5/16/2015 May 16, 2015We have had 24 Genius Hour slide presentations to date. All remaining students need to be ready for the May 19 date. Remember that even if that is not your "official" date you are "on deck" to fill in if time permits. I think that students are able to see what a difference it makes when a classmate is prepared and has put some time and effort into a good presentation and when someone has thrown things together at the last minute. In the previous post I mentioned incomplete grades from a previous quarter, and I am posting a final reminder for those students who have not completed the third assignment for the 4th quarter, the blog post about the stock market activity. Directions, video, and sample are available at Techonomics 4. As of today, there are 12 who have not submitted that assignment (which is actually just re-submitting work you have already completed but in a different format). If your post is not submitted by May 22, this coming Friday, it will not be accepted. The following week you will be concentrating on exams so all work for technology must be in BEFORE exam week. 5/2/2015 May 2. 2015We have had 12 students to date who have presented their Genius Hour topics. The presentations dates are listed in the previous post and also the list is posted in the 8th grade classroom. Attention: This will be the final reminder about overdue assignments from Q2! Those students who never completed the video assignment from Q2 and had an Incomplete on their report card ( as of April 2 there are still 7 of you !) have a final deadline of May 22 before the score becomes a zero and will no longer be accepted. This will leave you with a U for a quarter 2 grade. Don't let that happen! Remember that you must email me to say it has been completed and it is ready to be reviewed no later than May 22. There will be no exceptions to this deadline after all this time has passed. There are a number of students who have yet to complete the Stock Market blog post (Tech-onomics 4). This is now a LATE assignment and you are losing points the longer you delay. Again, May 22 is the deadline before the score is entered as zero! 4/15/2015 April 15, 2015Essential Questions and Presentation Dates
April 28 1) What does it mean to be diabetic? 2) How have leukemia survival rates and treatments changed over the last 50 years? 3) Is organic food worth the expense? 4) What does it take to become a marine biologist? 5) How can we benefit from non-embryonic stem cell research? 6) How can dystopian novels help us live a more civilized life and appreciate our world today? May 1 7) What advancements in recent years, have helped to change the fact that men are paid more than women and the two sexes are not treated as social equals? 8) Should the NBA and NFL only draft players after their senior year of college? 9) Should kids under 12 be allowed to play tackle football? 11) What different careers does engineering involve? 13) What is the goal of ISIS and how does this fit with Islamic beliefs? 14) What can be done about the world water crisis? May 5 10) What can you do with a degree in criminal justice? 12) How can another epidemic of Ebola be prevented? 15) Should parents be forced to vaccinate their children? 16) What are the long term costs and benefits NASA’s Mars Mission? 17) Why are certain age groups more at risk for suicide and what can we do to help? 18) Why are teen drivers at a higher risk of accidents? May 12 19) How important are pre-school early learning programs in developing a love of reading? 20) Do countries that give financial support to their Olympic athletes win more medals? 21) How can being fluent in more than one language improve job prospects? 22) How realistic is the dream of playing in the NBA or NFL for a young athlete? 23) How have foreign languages in high schools changed? 24) Is our sugar consumption killing us? May 19 25) What are the characteristics and credentials that lead to someone being accepted into medical school? 26) Should we continue to fund the search for extraterrestrial life or Is too much money going into research? 27) Why don't athletes get the right punishment for their crimes? 28) What can people do to avoid food-borne diseases? 29) Do pit bulls deserve the “bad rap” they get? 30) What common diseases should we be more conscientious about? on deck: 31) How has photojournalism affected society? 32) What really does happen at a no - kill animal shelter? 33) Do professional athletes deserve their high salaries? 34) Are we on the verge of another video game market crash like the one in 1983? 4/2/2015 April 2, 2015Very few students took advantage of emailing me a corrected paragraph for their stock analysis assignment to earn back some points. That paragraph could have been used in its entirety in the post that is due by April 21 (which some students have already completed - Good for you!) Upcoming dates to note: April 7 - Research document needs to be completed by the end of class. See Genius Research for specific requirements. Some students are not even close to being able to meet these requirements for a variety of reasons such as: absences, working on older past due assignments during research time, dawdling and not making good use of available class time. Open labs will be offered Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during April for anyone who needs additional work time. However, keep in mind this important fact: YOU CAN DO ALL OF THIS OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL BECAUSE IT IS IN YOUR GOOGLE DRIVE! April 14 - Sample presentation by Mrs. Ruffing to model upcoming format. Remaining slots will be assigned at random for presentations. Presentation schedule will be posted on this site for reference. Final review of rubric posted at Presentation Rubric. April 21 - last day in class to put on finishing touches for presentation. Slides MUST BE SHARED. April 28 - Individual presentations begin. We will have the entire class together for the presentations and then the entire class will have gym following each presentation period (except on May 1 which is a Friday.) Presentation dates will be April 28, May 1, May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26. Do your best NOT TO MISS CLASS! 3/19/2015 March 19, 2015Congratulations, Eighth Grade Class, on the momentous occasion of receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. May the Holy Spirit be with you in all the decisions and choices you make in your future. Class updates: I am in the process of reviewing the Stock Analysis documents that were submitted (Tech-onomics 3). Some have been scored with the score sheet shared with you in Google Drive. The remaining ones will be finished in the next few days. I have to admit that the majority of the ones I have reviewed so far have been rather disappointing, in that some of you simply did not refer to the directions on formatting and the content of the paragraph. There was even a completed model project for you to view as you worked. Those students with an incomplete paragraph will have until the end of class on March 24 to make corrections and then email just the paragraph to me to earn some additional points. We will be using that same paragraph when we share the results of the stock analysis and so it is necessary to have all required elements in the paragraph. You will receive partial credit for the revised paragraph. I will not re-score any other part of the project. The three scores for Q3 will include the Tech-onomics 2 and 3 and also the Genius Hour Proposal Process, which would be an easy 100 for going through the process, as long as you completed all parts. Once again, I need to remind a few students about their Incomplete grade from Q2. You must email me to let me know you have completed the stock video assignment. Research should be well underway for the Genius Research project following the guidelines in the research document. I will continue to leave comments and suggestions for sources. Do not only work on this in the computer lab. Do a little digging and reading whenever you have a few minutes to spare. Some students who have barely any information gathered, such as only spending a class period researching their topics, are already working on slides. This is putting the cart WAY before the horse. The presentation will only be as good as the content you share, so content must come first. Presentation rubrics are already posted online on the webmix so before you get too far, take a look at the expectations. Remember YOU are supposed to be sharing your GENIUS with us, meaning you must really know your topic well.
Don't forget that a video presentation is also an option, such as the type I demonstrated with the Chrome extension Screencastify. The free version has a recording limit of ten minutes, but your presentation should definitely be shorter than that. 3/5/2015 March 5, 2015Another snow day! What a perfect day to work on the Genius Hour research! During the course of this day I will be visiting student Essential Question pages and adding some spin-off ideas to guide research. There are some awesome questions posed by you and it will be a great learning opportunity for all of us when you share you findings. Keep eyes and ears open for topics in the news that relate to your research, and if I encounter anything I think may be helpful I will send it your way. As always, feel free to email me with any questions you may have. On March 3 I reviewed use of the Google Research Tool. Be sure to include citations for the material you are gathering because you will need those citations at the end. Remember CAPOW for determining if sources of information are reliable. A sampling of essential questions chosen: How can dystopian novels help us live a more civilized life and appreciate our world today? How can we benefit from non-embryonic stem cell research? What advancements in recent years have helped to change gender inequality? How can being fluent in more than one language benefit job prospects? How can another epidemic of Ebola be prevented? Why are teen drivers at higher risk of accidents? How have leukemia treatment and survival rates changed over the last 50 years? Do countries that give financial support to their athletes win more medals? Is the video game industry on the verge of a crash similar to 1983? 2/17/2015 February 17, 2015Update for students: On Tuesday, Feb. 10, you worked independently in the lab on the stock market line chart. The original due date was today, February 17, but obviously now that will be moved back to Feb. 24. However, please consider working on your Essential Question document and beginning to do some research on your Genius Hour topic. I have added some additional comments to proposal sheets and there are still several students who do not have the minimum three proposals listed on their documents. I will be going back over all the proposals and making sure that everyone's topic is finalized. Feel free to email me with questions or comments regarding your topic if you need any clarification. This would be a good opportunity to start working on your research on an unexpected snow day. We will be spending the month of March on researching and should be ready to present findings in good presentation form by the end of April. Most students have received a score for the stock sheet, but there are a few still to be graded. Some other students will receive extra credit for serving as tutors. Thank you very much! **Special reminders: Those students who had an incomplete for Q2 should be finishing the video assignment and then emailing me to let me know it has been completed. I will not continuously check your document to see if it is finished! Although you do not have access to your line chart from home, you CAN use the directions posted on Tech-onomics 3 to complete your paragraph that will accompany the chart. Think of the time this could save! 1/24/2015 January 23, 2015As the second quarter came to a close I am disappointed that there were still 10 students who did not complete the stock market video assignmen t and so have an Incomplete for their quarter grade. The purpose of this assignment was to give students background information and a real life context for the work we were doing with our own stock market activity in Excel. The assignment itself was quite simple, explained in November and due at the end of December. I will make no further comment on it but the incompletes will remain until the assignment is finished. Currently due is the stock market spreadsheet, formatted according to directions in Tech-onomics 2. So far 19 students have signed a sheet indicating their spreadsheet is ready to be checked. The students are demonstrating their skill with formulas and formatting in Excel. All spreadsheets should be completed by the end of the first week in February. Students may come to the computer lab for help or additional work time during recess. On February 3 they will take their work in Excel a step further in Tech-onomics 3 which will be explained on Feb 3. Anyone who is absent on Feb. 3 will need to rely on the written directions and examples provided as I will be away on February 10. During this activity we will be looking at the charting function in Excel and producing a line graph to show the activity in one of the stocks in the portfolio over the course of the 8 weeks. Once the chart is completed students will be researching in earnest for their Genius Hour project in which they will seek information on an essential question and then share their findings with the class. That will be the bulk of the fourth quarter grade.
1/9/2015 January 9, 2015Happy New year! We are now nearing the end of our stock portfolio activity. January 12 will be the last date students will record the prices for the stocks in their portfolios. Many have seen a loss from their original $10,000 investment but there are a few who have several hundred dollars in profit to date. Will that hold until the very end? In the process of recording data for the stock portfolio students have not only been using formulas to calculate but also using a variety of formatting tools to set up the spread sheet according to requirements. The final spreadsheet needs to be completely formatted no later than January 27. (See Tech-onomics 2 for details.) Grades for the second quarter will include the Genius at Work brainstorming assignment in preparation for our Genius Hour research project, Tech-onomics 1-2 in which students set up the first block for the stock portfolio, and the stock market video assignment (Techo-onomics 1-1). I am very disappointed in the number of students who have yet to complete the video assignment that was first explained in November with a deadline of Dec. 31 for completion. It would have been a very easy 100 because it was simply viewing 5 short videos and listing 2 facts learned and one question that the student had after viewing each video. Part of the score included on time completion, and at this point anyone who has not submitted the assignment will not be able to earn any higher than an 88. I reminded the class of this problem on January 6, and offered 3 open lab periods in this past week. There were no takers. The purpose of the assignment was to give students the context and background for what we were doing with the stock market spreadsheet. Real life application for learning helps to make it stick, and viewing these short videos on their own is a way for them to see the real life implications of what they are doing in class. I will be sending for students by name during exam week to complete the assignment at recess (which of course could be entirely completed outside of school) and whatever is completed by the end of the quarter, January 16, will be the score that is earned. 12/15/2014 December 15, 2014By now students are working on the fourth week of the stock market challenge using an Excel spreadsheet to set up formulas to calculate the value of their weekly portfolios. They needed to come in with their 4 choices in which to invest their "$10,000" and then monitor the performance of those stocks over a course of 8 to 10 weeks (final number of weeks to be determined after the holidays and based on possible weather complications.) Students have invested in stocks from AAPL to YHOO and everything in between. The most popular investment was Apple, with 25 students purchasing that stock at 118.62 a share. Students received a grade for setting up their first week correctly following the step by step process together in class. (See Tech-onomics 1 Part 2). Some students had corrections to make before going on to week 2. In some cases students chose foreign stocks (they were to purchase stocks traded on NASDAQ or NYSE). Since some students are still making corrections we are not yet ready to post weekly standings. Along with the skills involved in formatting the Excel spreadsheet, students also have a series of videos relating to the stock market and how it impacts our economy to give them a sense of the why and how of the market. Perhaps they will become investors at an early age. At least they will have a better understanding of all the factors that affect our economy and even their part in it. The video lesson assignment (Tech-onomics 1 Part 1) must be completed no later than December 31. This includes the sharing of the Google Doc so I can review what has been completed. We can then discuss some of the questions raised in January. In addition to updating stock portfolios we have been participating in the worldwide HOUR OF CODE. Students will need to complete at least a full hour to earn their individual certificates, but I am encouraging them to work beyond that. There are so many skills being developed in the experience of coding that it can benefit them across many subject areas, even if they are not interested in coding as a career.
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