This Week's Reflection (7/5-13/5)

After what Miss Abena commented on how we did our reflections, it finally hit me that the reflection wasn't some place were we would say: "Oh I did this today, I thought it was good but I could us some improvement." It's about questioning and looking back upon your work as questioning why you did it? what have you learned from it? etc. So I will need to change how I am doing my reflections.

This week as me and Nazrel continued working on the project "Using Easybib and Evernote" I was quite frustrated with Nazrel as somehow I ended up doing most of the project while he sat there twiddling his thumbs, but eventually he did produce some good quality work after much nagging and pushing. We decided to finish up the voice recording at home and tidy up the presentation on Wednesday but Miss Abena postponed the presentation till Tuesday, so there might be time for extra improvements, I am quite happy with the Imovie I produced and I hope i can achieved the personal target on the rubric that I have set.

Also I've learned quite an interesting thing this week, Miss Abena showed us how to make our own Google site, It was almost overwhelming at first as this was my very first website, thoughts like How should I design the page? How should I organize it all? were rushing through my head. Google sites in my opinion are quite easy to set up, edit and manage, so it won't really be much of a hassle when it comes to looking back at what articles, pages or notes that I've put on the website when revison time comes around.

This week's reflection (30/4-6/5)

This week since there was a holiday, we didn't really do much in class. Firstly we did morphemes which were confusing to understand at first but eventually I got the concept that it was a word that coud be broken down into a smaller unit of word such as "re" which means to do again and "create" which is to make "recreate" means to make again. Then we did this activity that asked us to make notes on morphemes and recreate them in our on words, there were 10 marks in total and grammar, punctuation and spelling counted in them, This helped me improve my proofreading skills, I feel this activity is quite useful as it makes you double and triple check all the spelling grammer and punctuation, I wouldn't really mind if we had this activity again.


Also, we were assigned pair work and I was with Nazrel, our topic was how to use search engines effectively which was a pretty good topic, we decided to use Prezi as our medium for our presentation. In my opinion, I feel that the workload for this pair is quite one sided, so I require some way to encourage and motivate the pair as a whole to do what they should do and do it well. I perform best in individual work, because sometimes I feel that I place my expectation on how well people should produce their work and would sometimes get out of control and do all the work myself.But as the days progress I understand the value of working in a group, it helps ease the work process and fresh ideas and concepts can be introduced into the group. I still feel some unease when I work in a group but maybe I'm just stuck in my old ways.

I'm actually not very proud of anything I have done this week, as well there's wasn't really anything outstanding that I feel requires to to say, overall it was a good week, but nothing much to shout about. Although what do with some improvement this week is that I could possibly be using prompts and completing reflections on time, as this is the second time I've being called back to finish a poor reflection. Also, I feel that my group trust skills could use a bit of brushing up, I ned to tell myself that people are just as capable of producing top notch work and the sooner I adopt that mantra the better. How I would try to improve of those two problems are I would most likely give myself a constant remainder that reflections must be finished before the next monday, also with the group trust problem, I could give them a small task to do at first, and maybe grow on that if the work they produce is up to snuff.

This Week's Reflection (23/4-29/4)

This week, we did more upon heroes and we watched a few videos about stopping racism and discrimination that were cleverly presented like a Sims game, this brought new light to me about how how severe the problem is in the world and if we don't stop it soon enough, the problem will become overwhelming.

Also we did a web hunt on the My Hero website, which frankly speaking wasn't a good activity. I didn't really learn much from the activity, I would suggest maybe a better way to teach other people about the My Hero website. Also, we discussed about who we would write as a hero and very surprising most of the people in my class didn't have a hero, including me, I suppose not many people have inspired me in my life, after some consideration, I decided to write on either Amelia Earhart, Scott Joplin or Steven Spielberg, I'm quiet eager to do Scott Joplin as he is one of my favorite pianist, but i'm having some trouble to find some hero qualities in him.

So I am currently trying to find some resources on Scott Joplin , but I'm having a bit of trouble. My question is, becoming the King Of Ragtime as a black pianist while all the other famous pianist are white men in any form a hero's quality maybe with a bit of thought and consideration, I'll find out

Understanding Morphemes

Words are composed of morphemes; they are parts of words that can be broken down. When combined they make more complex words. For example, "create" means to make. It is a base word. "Re" is a prefix which means to do again. When combined, they form recreate which is to make again, other examples include redo or remake. Their origins are said to be from Greek or Latin.By understanding morphemes, we can understand more complicated words. If we focus on mastering morphology, we can improve our reading and writing skills and increase our vocabulary.

Reflection (Holocaust Memorial Day)

Today we watched five video about Holocaust Memorial Day, most of the videos were about cases of racism and discrimination. When I saw the video, I was slightly shocked that racism and discrimination was this severe in this world of ours, such as the video where the islamic woman was not allowed into a school just because she was wearing a veil and the black guy who was beaten to death just for being black. In my mind, I was still happy that some people such as that old woman who intervened when two girls were bullying a Jewish girl, if people don't intervene when racism around them happen, our world will be a dark and cruel place, as people think one race or religion is better or worst than another.

If the people acted differently in the video such as the principal allowing the Islamic woman to enter, the woman helping the boy who's father was arrested since he was a Jew, maybe they would have done a little more goodness into this world of ours. Racism in our world now, isn't a very tough problem to solve, is we just dimiss any speculation and low our barriers and embrace each religion as it's own, we can make this world a much better place for this generation and the next.

Reflection (My Birthday Heroes) (17/4/12)

Today, we discussed on the topic of heroes. At first, I presumed a hero was a person who did an act of justice, but after some exercises my definition changed into a much lengthy version where a hero is someone who not necessarily have a special skill or talent who perform a selfless act(s) towards other individuals and society without expecting a from or reward or payment. Personally after all of the activities I feel that a hero can be both famous and unsung, whether it's a valiant act or it's an everyday job that makes people's life easier, they are are all considered heroes. Comparing to the studied poem and song: "First They Came For The Jews" and 'Superman's Song" there are some connections between the definition and the meaning of both poem and song.

In the poem "First They Came For The Jews" after reading the poem I understood that a hero would not let those unjustly acts go unpunished, he/she try to solve the problem as best as they could and not just sit idly by while other's suffer. In the song "Superman's Song" it became clear that a hero's life may not necessarily be glamorous or famous, that heroes don't do it for the money or the fame, a true hero does it out of the intrest to help others in need and that is what I feel what a true hero really is. 

Meaning Of Song and Poem

Today, Miss Abena asked us to analyze two pieces of work. A poem called  First They Came For The Jews and a song called Superman Song.  Well firstly the poem is talking about one not speaking out to injustice, like in the stanza 'Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew." The person clearly knows it's wrong but makes no effort to stop or change the matter, then when trouble falls onto the person's shoulders as in the stanza"Then they came for me, and there was no one to left to speak for me", they was no one left but him so he could not say it wasn't his problem and had to bear the full weight of solving the problem all by himself.

The song Superman's Song, gives a clear distinction from idol to hero is talking about how sometimes, a hero's life may no be flashy or glamorous as everyone thinks by comparing Tarzan, who is very popular, a ladies man and has almost everything in his life, his life had no meaning or purpose, he basically just wasting his life away entertaining Jane and swinging from vine to vine. Superman on the other hand, was counted as a hero as he was never paid to fight the criminals, no one forced him to fight crime, he did it out of his own desire risking his life and limb for the safety of the citizens.