YAY!

Heyyyyy~ We hit 2000 page views! The school year is almost ending and I would like to say that it's been a pleasure to be in such a wonderful group blog. Have a good day everyone! :)

Response to Tony Gurr's Motivation

        The blog post “Motivating our LEARNers…or ‘Co-Creating’ a CLIMATE of LEARNacy?” by Tony Gurr explains to teachers that instead of trying to motivating students, they should listen to the students’ opinions and guide the students through their OWN learning. However, despite the effective presentation method and persuasive visuals, I personally disagree with the main message the author is trying to spread.

        The presentation format of Tony Gurr’s blog post is very unique. Half of the post consists of words while the other half is all visuals. The made the post very interesting and easy to read on, despite its long length. However, some of the pictures presented are somewhat irrelevant in my opinion, or need further “googling” to clarify. This may muddle the main idea of the post. For example, I couldn't (and still cannot) understand the picture that showed “I am back, therefore I am”. I do not see any connection of that section with motivation and learning. Other than that fact, the blog post was relatively pleasant to read and understand.

       However, I do not completely agree with the ideas that Tony Gurr is presenting to us. He said that teachers should give students their own choices on deciding what they desire to learn; teachers should guide students to follow their passions. Although this may work with some parts of a course, it will not be able to fully take over the curriculum. Not everyone is capable of independent exploration with minimal teacher interference. A great way to explain this is with the Genius Hour Passion Projects we have been doing in our English class over the semester. Despite all the fun and freedom we had, I still feel like we did not completely cover what we are supposed to learn. Yes, we did obtain a valuable experience by creating a new sport, and we did learn a great deal about the history of magic, but there was also a downside. Genius Hour took up a great deal of time that could be used for other approaches to learning, such as formal essay writing. This may seem boring, but in my opinion, but it is a more efficient way to develop English skills. On top of that, sometimes too much freedom will also lead to laziness, low-quality/irrelevant work. As a student, I feel that we do not have enough base knowledge, skill, or discipline to make choices that will benefit our learning.

        As a high school student, I understand that our teachers try to find a balance between what we NEED to learn and what we WANT to learn. However, I don’t think that we are ready to have that freedom. We still need a superior guidance to push us forward and see that we complete all our work. Freedom is not a right; it is a responsibility, a discipline. Until we show that we have enough willpower to control ourselves – I do not believe we have done so yet – we are not ready to hold this burden.

Response to Tony Gurr's blog&blogpost

"Motivating our LEARNers..."

      When I first opened Tony's blog from the link Ms. Lees posted, his blog design and atmosphere struck me as a simple, even playful blog. His title "allthingslearning" does not follow any normal "Titles Spaced and Capitalized Evenly" rule, and is just splat onto the top in a large font that makes his blog seem different. I feel it is a bit messy actually, with the huge list of links and sites right under the title, but I think it works. His blog is just simplistic and kid friendly so there doesn't need to be sub folders and dividers to sort everything. I am not saying it looks unprofessional, but it is just unique.
      His blog posts, particularly the post on 'Motivation', is also very fun to read. He incorporated many graphics into his post (more than half was graphically illustrated, which he created himself- wow) to make it more interesting and exciting. It is really cool how he illustrated quotes, such as this one:

 

This way of incorporating visuals actually reminds me of the recent "Poetry in Motion" project we had to do.  Any examples of Poetry in Motion you can find is pretty amazing itself; how people find ways to illustrate words. I actually made one too based off a song lyric. It is just on the post underneath this one, but here's the link.
      I found the content of his blog post a bit confusing at first though. There are definitely a lot of references in his post (at least I think they are referring to something I don't know?), and only a few of them I understood. I found many things just random as well. Maybe I just do not get his point and relation he is trying to make. For example:

"the Secret"??? I really don't get this part...
      Anyways, I do agree that if you want to motivate students, teachers must provide them with choices, not just restrict them to certain limitation. Teachers must let student have a say in learning, and listen to their voices (unless they are stupid nonsensical). Teachers must care about their students and treat them with respect as well.

Remember the GOLDEN RULE:

 

LUKE 6:31

      I believe Ms. Lees tried to have a more interactive and motivational learning experience with us, the students, by doing the "Genius Hour" projects. She let us choose our own topics on anything. I found this project really fun to work on, and it really showed my motivation in the end. At first both Stella and I were planning to make only 1 or 2 stop motion videos, but in the end we came out with 4! Ms. Lees would ask us for our opinion of how the projects were, and even what we should do for other projects (eg. the Chrysalids novel small assignment). This was truly a class I was motivated in (funny because English may as well be my least favourite subject).

Demons by Imagine Dragons

My Poetry in Motion video has been having troubles rendering... I will upload it ASAP!!

Okay, so after rendering it, I am now uploading it onto youtube, unfortunately it is not very fast.

"Uploading your video. 278 minutes remaining."

DONE (:

 

When the curtain's call

Is the last of all

When the lights fade out

All the sinners crawl

I want to hide the truth

I want to shelter you

But with the beast inside

There's nowhere we can hide

Don't want to let you down

But I am hell bound

This is my kingdom come

This is my kingdomcome

At first I was not planning to put the song with the lyrics, that way it could be longer and more like a simple 'poem'. BUT I decided against it since I did not want it to be slow (and boring), so I put the song along with it~ :3 That is why it seems short, but there is still 10+ lines (12) okay?!

Feel free to leave a comment/suggestion because I did work hard on this because I found it very fun XD
Criticism is acceptable. I already know some of my timing is still off.. =__=''

Poetry in Motion: On Top of the World

This is just the first ten lines that was due today, I actually had it done last night, but I didn't want to post it until I added more, but I didn't have the chance to, so enjoy! 

On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons

(If the quality is bad, try this link)

I actually wanted to finish the chorus as well, but I had to have this done and posted for tonight, so this is just a PREVIEW version. I will add more to the video and re-post it when I finish the chorus! 

Digital Poem "Fate"

Sorry, it's a bit late, but here is the digital poem:

http://youtu.be/t6GMcuX3mBo

It lags a bit, so please don't be picky on the bad quality.

Poetry in Motion Question

How did you guys record it? I don't seem to know how to turn powerpoint into a video....

It's death again by Mark R Slaughter

here is the link you my vedio 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVd152b2FAE

It took me like an hour to post this !! lol

Digital poetry- Sympathy by Emily Bronte

Hey guys, here is my digital poetry. It's on "Sympathy", by Emily Bronte.

Excuse me for the bad quality and random lags; my computer was acting weird.

neative campaigns should be illegal in canada

Negative campaigns should be illegal in Canada

           Negative campaigning is an act in which one party tries to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies. It is true people are drawn to controversies, scandal and anything negative, however, campaigns that abuse this opportunities for constructive criticism for the purpose of misleading people's judgment should be illegal.

           The saying "Politics is a dirty game" not only sounds very convincing, but contains a kernel of truth. When it comes to negative campaigns, the media plays a supportive role in encouraging sensationalism. Since voters are continuously engaging with and are exposed to negative campaign ads during the election, it is likely to affect the voter's choice. The voter's choice can be, therefore, easily triggered by false and misleading negative campaigns. Advertisements target the subconscious mind and shape the opinions and therefore the reality views. This is primary goal of marketing: by play enough ads over and over again, it seeks to gain supporters and followers by consumers believed in the product/information that is being sold.

           Negative campaigns do not only lead supporters to mistrust the candidate being attacked, sometimes, supporters also become disillusioned and deterred by the seemingly juvenile "tit-for-tat" negative campaigning tactic. Negative campaigning can lead to the loss of respect and feeling of irritation in the voters for candidates. Attacking once another without proposing viable solutions or tactics to overcome impeding social, political and economic challenges can very well irritate potential voters too.

           Negative campaigning is not always successful, and even if it is, it still draws away the candidate's own votes for disrespectful act they've shown to the public.

           Negative campaigns only confuse the voters, appeal to them in ways that propel anger and frustration, and does not necessarily guarantee the gain of their own votes. So why even use such useless tactic during such important times? Negative campaigns are a waste of resources which should be banned for defenestration or societal ethics.