Blogs and parents

Please analyze the above cartoon and post your ideas to your BLOG. As part of your analysis please address the following questions:

1. What are the main visual elements?
2. What issue is this cartoon about?
3. What is the cartoonist’s opinion on this issue?
4. What evidence in the cartoon supports your opinion on how the cartoonist feels?
5. Why is this cartoon ironic?
6. What other techniques could the cartoonist have used to make this cartoon more persuasive?

There is a family eating dinner in their kitchen. The family consists of a mum, a dad and a little kid. They all look unhappy. The kid has a football head, while the parents have long heads (could the kid be adopted?)

I think that the issue is that the parents don’t care. I mean, if the kid tells them, they could choose not to listen. But if they have to read it, it would be really hard to pretend to read it, and then they have to give feedback on it. Or, that parents are getting very lazy nowadays. And they can’t be bothered to read their kid’s own work.

I think that the cartoonist thinks that parents have become lazier and more careless. And that they don’t really want to listen to their kid’s day. This is because they all look sad and bored. And also, the text under the picture is “Well, yes, we could read your blog…or you could just tell us about it” saying that the parents can’t be bothered to read the blog.

I think that the picture is ironic because the kid is asking his parents to read the blog, and the parents can’t be bothered to read it. But in real life, we have our own blogs, and most of us can’t be bothered to tell our parents about our blog.

The parents could be sitting on a sofa and watching T.V. while the kid is standing in the doorway, looking sad. Or the parents could look bigger, to show that they are lazy. Or both!

Evaluation of Kurt Vonnegut's statement

Using examples from “The Euphio Question” and current events evaluate the statement:

“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

I think that there is some truth in what Vonnegut is saying. But having said so, I don’t agree with him fully. People shouldn’t make things that they can’t control, but I think that they can use things that they can control, and can help people. In “The Euphio Question” the humans couldn’t control the machine, so it was seen as bad. But not everything is like that. For example vacuum cleaners are built to make life easier. Instead of cleaning with a broom that is very time consuming and can give you back pains, you can use a vacuum cleaner, which is 10 times more affective and quicker to use. Now there are even vacuum cleaners that vacuum by themselves, which you can control! Vonnegut seems to think that everything that is electronic technology is bad, but I don’t think that he really understands the gadgets. Maybe it scares him that he won’t be in control (or humans for that matter) but machines will be some day.

Technology and me

1. What is technology?
2. How do you feel about the amount of and use of technology in schools?
3. What are the 5 most and 5 least important technologies used today?

A lot of technology in the new era has a lot to do with electronics. But technology doesn’t necessarily have to do with only electronics. Technology is like tools that help us develop further into the future.

We do use a lot of technology here at AES. For example, in humanities we have blogs on the computers; there is an elective called Robotics, where the main idea is to use a computer and robots; there is almost a projector in every class room.

5 most important technologies I use:

1. Cell phone

2. Laptop

3. Pencil/ pen

4. Eraser

5. Camera

5 least important technologies (according to me):

1. Plastic surgery

2. Useless robots

3. coffee machine

4. McDonald toys

5. self-vacuum cleaners

End of Quarter 3 Feedback

Go back and review your goals for quarter three in humanities. These can be found in the January Archive of your BLOG in a posting titled,” End of Quarter 2 Feedback”. Evaluate how well you have achieved those goals. Include specific evidence from the quarter to validate your evaluation.In addition to your evaluation please create three specific goals that you have for quarter four in humanities. Remember that a good goal is realistic, measurable and specific. List them at the end of this BLOG entry. Please title this entry: End of Quarter 3 Feedback


My 2nd quarter goals were:Get better at Socratic seminars.Plan my AR schedule better, read faster so I don't feel so stressed by the end of the quarter, and plan more time for reading.Get better at revising! I can never give good advice, and I should read faster, and make better decisions when it comes to revising.
I think that I have kind of met my goals for qtr 3. What I mean with that is:
I have gotten better at Socratic seminars, I do talk more, but I am not as good as I would want to be. Let’s look at it at it at this point of view: Fist I am terrible, and I get C-, C. Then I get better and I am more active in the conversation and get C+, B’s. But then what I want to be is more active in the conversation and have more specific evidence and get B+, A’s.So now I am in the middle step, but would like to progress to the next step.
Secondly, the AR schedule didn’t really work out. I mean, I started on a book pretty early in the qtr. But then, long story short, I decided to take a quiz on “Harry Potter and the deathly hallows”, even though I haven’t read it since the summer, I wanted to take it so I would at least have some points. Because at the rate I was reading my other book, I was sure to skip some pages or something, and not get 100% on the AR quiz. So I took the Harry Potter quiz thinking if I don’t get 100% I will at least have some points which is better than no points at all. But then I got 100% on the quiz (which was 34 points! A+!) So I didn’t have to think about the AR anymore.
Thirdly, I don’t think we have revised that much this qtr, and when we have I still think I don’t give very good advice, but I think that it’s at least better than the advice I gave before.
So to sum it all up, I think I kind of met my goals.
My new goals for this final quater of 8th grade (scary!!) is:
1. Do my best when it comes to UBD, and plan it well.
2. Get better at Socratic Seminars
3. Get even better at revising. And give better advice, and I should read faster, and make even better decisions when it comes to revising.

Feedback on "Holy War"

An oxymoron is two words that don’t belong being used together. Why is the phrase “Holy War” an oxymoron? Why is it that so many conflicts in the world today are based upon religious differences yet all major world religions condemn killing?

I think that the phrase “Holy War” is an oxymoron because a war can’t be holy. It’s a brutal thing that takes many lives. It’s the opposite of holy. And the word holy is something that belongs to religion. And many religions say no to wars. But even thought this is the case there are many religious wars going on in the world right now.
It’s hard to say why so many wars are going on because of religion and yet all major world religions say no to war and killing. It could have something to do with many people twist the words, and tell people that it’s ok to kill if it’s for a good cause. I think many people forget about that killing is condemn, and get so absorbed in showing that their religion is better, that they don’t think the whole thing through.

Animal Farm Feedback

With which character in Animal Farm do you most closely identify? Using examples from the novel (and a proper in text citation) justify your comparison.

I think that I am most like Clover. Because she is a trustworthy person (or horse than), when she confronted Mollie about being patted by a human, she didn’t tell anyone. I think I am a very trustworthy person too, and a lot of people have told me things that I have never told anyone else. (Orwell pg. 30) Also, it said in the book that Boxer and Clover never lost heart when it came to working outside during winter. I often try not to give up and stay positive, even when it is hard to see the positive thing sometimes. (Orwell pg. 49) Also in the book it said that Clover learnt the whole alphabet but couldn’t put words together. This is like me because I am smart and all, but I am not overly smart. (Orwell pg. 21)

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. London: Penguin Books, 1945.

Cold War Simulation De-brief

Please answer the following in two “good” paragraphs using complete sentences in your BLOG. Be sure to use specific evidence from the simulation and the above tables to justify your answer.
1. Which country were you? What strategy did you use to try to win?
2. Who won the game and why? Who won the “real” Cold War?

I was Latin America, Europe and Australia with Chris. Since the countries we had were pretty poor compared to the countries in Africa, Middle East and Asia we decided to sell our countries many at a time and cheap. The USA bought all our countries except for one, which the USSR bought. When we had sold all our countries, and were still losing, we decided to let the USSR buy all our land. They did, but we still lost by 22 points.

In the game USA won, because they nuked the USSR three times in a row in the first round, and the USSR could only defend themselves against one of the nukes. When the USA nuked the USSR it showed that the USA had planned ahead, and chose to buy many nukes from the start. The USSR on the other hand hadn’t planned it to well, or thought that an attack wouldn’t come so soon, since they could only defend themselves once. Then it took the USSR some time to build up their strength again. So that lost them a lot of points.

Even though the US and the USSR sat down and decided to end the war I think that the US won the real cold war. This is because today there are only a few communist countries left. Also the USSR broke up into smaller countries instead of still being one big country. And the US economy was doing a lot better than USSR’s, since USSR’s economic growth rate was almost 0% at the time Gorbachev took over. Soon after that the cold war ended.

Feedback on VC communicator

Describe the general process (from idea to completion) for creating a video using Visual Communicator. What are three design related tips to remember when creating a VC presentation? What were the two best and two worst aspects of the conflict video project?

First you have to come up with the topic you want to make a VC presentation on, which you could choose anything you want from A to Z, from apples to zebras. Then when you know what your topic is, you write the script. After the script is completed, you write the story board. The story board is very helpful, because you write down when you want to show a picture, at what line, and how to show it, like fade in or clip in. Then after you have your script and story board you are ready to start filming. Now for the communicator program, I was sick when my class went through how to do it. But when I was filming, my three advices are : don't speak to quickly, take a deep breath and talk clearly and normally; secondly put the scroll speed at a paste where you are looking up at the camera, and not looking down; and thirdly have a good timing for the transitions, when you want to show your pictures or change to another person.

Two of the worst aspects of the VC project were that 1) my scroll speed was very slow that I read ahead, so I wasn't looking into the camera, I was looking down almost the entire time. And at one point I had to slow down because I had to say one line when a picture appeared, so, I said the line very slowly, then I had to pause for a long time. 2) I forgot to add what kind of war the Vietnam war was, which I might get points of.

Two of the good things about the VC project were 1) that when I came back to school, my partners had done all of their parts, and it was just my part left to do, which was very easy. And 2) we had different backgrounds for all three of us. And the name of our station was called "History conflicts" instead of "CNN" like most people had.

AF movie blog post

Even though the book and the movie have the same basic idea, there are a lot of details that aren’t the same. For instance:

1. Old Major died peacefully in the book; in the movie he was shot.
   
2. The song “Beasts of England” is called “Beasts of the world” in the movie, with different text.
   
3. The animals use more human equipment in the movie than in the book. For example they put a TV in the barn and they used binoculars to see if the humans were coming.
   
4. Old Major was buried in the backyard, not put in a storage cupboard.
   
5. In the book, none of the animals except Benjamin, the donkey, seemed to understand what was happening to Animal Farm. In the movie, however, the only animal that understood what was going on was Jessie the dog.
   
6. The windmill was made out of stone in the book, not wood as in the movie.
   
7. In the book, the pigs never filmed news clips of what they wanted to say to the other animals on the farm while in the movie, they did. If the pigs wanted to say something to the other animals on the farm, Squealer was usually the one to announce it in person.
   
8. Mr. Pilkington didn’t help the pigs with the trade in the book, it was Mr. Whymper.
   
9. The ending of the film was different than the book. At the end of the book, the animals did not escape then return to the farm a few years later after Napoleon had died but just kept on working on the farm
   

All in all, I liked the book more than the movie because the movie wasn’t really that good and the book gives you a better idea of how the Russian revolution went.