Class Discussion about Neil Pasricha

Today in class we had a discussion about Neil Pasricha and his presentation. We discussed how his life got better after the hard times he went through and how he was able to move forward.
I think everyone can relate to Neil Pasricha because we all go through hard times in life and sometimes it feels never ending; one bad thing after another. On days like that it may feel the world is crashing down on you and you feel hopeless. But something we have to remember is we only have 100 years to live if even so make those years count. Be happy, smile, laugh and think of good times! I think he was able to move forward in life because he realized being sad all the time and having a bad attitude doesn't get you anywhere. I have personally realized that; i feel being positive and doing things I love to do gets my mind off the bad times.

 

          

"Smiles are for FREE."       

 "Life is so beautiful and so are emotions."

Plural Possessive Nouns Quiz

So, what are apostrophes? An apostrophe is a punctuation mark (') used to indicate either possession.

Do you put the apostrophe before or after the "s"? That depends...if the sentence is already plural, example: "crops of the farmers" then  it goes after the "s" but if it's a sentence that isn't already plural such as "teeth of babies" then the apostrophe goes before the "s".

I took the Wisc Online Plural Possessive Nouns quiz: http://www.wisc-online.com/Objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=WCN6502

I got 6 out of 10 right on this quiz. I missed a couple because of misunderstanding of how to write the sentence, instead of writing "All the teachers desks" i wrote "Teachers' desks" but i ended up figuring out what i was doing wrong.

Writers need to remember that nouns are a person place or thing.  So, when they are using nouns in their writing then they may need to use an apostrophe.

Apostrophes fit in my blogosphere because if i am talking about someone else then that's when i need to use an apostrophe, example: "Crystal's dog is cute."  "My dad's cooking is great."

Mena Trott's presentation

After watching Mena Trott's speech about blogging i would have to say i mostly agree with her about everything. A couple things she mentioned really got my attention sush as;  "blogs are changing the way we read news and consume media." "MSNBC was posting about the hurricane and updating it frequently." "people document their stories." and "people BRAG about themselves."
 I  have come to realize people don't just use the internet for the entertainment...we use the internet to post important information, connect with people from all over the world and talk about our lives and have others give us feedback. Blogging is a fun/different way of communicating with people; it's a chance to connect with friends, family and even strangers. I think it's really cool reading about people's lives and getting to know them just from their blogs, EVERYONE has a different story to tell and certain topics interest certain people.

Quiz about run on sentences

i took the Capital Community College Run On and Fragment Quiz  http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/fragments_quiz.htm

i got 4 correct and 6 wrong. i missed numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10. I thought i did okay on this quiz, i felt kinda confident as to what i was doing. i know what run-on sentences and fragments are but sometimes it's hard to find them in a sentence, i was surprised that i even got 4 right! i think when people are writing sentences they need to remember to put commas, semi colons and any other punctuations in the right place in order for their sentence to make sense.  
run-ons and fragments don't really fit in my blogosphere because i'm trying to become a better writer.
Example of run on sentence: "Adam is a sweet boy he really loves animals."

Example of a fragment: "Why you eat pie?"

A t.v. show i watched

I just recently watched a t.v show about bullying and it really surprised me how many kids get bullied and what they end up wanting to do to themselves (cutting, killing, ect.) they also mentioned the schools not doing anything about it; school should be a FUN/SAFE learning environment, absolutley everyone should feel safe and these kids don't. I find this terribly sad and i take this into major consideration now.
How many of you have gotten bullied? Did you feel different about yourself? Did anyone do anything about it? (you don't HAVE to answer this if you're not comfortable)
I truly wish bullying didn't exist and i wonder what we could do to prevent it. Why do people feel good about treating others badly? We are all equal... no one is better than anyone.

Well, I just wanted to get my word out there and i want to help the kids who are getting bullied. Everyone should be apart of it, we could save lives and make the world a better place.   

What is self-direction?

Personally i think self-direction means working independtly; you work at your own pace and you direct yourself.  However, you still have others to help guide you along such as advisors, friends, and family but it's mostly up to YOU to get your work done. I feel self-direction is very important because you learn to work well on your own and you learn from a different perspective. You don't have other people doing your work for you or with you and it's easier to concentrate.
Blogging relates to being self-directed because you are managing your own time and you are writing freely.

Anything you want to get done you can, just work hard and believe in yourself(:

Why Students Should Blog!

i went to this website and read 20 reasons why students should blog. I will list 3 i strongly agree with and 3 i strongly disagree with. http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/20-reasons-why-students-should-blog/

i strongly disagree with reason numbers:
4. Increased motivation for writing – all students are happy to write and complete aspects of the post topic. Many will add to it in their own time. Personally, i don't think writing motivates everyone and i don't think ALL students are happy to write. Some people take a writing class to get BETTER or LEARN how to write but it doesn't mean they enjoy it.

5. Increased motivation for reading – my students will happily spend a lot of time browsing through fellow student posts and their global counterparts. I don't believe everyone will happily spend time reading other students posts because certain topics interest certain people.

19. "Students are happy to share, learn from and teach their peers." not everyone is happy to share about their life and other things, they may want privacy. 

i strongly agree with reason numbers:
6. Improved confidence levels – a lot of this comes through comments and global dots on their cluster maps. Students can share their strengths and upload areas of interest or units of work eg personal digital photography, their pets, hobbies etc Staff are given an often rare insight into what some students are good at. We find talents that were otherwise unknown and it allows us to work on those strengths. It allows staff to often gain insight to how students are feeling and thinking. I do believe blogging will improve confiendnece levels because I think it's nice to get comments from others whether it's an opinion, feedback or just commenting to be friendly.

7. Pride in their work – My experience is that students want their blogs to look good in both terms of presentation and content. (Sample of a year 10 boy’s work). I feel like the students will have pride in their work because if it's about their life and things they are interested in then i think they will write to their best ability and feel good about it.

12. Mutual learning between students and staff and students. Blogging will give you a chance to learn about other students in your class and you can get to know someone better.