn't know what she was doing. Now that I think I figured out the bugs, it's something that we will do more often. After "playing" with the plickers, we then reviewed the vocabulary words - impartial, emanate, and dire. We added the words "fervid" and "novel." We have a new section of vocabulary entitled Expand Your Vocabulary. This is vocabulary they will come across, but rather than test on everything, we're going to be exposed to is, talk about it, and embrace it. :-0! Finally we started to read "The Lady or the Tiger". We'll finish it tomorrow.

In English 10 we uploaded our vocabulary presentation. We then took about eight minutes to rehearse our "speeches". Before all that began we did an activity "What Do You Have in Common." It was fun to see that no matter who you're working with you can find something in common. We continued to take notes on the Art of Communication, and we'll continue to do that tomorrow and Friday.

In American Government we spent the beginning of the class looking at Moodle - the extra credit (which closes on Sunday at midnight), then the process for current events. First there is a forum that has an article posted by me that everyone is to read and comment on. Then students will go out and find an article they want to discuss. They should provide the URL or source, summarize the ENTIRE article, and then react to it. On Wednesdays we will ask if anyone has a current event to share. If they want to great - extra credit in participation. If not, that's o.k. too. Current Events count for 15 points every week. It will run Wednesday to Wednesday. We then uploaded our assignment to Moodle (4 features of a state). We discussed the difference between a state, nation, and nation-state. We discussed how a state is born, and I had hoped to get to the purposes of government, but that didn't materialize - maybe Monday.

All in all a good day. A very scratchy throat, but nothing a little sleep and orange juice won't fix.