Just a friendly reminder from Mrs. C to say that I will be transitioning away from the blog so check d2L. 😃
I also wanted to let you know that Mr. Everaert is offering daily drop in sessions starting Tuesday, April 7th.
The sessions will be from 9-10am Monday to Friday and will focus mostly on Math but if you have questions related to Science or Humanities feel free to drop in. He will do his best to help you as well.
Sessions will start in Google Meet but may move to d2l virtual classroom at some point. For tomorrow go to Google Meet and use the nickname helpwitheveraert to access the drop in session starting at 9am.
Not much to say here other than to redirect you to the Humanities D2L shell. There is an announcement and an assignment there for today.
Also, I'm afraid I
have some bad news to share. My father in law passed away on Sunday morning. It was not COVID-19. He had some long term health problems and deteriorated badly over the past couple of weeks. As such, I am unfortunately not going to be available for my office hours today, if you need any help with humanities Mr Everaert has graciously offered to take offer my office hours and Ms Cockburn will be hopping in there as well. (Still use nickname: Ibbitsonhums) Any big problems and they can text me. I'll also be periodically checking my email today but I might be delayed in responding.
The Sample Quiz is ready for you to try on D2L. Please let me know right away if you have any difficulties. It will only be available until noon so you MUST submit before then.
Monday's test will be available from 11-12:05pm so again you must submit on Monday before 12:05 so make sure you are logged in and ready to go before 11am on Monday.
So I got D2L to play nicely with Google Drive... Or at least niceish? Under the activity feed, on the D2L shell, you'll find instructions for how to go about submitting your descriptive writing paragraph. In video format no less!
In other words, my D2L shell went live late yesterday afternoon. It's still a little barebones, but if you go to the content tab you should be able to see the assignment submission for the Creative Writing assignment. I'd like everyone to try and make sure you log in, watch my amazingly professional video instructions and try submitting it. If you have any problems please either pop into the office hours or email me.
Also, Ms. Cockburn and I will be doing joint office hours on Fridays in the ibbitsonhums room from 11-12. Here is a schedule of both of our hours for future reference though I have it permalinked on D2L as well.
So the grade 8 team as a whole has decided that D2L is the best option for a virtual classroom going forward so that's where we'll be going from here. It's better supported by the CBE and it just makes a lot more sense to try and create a 'one stop shop' as it were rather than splitting up between D2L and Google Classroom. It'll probably take me a couple of days to get it up and running, but that's THE PLAN going forward. It sounds like most of you have managed to log into Ms. C's D2L shell so you can expect mine to be up and going by Monday at the latest. I just need to wrestle with a few technical details so I can get it to play nicely with Google Docs.
I'd like you guys to keep working on the writing assignment from yesterday. A few people were asking about length, and generally, I'd be expecting something in the neighbourhood of a page or so.
My office hours for today will be from 11 - 12. You'll be able to find me at ibbitsonhums on Meet. Mrs Cockburn will be available from 1-2 at mrscsmath. As a side note, I'm really starting to appreciate having a fairly unique last name when it comes to registering for these things.
For those of you that have not yet accessed D2L for SMATH - please log on ASAP. There will be a practice quiz available tomorrow to prepare you for Monday's Light and Optics test.
EDIT From Ibbitson:A few people have been talking about what food on one of these old sailing ships would have been like in their descriptive paragraphs. This is a link to a video about Hard Tack, a kind of bread that was popular a little bit later than Columbus' voyage, but it still gives you an idea of what kind of food sailors would have had access too... The short answer is, it was pretty gross. He starts actually talking about the Hard Tack at the 1:30 mark
Hey TMC Students, come have a chat with your PE Teachers tomorrow from 2:00-3:00pm. We would love to see you and hear how things are going. Pop in for a quick hi or stay for the hour and hear all about Ms. Hudson’s new puppy!
The PE Team is hosting this chat on Google Meet. Please use the nickname dropinwithtmcpe
We hope to see you tomorrow and try to stay active
Please make sure you are logging into D2L today and let me know if you have any access issues. I have set up a course called Cockburn Smath 8 - so you will have one place to access all Science and Math content. Once you enter the course you will see some announcements and I will be able to see that you have been able to access it. I have a few links under the important link section as well as the Science Test put in the Calendar (April 6). If you click under Content you will be able to access a pdf of the most recent worksheet that was assigned.
It was so great to see so many of your faces yesterday. In D2L the announcement for today will have more instructions on how to access Google Meet so that we can touch base during my 'office hours.' As Mr. I mentioned, attendance will not be mandatory but I will be available for support. Tomorrow I will be available from 1-2 pm.
So... Really impressed with how successful the google meet was yesterday. A little chaotic, that's for sure but it was a good test as to how the tech worked at least. Sorry this is a long post, but hopefully, it will help provide a bit of clarity going forward.
Anyhow, I wanted to outline THE PLAN going forward. Keeping in mind the expectation that you are spending about 5 hours a week on humanities I am going to kick things off with some creative writing for ELA. Social Studies might take a bit longer to get rolling, probably by next week since I need to organize some more materials for it.
As a rough idea I wanted to share what my goals are as far as continued teaching.
First of all, everything is subject to change. No doubt over the next few weeks we'll find things that work well, try things that work terribly, new stuff will get rolled out by the CBE, Alberta Education, the government, Alberta Health Services and everything in between. No matter what though we'll all figure out a way to muddle through this together.
I'll try to regularly post different videos related to the curriculum for you to watch. Sometimes it will be me putting my mediocre video editing skills to use, other times I might link something a bit more professional on the YouTubes.
I'm going to set up a Google Meet video conference once a day for at least an hour. For today at least I will be on from 1pm until 2pm. Ms. C and I are just working out a routine schedule that works for us but we'll get that rolling in the next couple days. Regular attendance is not required, though you should probably try to check in at least once or twice a week even if it is just to say hi and that everything is going well. The idea behind this is that I'll be available to answer questions as they come up, and offer feedback on stuff we are working on. That said, just because those are the times I am setting aside for this it does not mean I'm unavailable otherwise. If you ever need to talk with me outside of those normal hours, just send me an email with a time that works for you and we'll figure it out.
One thing I am probably not going to do is any attempt to simply move the class into a virtual setting where you are expected to be online between X and Y-o'clock and I sit and try to lecture to a computer monitor. I don't think it would be terribly effective, and given that a lot of you are sharing computers, webcams and other technology with other people in your house it just strikes me as being a nightmare for a lot of families to try and organize. With the pre-recorded video I can at least prepare a script, add some pictures, diagrams, maps ect. and then respond to any questions that come up during my 'office hours.
One EXTREMELY IMPORTANT POINT! to remember is that this will only work if you reach out. I can't wander around the classroom, look over your shoulders and see how you are doing. You NEED to take advantage of the office hours if you have questions, however minor. One advantage is that they will likely be fairly low key with only a few kids in at any given time so in some ways it should be easier to get help when you need it. If you aren't comfortable asking questions in front of the group, then PLEASE email me and we'll set up an 1:1 appointment.
I have not yet completely decided if I'm going to use Brightspace by D2L or Google Classroom. More to follow in the next couple days.
So. That's what I'm doing. What should you be doing?
I'm so glad you asked. Seriously, I can tell you guys must be getting bored given how many of you have been asking what you should be working on now.
Like I said earlier, I figured it might be nice to kick things off with a bit of creative writing. Generally speaking, you guys enjoy writing stories. I enjoy reading stories you write, and it is something that can be done pretty much independently so I think it will be a good way to get the ball rolling with this. I'd like to kick things off by diving into descriptive writing.
First up, I'd like you to watch this video:
With that in mind, let's play around with the following scenario:
It is the late 15th century, you are a sailor on a ship called the Santa Maria. Your captain, a man named Christopher Columbus has set off on a voyage to try and reach the Indies by sailing west. You've been at sea for weeks now, the conditions are cramped, food and water are running low, and there is still no sign of land. In your shared folder, write a short descriptive paragraph or diary entry about what your experience has been like.
You don't need to do a whole lot of research on this. Under the 'important links' on the right hand side of the page, you'll see Chapter 5 of the textbook. That is the chapter where they talk about the Age of Exploration and what it was like. I might suggest reading up to page 113 to get a feel for the motivation of the early explorers. The real key thing I want to see you focusing on is descriptive language! I want to feel like I'm on that ship, smelling the sea air, hearing the creak of ropes and the snap of sails. I want to stand up from my chair after I finish reading it and fall over because I'm expecting the floor to move under my feet.
So to summarize:
1) Watch the video on writing fiction with descriptive language.
2) Read up to pp. 113 in the chapter 5 link found on the right hand side of the blog.
3) Write a descriptive paragraph about what it would have been like to be a sailor on Christoper Columbus' ship.
4) My 'office hours' today are going to be 1-2PM. I'll email you a nickname for the room once I get it set up.
5) This is not intended to be work for "Today". Get started on it, but realistically I expect it will probably take about 3 hours to do a good job of everything. With 3 days left in the week, that means you should be aiming to finish everything up by Friday.
It was so great to see many of your faces this afternoon. We have definitely missed all of your shenanigans.
On average, you can expect to have 10 hours of work each week. This will be a combination of your core subjects (Math, Science, ELA, and Social Studies).
The following platforms will be used as mediums to support your learning:
Try logging on this afternoon so that we can troubleshoot any problems that arise
Google Classroom/Drive/Docs/Meet (refer to parental consent letter sent to your parents via Messenger today as well as via the link on the post from this morning)
This Blog: As always, the blog is a useful tool for us to send out quick messages so make sure you keep checking this regularly.
As for what this week is going to look like, we suspect that a lot of the first few days are going to be just reconnecting and sorting out various technology issues.
This is going to be a learning experience for all of us in more ways than one, so we do appreciate your patience.
Mr Ibbitson and I will be available from 1-3pm today on Google Hangout as a little bit of a stress test to see how well it works with real live students. We would love to see your faces so feel free to pop on and join us any time during the two hour window with any questions or concerns you may have or just to have some social interaction with your teachers and classmates. This is our first attempt at doing this so hopefully everything works OK.
We hope to see you!
Check your CBE Email for a link closer to 1:00. Mr. Ibbitson is busy right now trying to organize everyone's school email addresses into a mailing list. Your parents have been sent a letter via School Messenger from Mr. Rakowski and I have attached a link to the letter from Mr. Ibbitson and I below.
Welcome back everyone. We miss all your smiling faces &are excited to begin TMC ‘at a distance’!😊
Please email your homeroom teacher back at dribbitson@cbe.ab.ca for 8-4 or rlcockburn@cbe.ab.ca for 8-3 by 8:00 amtomorrow, Tuesday March 31 with an answer to the following questions and make sure to check the blog: for information each day.
1. How are you doing?
a. How is your family doing?
b. Is there anything that you or your family need assistance with?
2. What type of device(s) do you have access to?(computer, laptop, iPad/tablet or smart phone)
3. Do you have to share these device(s) with anyone else in your family or is it for your use only?
4. Do you have access to the internet? (wifi or data)
5. Do you have access to a printer?
6. Do you have access to a scanner, phone camera or an alternative way to upload a picture of work?
7. Do you think you will have up to 2 hours of concentrated technology time a day?
a. Do you see any problems with being able to access technology during the ‘normal’ school day?
Enjoy your break! Take this time to refresh, relax and try something you've been wanting to do! Play board games, read a book or find a new hobby! We will be back in touch after the break to discuss next steps but in the meantime enjoy yourselves!
I was really hoping that Mr. Badr, Ms. MacNicol and I would get a chance to dissect an eyeball for your viewing pleasure but alas, you will have to settle for this great video put out by The Exploratorium. Katie does a great job explaining the parts of the eye that you have all learned about and I actually learned how to correctly pronounce Tapetum! Although, the act of not wearing gloves during the dissection baffles me a little.
Please enjoy the video at your leisure. Note, it is not as endearing as seeing Mr. I working in his pajama pants with a sweet little cherub in his arm.
Also, as per Mr. Ibbitson's instructions, if you have any outstanding work that you are wanting to submit into the lovely shared folders, please fire me off an email to rlcockburn@cbe.ab.ca to let me know it is there.
We really do miss you already. You know what is worse than a loud, chaotic classroom? An empty one. You guys really do bring this place to life and bring joy to our workday! I hope to see you all soon.
Well, it's official, I'm working from home. I'm really glad I got a chance to see everyone who came and go their stuff yesterday, and I'm pretty crushed that I won't get a chance to see anyone coming today or tomorrow. Love you all, and I'll see you on the other side of this, whenever that is.
I'm going to go through and check everyone's google drive folders for their essays today. I'll mark it as missing in powerschool if I can't find it. If I do mark it as missing, could you fire me a quick email when it is there just so I can cut down on the frequency of checking the folders? Going forward, make sure you are using the magical folder though. It's the only way I have a hope of keeping things organized through all this. If you just share the file with me it quickly gets lost in a blizzard of shared files going back half a decade.
You also might have noticed I snuck Chapter 6 of the textbook up into the important links on the side. If you are feeling so inspired you might want to give it a quick pre-read since that's where we are going in the Social Studies curriculum next.
Saw this article yesterday and I figured I would share it out. It's about Issac Newton and how he was stuck working from home in 1665 due to an outbreak of the Black Death. While his university classes were canceled, he ended up developing his theories of Optics and Gravity. Just goes to show what can be accomplished when we just have time to sit, and think.
Use this time to do something you are passionate about. Start a new book series, take up drawing of painting, or interpretive dance in your basement. Dust off the guitar you got for Christmas when you were 8 and try to learn how to play by watching YouTube tutorials.
Remember to take care of yourselves too. Try to still go to bed at a normal time, wake up at a normal time, eat dinner with your families with the TV turned off. Go for a walk in the coulee, play street hockey with your siblings, don't just stay in your room and watch Netflix. You guys are a smart, creative, bunch. You got this.
1) Here is a copy of the task sheet for the essay. Likewise, if you left your MLA handbook at school here is a PDF copy of that.
2) In an effort to maintain some semblance of normalcy I'm going to try and keep somewhat 'regular' hours. As such, if you email me during regular school hours before about 3:30 I'll make sure I get back to you before the end of the day. After that though I'm going to try and unplug as much as possible, so I will likely not respond until the following day.
Since Spring Break does not officially start until Thursday at 12:30, here are a few of our expectations for you this week.
Science
1)The Science Unit Test – At this point, we are thinking we will have the test on Thursday morning and it will take place online. I will update you as soon as we have decided which platform makes the most sense. UPDATE: This test has been postponed until further notice.
2)Vision Impairment Tasks & Presentations – These will continue as planned. The slides should already be shared with me. Please make sure you fill in the Speaker Notes with everything that you had prepared for the presentation. Additionally, you must include a personal reflection to this assignment addressing the following questions:
·What was your most valuable contribution to this project?
·What valuable contributions did each of your group members make?
·What was a highlight in your learning for this task?
·What part of this task could you have improved upon?
Please submit this reflection in your shared folder no later than Thursday morning.
3) Eyeball Dissection - I will post a video this week of the eyeball dissection. I would love for you to have the opportunity to do this yourselves but that will all depend if/when school resumes.
Math
You should have the Division of Mixed Numbers work sheet at home. Please continue to work on that. The worksheet is posted below if you need to access it. I have also included a link to a video tutorial if you need a reminder on how to divide mixed numbers.
1) Your position paper is still due on Wednesday. Make sure it is in your shared folder. If you are at home and have questions you can email me and I'll try to answer as best I can.
2) Keep an eye on the blog. We're going to be moving on from the Renaissance and starting to study the Age of Exploration. I'll make sure that everyone has access to a digital copy of the textbook, and I'm in the process of putting together some reading assignments and questions to answer. You will be able to submit them via the google drive folder.
3) Now would be a wonderful opportunity to get caught up on your reading log... just saying.
So I'm sure you've all probably heard on the news by now that classes are cancelled for an unspecified length of time. Beyond the obvious, I'm not sure what exactly this means. I do know that we teachers are going to be in tomorrow but other than that... I dunno.
It is probably safe to assume that we'll figure out some sort of online learning over the next few days before spring break officially starts. Maybe I'll set up a Minecraft server and we can build Tenochtitlan or something.
Hopefully, I'll be able to provide more clarity tomorrow. Until then, check the blog, and make sure that your folks don't have emails from school messenger going into junk mail.
Also subscribing to TMC's twitter feed might not be the worst idea.
So... Interesting week. As of last night at least it sounds like schools will still be open on Monday, that said, I understand that some of you are probably electing to remain home. Also, if you are at all sick, please do stay home. Let's keep each other safe.
With that in mind, if you are staying home I'll mention a few things.
1) Your position paper is still due on Wednesday. Make sure it is in your shared folder. If you are at home and have questions you can email me and I'll try to answer as best I can.
2) Keep an eye on the blog. We're going to be moving on from the Renaissance and starting to study the Age of Exploration. I'll make sure that everyone has access to a digital copy of the textbook, and I'm in the process of putting together some reading assignments and questions to answer. You will be able to submit them via the google drive folder.
3) Now would be a wonderful opportunity to get caught up on your reading log... just saying.
If you are coming to school:
1) If you are sick, stay home. Even if it's the sniffles.
2) I know it's hard, but really really try to avoid close contact with each other while at school. I mean the halls are going to be crowded, that's inevitable, but really try to avoid the wrestling matches out by the lockers.
3) Don't share food or drinks.
4)Your friendly medieval plague doctor reminds you:
Even though technically the plague doctor getup didn't show up until during the Renaissance.
Sorry I'm not in today. As I'm sure many of you noticed, I seem to have developed something of a sinus cold over the course of the day. The chances of it being anything serious are next to zero... We don't get out to many large gatherings with a 4 month old in tow, but out of an abundance of caution I called in a sub. At any rate, here are the links to the webquest. If you finish this, then work on your Position Papers. If you finish your position paper, work on your Animal Farm letter. If you finish your Animal Farm letter then there is a 'backup' worksheet that should mostly be review. You'll need to grab the textbooks from Ms. Lockyers room though. Just remember to ask nicely.
My apologies for not updating the blog recently. For those of you that have not yet handed in your Human Eye Task or Animal Eye Task, I have attached a link to the task above. If you are unsure of whether or not this applies to you, please check powerschool or see my whiteboard!
Coming up....
Science Unit Test on Light and Optics - Monday, March 16
Eyeball Dissection Tuesday, March 17
Math Quiz - Division of Fractions (Modeling and Solving) - Date Tbd but before spring break.
As mentioned, here are the slides from our brief science discussion today. Please take the time to refer to previous notes if there were any Kahoot questions that you struggled with today.
Reminder that the eye activity is due on Monday and there is a quiz on the multiplication of fractions on Wednesday. As usual, I will be available for additional support Monday at lunch.
So we started exploring the MLA citation style in preparation for the big research position paper that we'll be starting next week. Most of you should have a list of 3 Renaissance figures you are interested in exploring a bit further before picking one to serve as the subject of you paper but if you don't, make sure you have them picked out for Monday.
We're nearing the end of Animal Farm. It's been a heck of a ride so far. We've had a lot of really good discussions about the rise of totalitarianism and how a society can let itself fall into that sort of trap. We should be wrapping it up next week.
Last thing I wanted to touch on is an article I found that expands on the current events discussion we were having around the railroad blockades that have paralyzed shipping across the country. It is an interview with one of the Wet'suwet'en matriarchs who is opposed to the protests. I think it does a good job of underscoring just how complicated the issue is and why it has been so challenging to find a solution.
They are coming home this evening with their latest science test. Their homework is to walk through the test with you and have you sign it. I'm looking to expand my autograph collection :-)
I have also asked them to write a short reflection on the back of the test.
I want to know:
1) What they did well and what contributed to their success.
2) If they did not do as well as they hoped, what could they have done to improve their mark?
3)What could I have done to better support their learning during this unit.
I have also placed a link on the right hand side of the blog to edquest. This website is a great supporting resource to the units we are covering this year.
