Wed Feb 29

Tonight we got a lot of stuff coming down the pipe.

1)First off, a presentation "by some" ... I need about 10 to go tonight. We'll get that done first. If more than ten go, all the gooderer ... ;)

2)I'd like to see them do some work on / show me some essay work - it would be awesome to see a draft version of the essay.

3) app of the day

4) pick a Shakespeare play - need about an hour to get this done. Tonight.

4.5)Remind Me 101 - remind Chesser. 'nuff said.

5) take another look at iTunesU. It's going to be another unit we study AND it's going to help you when you are away at University next year.

Or in Boucher's case, off to here. (Makes you want to learn how to blog, doesn't it, Monsieur Boucher?


5.5) make sure I have your blog address.

6)stuff for next Monday:

Find an "electronic text" - see Project Gutenburg, iBooks, audiobooks, Librivox ... among other places. Take a look around and find something you've thought about reading and get reading on it.

Search for a video version of your Shakespeare Play on Youtube. If not there, try the Burlington Public Library. After that, then come talk to me about it.


7) your webquest assignment number 1 on your blog by Midnight Sunday March 44 - make sure I have your blog address so that I can mark it. Ironically, I will be giving you this assignment on paper.



OK, we'll see you on Monday ... w000t!


[Via: 30 Dr. Seuss Quotes to Live By]

Recap of Monday

Ok, tonight. I;m starting this post while you are watching me.

Hi, Boucher. How's it going?

Here's a random pic from my hard drive:

In any case, we started off tonight with a bit on poet presentation. Here is the prezi



For those of you who wonder how I did that, see this link here.

Secondly, we did the really important work together on the essay. This is where I was a little disappointed, to be frank. Lots need to work here for Wednesday. Get it done, man

Next we did a bit of help with blogging and we did a bit on iTunes and iTunesU, too. Here's a video embedded about video embedding:



and here's a little more info about iTunesU




we talked a little about design, templates and keeping the blogs we're working on updated. S'all good, yo. We also watched a bit of a couple of videos on EBSCOHost ... the login information is on the "Electronic Products" page you got from me last week. It's simply awesome.

Lastly, we took a look at the plays by William Shakespeare. I will go and find a rather cool pic I took last summer. It has a great idea: the video running on one side of the screen with the electronic text on the other side. Simply perfect.

Right, see you Wednesday - get the presentations and essay work done!

The list, essay help and a little help for blogging

Right, the list in the previous post is the list from which you are going to pick a play to study. You'll notice that some of the the standards in the regular schools are not there. I'll be honest, the last time that someone wanted to switch from an "odd" play (like the ones on the list) and do a "regular" play (like from regular school) ... they didn't do so well.

Besides, I'm honestly thinking you want to try something different for this course.

In any case, if this were me, I'd look into three or four of the plays (Wikipedia is ok for this) and see what interests you. As you can see, there are three types of plays: Tragedies (which you've seen a lot of in high schools), Comedies (which you have not) and History plays (which I will assume most wouldn't know about). All are good, none are "Boring and stupid" and ... there is a video for each and every one. Be creative where you look for it. (Hint: think the local library system, Youtube or other parts of the internet)

In any case, I was also the target of some spam this weekend; Just to note, I don't respond to individual emails. That's just too much for me right now. In any case, the gist of the emails was that these people didn't know anything about blogging, which is ok.

My question is ... if you don't know something, what do you usually do? Email the teacher, or search on Youtube? Here's a hint/screenshot of a search I did on Youtube:

I'm still getting a question or two about when I'm going to hand out the essay topics. Hmmm ..I think I said that you are going to have to develop your own essay topics last Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I said that... but I'll say it again:

You are going to develop your own essay questions and answer them in a well written thousand word MLA format essay.

The interesting questions were about the presentation: I'm going to leave that up to you, but I'd post it to my blog, hten have it on me (on a USB drive or something) just in case. I made you do that "Worst Case Scenario" assignment for a purpose. And ... and the essay is NOT to be posted to you blog. Hand that in on paper.

Speaking of which:

1)OK, now then, I'm hoping that my students are getting ready for an little essay writing help tomorrow; 'cuz that's what we're working on for a bit.

2)Then, some help with a blogging;

3)then, I'm hoping an example of what I'm looking for in the Poet Presentation which start on Thursday.

4)Finally, and I'm hoping we get this in, a picking of Plays my students will study.

Fast? You betcha.

Ok, see you tomorrow!

Plays we are Culminating

Whoa, man ... wrong blog. OK, I think I got this now. Here is the list of plays

Comedies
1Comedy of Errors (can be doubled)
2Taming of the Shrew
3(Midsummer Night’s Dream)
4Two Gentlemen of Verona
5Love’s Labours Lost
6(Merchant of Venice)
7As you Like It
8Much Ado About Nothing (can be doubled)
9Twelfth Night
10Merry Wives of Windsor
11Alls Well that Ends Well
12Measure for Measure
13Pericles, Prince of Tyre
14Cymbaline
15The Winter’s Tale
16The Tempest

Histories
17 Ricard the Second
18Richard the Third
19Richard the Fourth
20King Henry the fourth, part 1
21King Henry the fourth, part 2
22 Henry V (Can be doubled)

Tragedies
23Titus Andronicus (can be doubled)
24 (Julius Caesar)
25 Trolius and Cressida (can be doubled)
26 (Othello)
27 Timon of Athens
28Anthony and Cleopatra
29Coriolanus
30 (King Lear)

Due dates for Poetry

Please see the due dates for the first unit on Poetry.

Tonight ... Feb 22

This should be an interesting class. Let's hope that we can all just ... get through it together.

We're going to start out with a simple warm up - see the overhead presentation for details. All about "Digital resilience". I'm also going to come around and look for the Poet/Poetry assignment notes you might have taken/have on you. See previous post.

After that, we're going to get the Unit One outline and work through what I mean by an online text. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what an MLA format essay is, and so I will cover that and an APA Style report, too. Someday you'll thank me, trust me.

I think we also need to do a bit on web design. I went through as many of your blogs as I could (some have bad typing skills and bad "following instruction" skills, so I missed a few, but the majority I saw were ... a little dull. I'm pretty sure you are not that way, so, let's show you how to move stuff on the internet.

I have a "three in one" presentation tonight, too. It will be about What you should be doing for "Digital resilience", tools at your disposal for research (not jsut google) and finally, "how NOT to do a presentation for 4U English upgrade classes.

Due dates will be posted by tomorrow, too. Check the blog and Twitter for details!

Wrap up for tonight and assignment for next Wednesday

Thanks to everybody for tonight, I really appreciate your patience and hard work. Seriously, it's awesome.

Here's a random picture from my hard drive in thanks:

In any case, expect a visit from me on your blogs by the end of business tomorrow. I'd like to just make sure all the links work and to confirm your choice of poet.

The assignment part:

Yeah, sorry, gotta do it.

First: Look into your poet in the usual places: YouTube, iTunes, wikipedia (cough, cough), Google and ... well, what ever else you can think. Post your findings (not a click and paste job) onto your blog ... or if you can't recall how to that, onto a Word doc and then into your Dropbox.

Oh, you have to watch that Dropbox video again; just make sure you have headphones, because you don't want your friends hearing that guys voice.

Second: Go back to the list at UofT and read all (or a good number) of the poems of your poet. Read them out loud. To your parents or guardians, your grandma who never hears from you, someone standing on the bus. Read them out loud, just to get a sense of the poems themselves. You night get lucky and hear one on Youtube.

Third: Watch this and do the three questions for at least three poems of the poet:



(By the way, if you are logged into your gmail account before watching that Youtube video, you'll be amazed at what tools you can now use. Favourite videos, make playlists of videos ... man, awesome stuff. Now, go play on teh Interwebs.

Be safe and we'll see you Wednesday Feb 22!

First post

Usually, when my students are getting their very first post ready, I tell them to write the line "Chesser told me to write this."

So, in order to keep that tradition up:

"Chesser told me to write this."

In any case, if you are reading this, it's a good bet that you are in my upgradeing class or know someone who is. This is going to be a "Flipped classroom". If don't understand what that is, click on that link and a nice clear explanation will be shown.

In any case, pay attention to the guy at the front of the room, he's nice and you should trust him.

Oh and see if this Google Doc works for you