January 26, 2014

Citations Take Two


"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  This is a line from a John Lennon song.  Others sources claim Allen Saunders is it's creator.  Check out Quote Investigator to help figure out this mystery.  My whole reason for bringing up this quote is it's meaning.  Even though I made some great plans for last week, "life" in the form of a snowstorm happened.  The results of the storm was an extra day off which in turn resulted in two ILT sections not having class at all.  So ILT #1 and ILT #3, you will be working on our citation lesson from last week.  It is an important lesson, and I don't want you to miss it.  I will be out today and Mr. Frazier will be leading you through this lesson.  Please use the information below to successfully complete your introduction to MLA citations.

You will start off class by watching the Prezi, "Plagiarism & Citing Sources."  If you don't know what a Prezi is, have no fear.  It is a great slideshow with a bit of a twist.  To move through the Prezi, you will need to click on the arrow at the bottom of the page.  Each click will "zoom" you to the next slide or piece of information.
Once you have finished this Prezi, you will then practice writing a MLA citation for the website,
"iPads in schools:  The right way to do it."  You will use the resource, "Citing Internet Sources." There is a hard copy of this resource in the Workstation Resource folder next to your workstation (it's yellow.)  If you take a look at the bottom of this document you will find a box.  At the top of the box is a sample citation.  Below it you will see a list of 6 items which you will need to find on the website with the iPad article.  Please create your citation on the notecard you have at your workstation.  Be sure to pay attention to all punctuation.  Each space, punctuation, etc. are all a part of the correct format.  Do not write each item on a separate line.  Refer to the sample citation at the top of the box.  Your's should look similar to it.   (Hint:  your citation should begin with - Mathis, Joel.)

When you have finished, take a look at the answer on the back board.  Okay so now that you have gone through the pain of writing out a citation, I have some great tools I think you will find very useful.  There are some online citation creation tools that will make creating citations much easier for you.  Check out EasybibBibme, and CitationCreation.

You will try creating a MLA citation using each of these 3 tools.  Which do you like the best?  Why? Be ready to share your answers to these questions with us at the end of class.

My friends in ILT #4 are a bit further along than ILT #1 and #3 because you had one class last week.  Please make sure you have finished these citation activities.  Once you have completed them, move on with the next step below.

If you should finish this before the end of class, please use the Blog Design Rubric (pink paper) in your Workstation Resource folder to start preparing your blog to be assessed.  Do a great job and I will be back for class 2 to answer any questions you may have.  

January 20, 2014

Correct Citations If You Please

I hope you all enjoyed having an extra day off this week.  Did you take any time to think about why we weren't in school today?  Did you do anything special to celebrate or honor Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.? Volunteers honored him all over the country. It is very hard for those of us living in 2014 to understand how much Dr. King did to change our country. Please find some time in your week to learn a little more about him and his legacy.

Moving on to the week at hand; Mother Nature seems to have another winter storm up her sleeve.  The forecast for Tuesday night in to Wednesday morning doesn't look very promising if you are a technology student trying to get information and learning experiences out to her students.  The weather forecasters are predicting, "Frigid with Fluff!"

Well on to the lesson for this week; Citations.  Up until this point, I have let you simply use a URL as a citation.  This week you will learn to write correct citations. Let's start by looking at a Prezi, "Plagiarism & Citing Sources." There are a couple of resources you will be using.  I found a good interactive Citation Flowchart that may help you with understanding of what to cite and what not to cite. The English Club has a great resource as well.  One of the best sites I have found is the Perdue OWL.

After exploring these resources, you will practice writing the correct citation for a website.  Please write the citation for theMacworld article, "iPads in Schools:  The Right Way to Do It" on a notecard. (There is a resource in your Workstation Resource folder.) I know this sounds tedious, but I really want you to "experience" what it feels like to write out a correctly formatted citation. This on line poster or this great cite, "Citing Internet Sources," will show you how to write a citation for a website.Okay so now that you have gone through the pain of writing out a citation, I have some great tools I think you will find very useful.  There are some online citation creation tools that will make creating citations much easier for you.  Check out Easybib, Bibme, and CitationCreation.
You will try creating a MLA citation using each of these tools.  Which do you like the best?  Why? Be ready to share your answers to these questions with us at the end of class.

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January 14, 2014

Copyright Terms


Today in class you will be working on a resource for yourself.  Last week's pre-assessment let me know my students, overall, needed some work with the terms or vocabulary associated with copyright. I have created a Google doc with the terms I would like you to define.  There is a link to an interactive site, Copyright Kids, on the top of this doc.  Please use this site to create your definitions.  I don't want you all working on the same doc so you will all need to create your own copy of this doc.  The video below will walk you through this process.  Before starting the video, you will need to be signed in to your Google accounts.  Please open a new tab and do this.  Then you will watch the video below.  You will also need to have the Copyright Terms doc to complete today's assignment,


Now that you have your own clean copy of this doc, you will be able to complete today's assignment.  Please take your time and be sure to define the terms in your own words.
Once you have finished this assignment, you make continue to explore the Copyright Kids site and take the "Copyright Challenge."

Another site you may want to explore is Cyberbee.  Some of you may remember this from last year.

ILT #2 this link is for you:  Copyright Terms.

January 12, 2014

RSS Feeds and Readers

Do you or anyone else in your family have a subscription to a magazine or a newspaper?  If you do, why?  Let's think for a minute about the benefits of having a subscription.  When a magazine or newspaper creates a new edition instead of you having to leave you house to go to a store to try and find the magazine or newspaper to buy, it is delivered right to your door.  There is a similar way to get new posts from your favorite blogs "delivered" right to your door.  RSS Feeds and using a reader such as Feedly can make this happen.  This may sound a bit confusing.  Let's try to clear it up by watching this video, "RSS Feeds in Plain English."  You will create a Feedly account today, add a Feedly button to your blog, and begin using your new "subscriptions" to follow blogs you like. I have some handouts in the resources folder next to your workstation.  I think these will help with the process. Once you have you iPads, we will add the Feedly App!  I think it will make more sense once we have gone through the process.

January 10, 2014

Pinning With a Purpose

Today in class you will start off by working on the last two agenda items.  To accomplish this task you will need to open your Pinterest accounts.  Your log in is your school gmail address (including @mybps.me; don't forget the 19).  Once you are logged in you will need to create a new board and title it, "Copyright and Citations." You will find a resource in your workstation folder to help you with this process; just in case you are confused.  Give this board a description and then "create" the board.  Next you will need to use the Pinterest search and find, evaluate, and pin at least 4 resources to your new board.  Remember to evaluate your pins.  Open up each one and decide if it will help you understand copyright laws or how to create a correct citation.  If it will not; then don't pin it!!

Once you have finished pinning, please do some work on your blog.  You should have at least 5 good posts by the end of this week.  Next week you will be creating a "reader" and getting your blog design rubrics.

Happy Pinning!!

January 4, 2014

Another New Start

Well Mother Nature most definitely won that battle! Hercules dumped quite a bit of snow and brought some frigid temperatures to our region.  I spent my fair share of time shoveling.  Did you help out at your home and in your neighborhoods?  I saw many Cape Codders working together.  There were many random acts of kindness being performed.  I would like to think many of my students were part of them.
I hope you all enjoyed your extended vacation and are back ready to work hard.  We will start off our week, by cleaning up your Drive.  You will need to make sure you have folders for each of your content areas.  You will also need to double check how you shared your folders.  Please use the list beside each workstation to check the "sharing" addresses of all your teachers.  If you are on team 7B, you will need to change your ELA folder sharing.  Please remove Mrs. Buss and add Mrs. Finnemore.
Once you have double checked your "sharing" please clean up your Drive.  Make sure all of your documents have names and are placed in the correct folders.  You should not have any random docs in your drive.  Make a new miscellaneous folder if you need to have a place to store docs.  You should then go to your Gmail and clean that up as well.  The last stop for cleaning up is your Contacts.  Please be sure all of your teachers are in your contacts with 2 "email" addresses; one for emailing and one for sharing. If you are on team 7B, you will need to change your contacts..  Please remove Mrs. Buss and add Mrs. Finnemore.
Once you have finished this clean up; you will need to work on a new blog post.  I made suggestions last week for a new post.  Check out my earlier post.  Please be sure to have someone edit your post before you publish.  Remember to ad links and/or photos to your posts.  Use your BPS Blogging & Commenting Guidelines as a reference.  **You should have at least 5 blog posts by the end of this week!!
During our second class this week we will begin our focus on Copyright & Citation.  This is a very important topic.  Before getting started, I would like to know what you know.  Please take this Copyright & Citation PreAssessment.  Please do not guess at answers.  This is not a graded assessment.  I will use it to guide our lessons and to measure your growth on the post assessment.

January 1, 2014

Welcome 2014....

It's hard to believe it is the year 2014.  I remember sitting at a desk in my elementary school classroom doing the math to figure out how old I would be in the year 2000, and thinking then how old I would be.  My young self never flashed forward past the year 2000.  I guess I would have thought the me in 2014 would be ancient (haha.)

Here we are starting a new year.  Did you make any resolutions?  Are you planning on making any changes in your lives?  Your thoughts and ideas about resolutions would make a good blog post.  That is what you will be doing in class this week, if you have it.  I would like you all to have a minimum of 5 blog posts by the end of next week.  For some of you this is a done deal, as you have more than this, but for others, you will need to get moving!

As I sit and write this post, I am keeping my eye on "Hercules" and the weather maps.  My guess is my students are all sitting at home doing their "snow day dances."  I am hoping we will get in both days this week.  After all, we just had a lovely break!  I have been thinking a little bit about these named storms.  Last year it was "Nemo," and this year it is "Hercules."  Why do our winter storms have the names of Disney movies?  Just something to think about.  Oh well, we will have to wait and see what Mother Nature dishes out.  Hopefully we will not miss these two days of school.  Winter has just begun, and summer is far enough away.  Let's hope we don't push it further back.
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