What you write speaks volumes

Click image to get larger view.

Language savvy freshmen can distinguish bright, sparkling sentences from sentences that are dull and need polish and editing. Examine these sentences - written by your classmates, then rate them on a scale of 1 -5 - (5) being perfect, with no mistakes and (1) indicating improvement needed. Explain all of your answers in two to three sentences.
These sentences were taken from the responses to question #3 of my latest Survey Monkey survey.


Post your responses on your blog!

Mr. Songhai
9/28/06

Inside Survey Monkey

This is a view of the Analyze page inside of Survey Monkey.
This page shows the yes, no and open ended essay responses to your surveys.
Have you gotten this far with analyzing your survey data?

Thanks to the first five students who responded to my last survey.

If you have not yet responded to my last survey, please complete it and type your name after your last answer.

Mr. Songhai
9/26/06

Would You Like To Fly?

All Ninth Grade Students
Please take a few minutes and complete this survey.

New Media Students please type your full name at the end of your last answer.

Thanks,

Mr. Songhai
9/25/06

Click here to take survey

Create a graph in Excel in minutes

I came across this useful Excel video on an education blog called TILT, by Danny Maas. All New Media students (at some point in the design phase of your projects) will need to use Excel. You will need to use Excel to compile lists, crunch numbers and create graphs.

Click here to watch the video. Watch it several times. Take notes if necessary, then try to create a graph in Excel yourself. Use the survey data you collected in class and your Survey Monkey data to build the graph. The object here is to convert your text and number data into a graph.









Don't have Excel? Try Open Office!

Mr. Songhai
9/24/06

All Ninth Grade Students

From your blog edit page,
go to your autobiographical post and
click Save as Draft.





Your Chapter 1 excerpt will disappear from your blog,
but your excerpt will not be deleted. It will remain in your blogger archive. To see your blog page without the autobio excerpt you must hit the F5 key on your keyboard or click refresh on your browser.

See me tomorrow if you have questions.

ALSO

Please post your renditions of Robert Pinsky's ABC poem on your blog.

Mr. Songhai
9/20/06

Podcasting

What is a podcast?

How might a podcast benefit you in a classroom environment where there are no books?

What is the difference between a podcast and traditional radio programming?

What is RSS, XML?

If you were the host of a podcast what would some of your show topics be?

H. Songhai
9/18/06

Blogs, Wikis & Survey Monkey

Here is a photo of my ninth grade English class taken on 9/15/06. The students are discussing what they learned about blogs, wikis and the online survey tool, Survey Monkey. They are discussing how they might use these tools in a Project Based Learning setting. Students also discussed the popular social network service, My Space.

H. Songhai
9/16/06

Autobiographical Resources

All first year New Media Students are required to write the autobiography of a partner from your advisory. You have all been paired with another student. By now you should have compiled at least 15 questions to ask your partner for chapter 1 - "Who Am I?"

You are not bound to ask only 15 questions. Remember, each question that you ask your partner can potentially generate a half dozen additional questions.

When it's all said and done, your autobiographies will only be as interesting - only be as deep, as the multi-layered, personal, probing questions that you ask your partner.

Here are several autobiographical excerpts. Read several of the excerpts, then, post your thoughts about the opening paragraphs. Explain how the author captured (or didn't capture) your attention right away with the first couple sentences of the opening paragraph. Exlplain how you might consider opening your autobiography.

H. Songhai
9/13/06

CREATE YOUR OWN SURVEY ONLINE

Survey Monkey will allow you to create your own custom surveys.
It is free and you don't need to download anything on your
computer to use it.
Take this sample survey on 21st Century Literacy.

The program will only allow you to ask ten questions.
Think of 10 questions you would like to ask someone
on the topic of dress code and uniforms.

Later today you will create your own survey within
your group.

H. Songhai
9/11/06

9th Grade Collaborative Work Groups

Today we broke our advisory up into five collaborative work groups.
Each group will be responsible for producing three projects over
the course of the first trimester. Your first project will compare the
cost differences between uniforms versus a dress code.

Each collaborative team will build and maintain a wiki.
Your group wiki will serve as an electronic data base for your project vocabulary, relative web sites, social bookmarks, graphs, charts, documents and reflections.

If you have questions, comments or concerns about your role as a group member, or if you have any general questions about this project, leave me a comment on the comments link below, or email me.

H. Songhai
9/5/06

Research topics for 9th Grade Students

What is Survey Monkey?

How might Survey Monkey be useful in our
school uniform/dress code project?

Please take the digital literacy questionnaire. Please type and save your answers as a word document.

H. Songhai
9/5/06