1-23-12

Everyday you learn something new. Today was strange due to my recent absence, and the substitutes. I made me realize how little anyone seems to care about this class, or school in general. Whenever we are in the computer lab people tend to play games or mess around another way. In class people spend more time cracking jokes. I'm not saying that I'm perfect because I'm not but still, nobody seems to care. Out of all the people It's the "Really Smart Kids" and the "Favorite Classes" that I see this in. At least it helps me look at and control myself.

 "Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

1-13-12

Everyday you learn something new. Today I learned about how people hod a grudge and how they get mad about the most superficial of things. Ill keep names anonymous when describing this situation. One day during a class we were presented with a project. Naturally, everyone stated what they were doing to the people around them. I and a friend (who was doing a different project) got into a short, half joking argument about the projects. The teacher told us we shouldn't be talking during instruction and we stopped. The teacher didn't make it seem like a big deal, so we figured it wasn't. A few weeks later we got in another half joking argument, this time during a work time. I had nothing to do so I stayed around to help. The argument was about if someone else was doing their work. Both arguments were school related. Because of it we both lost points in the class. The incidents were small and early in the quarter. I don't even understand how the teacher is bothered this much by these things and doesn't say anything to us. Then the teacher gives us a 20% loss for the 2 small incidents. This whole thing is completely irrational and extremely irritating.    

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

1-11-12

Everyday you learn something new.  Today we had a lot better luck with the back channel. We had a lot less fluff and people were able to use their phones to add to it so there was more people and more discussion. Its still distracting but a lot less when there isn't so much fluff. I also thought that the test we did was helpful. It helped me figure out who the characters were more accurate. I also think the chart for the character would be helpful, if you want to make it. I don't think it is a class project though, it should be an individual thing of you want to do it. 

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

1-9-12

Everyday you learn something new. Today was an interesting day for us in Language Arts. We tried using a chat stream to take notes over the day. I think it was a very bad addition to the class. Watching that stream and knowing It's there makes It far harder to concentrate on the class. You really want to see whats happening there or add to it and you cant do that and concentrate at the same time efficiently. People were also abusing it to an extent. The things posted were rarely educational or discussion related. It was mostly jokes or people talking to each other. The Ipads themselves also serve as a distraction to the people using them and the people around.

 "Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

12-21-11

Everyday you learn something new. Tomorrow is a big day. I take our Algebra 1-2 1st semester final exam. I'm pretty confident in my abilities to get a good score so I'm not very worried. Based on an average of my test scores I think I will end up with a high A. I worry more about our class average. It seems like as a class we are not doing too well. I hope we don't have half the class bomb the Final and make the class look bad. It has happened before with us on tests. Our class goal is to have everyone get an 85% or higher. We haven't had it happen yet. Hopefully this one will be better.        

"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

12-19-11

Everyday you learn something new. I always heard a lot of bad things about Obama and his policies, like how it is changing healthcare and making it difficult, but I never actually researched it myself until I was affected firsthand. I had had insurance through a standalone company and the policy was started about 7 years ago. The plan was dropped and now I am looking to get insurance, but I cant. Obamacare requires that standalone insurance companies must accept policies without exceptions for children under 18. Due to this most companies no longer offer insurance to kids. The objective of the policy was to make sure all Americans have healthcare. Now it is doing the opposite. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there. I think people in power should put a lot more thought behind their decisions before passing laws that may not work. The fact that this happened proves that there should be some other system.   

Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown

12-14-11

Everyday you learn something new. As I posted in an previous blog I am holding a Media Arts Contest for STEM. So far it isn't working out. When we publicized the project we expected to have some entries. So far we have 0. We are also having a problem with publicizing it. We have posted flyers around the school that have been vandalized. We gave some to the teachers and they haven't passed them out. We expected this contest to go so much better. We learned that if we want something done we have to do it ourselves, and apparently there is no media arts in this school.       
               
"Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the Stars" - Les Brown