Today was really hard for everyone, even Steffen and I had trouble writing the blog. Everything has been very rushed today. We started out today with something that is completely different than the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Our class got a lesson on HIV/AIDS. Although it was interesting the whole time I was just thinking about how little time we would have to practice for presenting our final product website. Most other classes had about two hours to practice for this huge presentation we have Friday. First period had about 45 minutes. It's pretty easy to see the stress on some of the faces of the people who are just standing up front and presenting in front of the class. If these people can't present in front of people they have known all year, how will they stand up to the pressure of presenting in front of multiple teachers as well? I am sure most people will be able to step up and present well and then project will go fine. The readers will be able to hear all about this presentation from the blogging team on Friday, so stay tuned! - Cameron and Steffen
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Today is our last short period workday. The room is filled with silence but you can hear brains working hard. We are all completing our final assignments and correcting the errors caught by our teacher. Every group is doing work because no one is completely done. A lot of people are missing words and pictures for their vocabulary. The ShrinkLits are nearly done for each group. Today surely, is a hard workday.
Today is technically our last in class work day. The presentations are next week so we must finish wantever is not done in class at home. I went around to groups to see how much work they thought they would have to do at home. Some groups were fine and thought they wouldn’t have any homework at all. When asking Group 3 about their workload Riley said “I don’t think we will have any homework this weekend, but if we do it will only be a minute amount.” There were some groups that were like Group 3. Group 6 and Group 4 agree with Group 2 that they will not have homework over the weekend. There is always the other side of the spectrum though. Group 7 feels like they will be overloaded with homework this weekend. They say that some members weren’t pulling their weight. Also though, Group 7 says that it may just be practical reasons why they might have homework. They said that they often had writers' block or just couldn’t work fast to hit their deadlines. Honestly, I can’t blame them. In the picture I posted below I have only a small portion of the work we have had to do for the website. It is a lot of work and if someone gets behind early on most likely that group will stay behind for the duration of the project. Personally, I think every group will be done on time, but as I stated early there is some varying amounts of homework this weekend. Hopefully everyone will get done.
With only two days left to complete the whole project the room is surprisingly calm and on task. There was however a bit of unease when it was announced that we have to add a sentence from the book to go along with are vocabulary words. We will have to endure this since we can’t do anything about it. The class now has to go back into the text and find the sentences that our vocab was in. We are also having some troubles with people not turning in their forms to be allowed to be on the website. Therefore we had to take a wonderful video down since it featured some classmates that did not have permission to be on the website.
Please comment for suggestions on what to write about and what you think about the website. Once again the students of first period are in their task groups. You can tell that the groups are starting to wrap up. Web design is finishing the formatting for the website and editing it so that it looks like a clean final product. The presentation group is starting to put names of the people they want to invite on the board and are finalizing the invitations. Art and video production are working very hard to finish up all of their assignments. Unfortunately, even with all this work to be done, there is some uneasiness within some of the groups. Some of the groups aren’t exactly working as best as they can. One example is the art group. I was able to interview them about their group problems. One of the members stated that the group wasn’t sharing the workload well and some people did more work than others. The group is almost venomous towards some of the people not doing their work. The members say they can’t finish as fast because some select members won’t help them and without this help the workload is too much. Hopefully, by the end of this project they can figure out how to get everyone to pull their weight and then get their work done. I am sure many groups are in this same turmoil, but slowly I am sure that we will all find a solution. -- Steffen and Cameron
Another work day is slowly being used up. Each group is trying to finish up their ShrinkLits and vocabulary that doesn’t take a whole lot of creativity. I mean, ShrinkLits take an enormous amount of thinking but it does not require making a video or any elaborate pictures. One thing that does require a great amount of creativity is literary terms. As the groups finish their ShrinkLits and vocabulary it seems a common consensus to start work on the literary terms. The group that we (Steffen and Cameron) are in just finished one of our words in video form. We were able to make a 30 second video about personification. Other groups have followed our suit. About three groups are planning on using video production to explain their literary terms. The other groups have to make posters or elaborate drawings that explain the term. The blogging team was able to take a picture of the video production team filming a metaphor. This gives a small glimpse of how hard groups are at work with their literary terms. Hopefully most of the groups will be able to finish the terms by next Monday so that they aren’t stressed about this huge creative project. -- Steffen and Cameron
Today we met in our task groups. The bloggers are in the clutch blogging with only 30 minutes, this schedule is rather short but we will work twice as hard to accomplish the work we do on a normal class period. Even though we are supposed to be in our task groups there are a lot of people arranging for videos and artwork to be done for them. Also, Group 5 filmed a great and descriptive video on the great depression. With the great acting and the hard work put in to it, I bet many people will enjoy it. -- Sanskar, Jonathan B., Anonymous
As we are getting close to our deadline stress is getting higher. All the groups got their first review from our teacher and each other. Some groups got the best grade of a 20/20. Others however got 15/20 and even 10/20. I was able to talk to the group that got 10/20 today. They stated that they believe that they get easily distracted. Although they are not exactly up to their due dates for their work, the group feels that if they work hard they will easily be able to get back on track. As I speak I am looking over and seeing three of their group having an educational debate on a paper. I feel like more groups are along this group's line than they say. I can tell that groups are stressed because there is a lot less talking and joking and more silent working. Even though stress can be considered a bad thing I think that right now for Ms. Stifter's first period class it is an answer to our problems. It is getting us to work harder and will let us finish our project by the due date. -- Steffen and Cameron
Today we are working in our task groups. Each group has a goal. Unfortunately the art group did not get any forms. These forms are what the cooperative groups submit to have their art drawn. If there are no form submissions then that means that the cooperative groups do not either need any new art or don’t know what art they want yet. Since our project will be done soon, groups must submit their art forms by the end of the week so that the art task group has enough time to draw before the end of the project. Video production team did get submissions though. As I type, they are outside filming a video on the Great Depression for a group who needs filming done for their historical background project. The presentation group continues to get names for our invite to the showing of our website and the web design group continues to try to make our website better. We as the blog team are really just sitting back a getting a feel for what every group needs to do. I think being in the blog group is probably the best group to be in because you really get a sense of each groups role in this website. Each group has a special place and if we didn’t have even one of the groups then the website would be missing a valuable piece of itself. -- Sanskar, Jonathan B., Anonymous
Today is our third long period day of the week. We are going to peer edit our work to ensure it’s the best possible product for the website. We ask several groups to look over our work instead of just our own group members. Most
groups are finishing their vocabulary and ShrinkLits so we can post it on the website. The reason we are peer editing is because we don’t want any plagiarized work on our website. With only three Mondays left groups are starting to get forms so that the video and art groups can produce a product to go along with the work that our groups have done. Well that’s pretty much it until Monday. -- Sanskar, Jonathan B., Anonymous |
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