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.
