Genius Hour Project~ Jessica, Olivia, Sydney, Emily

Genius Hour Project:              Sydney, Olivia, Emily, Jessica
Why do people sneeze differently?

  

What is our project about?
       Have you ever wondered why every sneeze sounds different? Well, that’s what our project is all about. Our project explains the effects of sneezes and how everyone sneezes differently. There is such a wide variety of different sneezes that not everyone knows about.  Our project is going to answer several different questions regarding sneezes, such as, “What are the common causes of sneezing?”,  “ How do surroundings change the sound of your sneeze” , “Why do people sneeze differently?” and “What happens inside your body when you sneeze?”. We have planned a video showing people how everyone sneezes differently in a variety of different surroundings. We are also using the editing software “iMovie”. It is our first time using iMovie so this will be a learning experience also and it will help our problem solving skills.

Why did our project appeal to us?
      One day in class, we looked around and we heard and saw different people sneeze differently with a variety of sounds. We all wondered why and we have never heard an answer for this so we thought this would be a good project to work on. It would answer our question along the way and we hope it will answer our fellow classmates’ questions too. This is an everyday occurrence so it makes lots of people wonder why it actually happens. We think it is an interesting topic that everyone encounters on a daily basis.

Where are we at now?
   We are almost done. We probably need around two more classes to work on our projects to polish them up and prepare for the presentation. We have the video made but we want to edit it a bit more and put some finishing touches so it will be perfect. It will be about 5 minutes long and we hope to catch the audiences’ attention.

Feedback:
We need some help with the presentation of the project. We have our voice in the video already but we are supposed to talk during the presentation so we have no idea how. Please give us some suggestions, advice, and feedback. Thank you.                      

TODAY IN CLASS!

WHAT WE DID.

What we did today in class well first off Ms Lees told us to pick a partner and get out our Ch 1 notes. Then she went downstairs to meet with the senior Boys Volley ball team to see them leave for their Provincial game in Kelowna. Then when she returned we all received sheet which she handed out to us. After that she asked us to evaluate our notes with our peer. She gave us the criteria and we evaluated the work according to that sheet. She told us to mark them not to mark for them.  I think that the evaluation may have been better if  she had picked to partners that way we wouldn't mark them as if they were our friend but as if we were like the teacher. When we finished evaluating then we had to write a reflection on how we felt we did for the first time and what we should change for the next time we do this. When we were finished writing the reflection we were almost done class. For the remaining minutes left of the block we spoke about what we did today and the learning intentions in doing this assignment. Ms Lees said that normally she would give a test on the chapter and we would be allowed to use our notes. We talked a little about how in doing this.

Genius Hour Project

What is your project about?

Our project is about making games with GameMaker, we are helping each other when we have problems with our games.

Why did it appeal to you?

It appealed to us because we wanted to figure out how to make games. We have always been  interested in games and have always wondered how to make the games that we see.

Content and skills
The skills include:

•     Programing (To allow things such as movement into the game)
•     Art (Sprite Making)
•     Creating a log to show process (Our blog)
•     Problem Solving (You can get many errors while creating the game)
•     Math (Graph, x, y, speeds)

Where are you now?

We are at the point where we are all almost done our games, we are logging our progress on our blog.

I’m doing well on my genius hour project. I have a free play mode complete with moving enemies, allies and a scoring system to allow you to either win or lose. You can also test your skills in free play by decreasing your amount of allies and increase your opponents’ amounts; or vice versa. I have a save system too. This includes 2 different kinds of saving, story and free play. Speaking of the story, I have started my story. This only includes 2 levels, but I now where it’s going to go as well as what I need to do to get there. I should be done by this week or over the weekend.

- Jarrod

Well, I am doing well on my Genius Hour project. I have created most of the sprites, and most of the backgrounds are finished. I like to write in Comic Sans because it makes people cry. I’ve had a few problems here and there, but I am doing well so far. My game is called “Crystal Puncher”, because it is a game where you punch crystals. Simple! If you’d like more information, check my page on our blog. It has more information there.

Thank you!                                                                                                            -Alayna



I’m doing well on my genius hour project, I finished 1 game, Cat&Mouse, where there are orange blocks(CATS), and You,the mouse(GREY BLOCK). You are trying to avoid the cat, but cats spawn(appear) every few second, and more and more spawn until you lose. Your score goes up every second, and every 50 second, a cheese spawns, which gives you an extra life.

My second game is Attack of the Burgers. There is a McDonald box on the top of the screen, and it constantly spawns burgers out of it. The Burgers, if it is on top of you, pushes you down. There are Pop (Soda) on the bottom, if you touch it, you lose. I finished making the burger, McDonalds, and the player. I still have to do the collisions and the Pop, but i am pretty much done.

When i finish this game, i plan on messing with HTML5, because if you do it that way, you can play it on ANYTHING as long as you have a browser, and internet connection.

- Johnny, the master of masters

Right now in my game I have done much of the basic things but I still need to fix some of my characters attributes so that he can attack the enemies, stop getting stuck in places, going through walls and have a health bar. My enemies still have no gravity so the float also I need to make them attack my character. I also need need to make a boss to fight at the end of the level. There will be only one level in my game because it is my first one but if i make another game it will probably be more advanced.

- Jadyn

If you could give us any feedback, that would be great!
We would like to know if:
Our games appeal to you
How effective the blog is
If you’d ever use Game Maker to create your own game
What would a good way to present be?

LINKS:
Our blog
Game Maker 8.1
GameMaker Studio

My Genius Hour (So Far)

Here's the link to out slideshow, but our slides are messed up when you view it.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5e-AU8uTAGhV1JYV2pvazNQUlE/edit

What we did in class today:

Today in class we were taking a look at the inspiration projects on the morris ward blog. our class decided we would also be sharing our genius projects with the morris ward blog ( the Australasians we are blogging with ). Since our class isn't done our genius hour projects yet we decided to share how our process was going on it and why we chose to do whichever topic we chose for it.our genius hour project is very similar to the inspiration projects too so we thought it would be a good idea to share the projects with them. Our class went down to the library computer lab and got into our genius hour groups to make a few paragraphs about our own project to share with them.

Why we did this:

We are going to share our genius hour projects with them because it would be very interesting to see their thoughts on what they think about our project. also is a great way to get peer feedback especially if its someone you don't know too well, because it may be a bit easier for them to give their honest opinion and its great to get feedback from different people and their different point of views.

Homework:
- work/finish on genius hour projects
- finish novel by Wednesday

Homework tips:
Use the questions about what to put in your paragraph from the notes you wrote down.

What we did in class today

 

Today in class we were split into groups and we looked at graphic organizers (webs or charts). Everyone in the group got a web and then we had to talk about each one and grade it and make criteria for the grade that the person gave it. We graded the papers with an A+, A, B+, B, or C+. Each of the webs were graded in the above listed categories and not any lower. The webs were created by grade 7 students to university students. Then after we put all of the webs on the board Mrs. Lees called us all up in our groups and we reviewed the other groups’ work and said whether we agreed or disagreed with the grade that was given.

 

Why we did this:

 

I think we did this to improve note talking skills by learning how to make better graphic organizers which help you organize and remember things better. Also you can add pictures to help.

 

Homework:

 

·         Work on genius hour

·         Read novel

WHAT WE DID IN CLASS TODAY

What we did in class today. First of we started talking about graphic organizers we talked amongst our group. Then she started asking us for examples of graphic organizers. But then a confusing question appeared and because of that ms Lees got side tracked and the whole lesson was forgotten. We started talking about what makes a sentence and parts of a speech. Like for example we talked about. verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns pronouns and proper nouns. we talked about each one the we gave examples of each one. Ms Lees mentioned that she normally give this lesson in the beginning of the year but this year she must have forgotten. verb:an action word or a state of being ex jump,run, walk adjective: describes/modifies a noun ex: the ugly girl walked towards the handsome man. in this sentence there are two adjectives handsome and ugly adverb: describes/modifies a adjective a verb or an other adjective Ms Lees also mentioned that adverbs were tricky and that we would need to learn more about them ex:softly, carefully and loudly. noun:person place or thing. nouns are simple because we practiced them a lot in elementary unlike adverbs and pronouns and proper nouns ex: Paris,chair and pen. pronoun: takes the place of the noun ex: I you, me, ours and his. proper noun: a noun with a capital. ex: Paris, Vancouver and Sapeeda are all examples of proper nouns. I learned that the word run has 23 different definitions. After the lesson we watched a school house rock video on adverbs so that we get a better understanding of adverbs and after a bit of technical difficulties Ms Lees got the video working and now that song is stuck in my head and this is what we did today
LEARNING INTENTIONS
i think we did the graphical organizers because it had to do with note taking even though we didn't make it to the main point of the lesson i figured that it had to do with that. We did the other mini lesson on parts of a speech because there was a phrase on the board and none of us could tell if it was a sentence or not. we couldn't tell because it looked like a sentence but it was laking something that would complete it. And i figured that us being stuck on that question it jogged Ms Lees a little making her remember that we were supposed to have this lesson in the beginning of the year. We also need to have a better understanding on nouns, verbs, pronouns,noun,adjectives,proper nouns and adverbs
CONNECTIONS
The connections i made with this lesson was that i was one of the students a bit confused whether that phrase was a sentence or not. And i knew that i needed to grip this concept better because i didn't know what proper nouns were and what pronouns were. I didn't know what the parts of a speech where and was very confused until this lesson now i know that my grammar has improved since this lesson.
HOMEWORK
we had no homework
TIP/REMINDERS
I would suggest looking up the definition of graphic organizers because that is probably going to be our lesson for tomorrow

What We Did Today

Summary        
        Today in Humanities, it was a bit more of an unusual double block. It was quite unusual because for once, we got to work on out Genius Hour Projects for a whole two double blocks! This was really useful for some groups because some people, like myself is a little bit behind. Luckily, we had these double blocks to work on out projects.
Learning Intentions
        From working on our projects, we learn researching skills and also communication skills. We learn communication skills because we have to discuss if the information we're getting is actual solid information, not made up information. We are also learning researching skills so we know where we should be getting our information for our projects and if it's useful information.
Reflections
        Doing our projects are important because we learn how to research thorough information, communication skills and presentation skills. All these skills will be useful later in the future somehow. It teaches us presentation skills since we are going to have to present our projects quite soon, since some of our time constraints are almost up.
Homework Reminders
Our homework for now is just to read our novels and also work on our Genius Hour projects. We need to finish our novels pretty soon now so we can discuss it in class.
Homework Tips
Set aside some time to just have a quick read, for fun and for the benefit of yourself. Also, make sure you leave a little leeway for your Genius Hour projects too.

What We did in Class Today:  

        Today in class, we started off with silent reading, and everyone read their novels in our novel groups. Our novels have just been assigned to us so most of us just started to read.
 
        We also watched a video on how to create our E-portfolio and how to use it on Wordpress from our Fhlearn Blogs. The class paired up into groups of 2 to 3 people using the Macbooks to create our E-portfolio. We added a page to our Fhlearn Blog which took us the whole block of Huamities.


Why We Did This in Class Today:

     We are using Wordpress so if we loose any homework in the future we could take a picture of it before and have it to show the teacher the evidence that you did do your homework. It will also keep us more organized.


Homework:

Finish making your pathways notes
Work on genius hour projects.

Create Mebus and Pages:
Pages- Humanities/ English
Menus- sub-page
Communication
Digital litracy/ ICT
Creativity/innovation
Collaboration skills
Categories and Tags
Oral communication- speaking/ listening
Reading- comprehension/ analysis
Writing/ Representing

REMEMBER NO SCHOOL FRIDAY OR MONDAY! 

WHAT WE DID IN CLASS TODAY!

What did we do in class today. well to start of we got together with the people who are reading the same book as we are. Then we had to brainstrom what we think we are going to learn from this book or what we hope to learn. As if it was a histroic novel. we made webs and Ms.Lees showed us an example on the overhead. after that we did a self assesmet on how we think we are doing with our group blogs how much each of us have posted. And if we have commented or have gotten commented or if we got a response on one of our comments. And people who came in to flex time got earsers or pencils. And if you didn't finish your notes or get very far on them you were allowed to sign out a pathways textbook.

WHY WE DID WHAT WE DID
Why we did what we did? well we did the book group thing i think we did it to find things that we were going to learn from the book that we wouldn't notice if we just read the book. and i think we are going to get quizzed on what bwe learned just to prove we actually read the book and it wasn't all a pointless waste of time. and also so that we know that there are some hidden historical fact in this book. why we did the self assesment. i think we did the self assesment because Ms Lees wants to see how we are progessing so far. And i think she made us do the self assesment also because at the end of the year we can see our progression and how we felt we were doing back in November compared to how we feel we are doing in June.

HOMEWORK?
We have to finnish or get really far on our notes and if we are really close to finishing we can come in to flex time.

TIPS/REMINDERS
Reminder come in at flex time tom
tips I would finish the pathways notes rather then comming in at flex and spending your lunch doing un-finished i would rather enjoy lunch. REMINDER no double block at all this week the order is 3412 this whole week and no school friday or monday.

Today in class we did:

-We talked about joining clubs and Ms. Lees would be meeting people at flex. If you wanted to get in one but were too shy she will help you get in to one

- Tomorrow we will be writing letters to the to the creators of the fictional town of woodleighville morris ward

- One person from each blog group will post one what we did today

- We learn about five days of fire and that there is a volleyball tornament that you can sign up for to get colour points for your team. Are class is colour is blue the grade eight will be competing on Thursday and wear your Halloween costumes on Wednesday for points. There are also many more events you can do for points

Homework:

- Research editors letters for the letter we are sending tomorrow look at Ms. Lees blog for more info

What we did in class on Friday:

 

In class we mostly did individual work. Most of the class was finishing up their note taking from the Pathways text (p. 9-20 outline form notes, p.21-30 web form notes and p.31 Cornell form notes).  Some people still had to finish their book passes which involved reading 3 pages of a book and then rating it on its’ readability.  We also had to choose our favorite book.   Mrs. Lees also signed out our novels to us.   We will be reading the books in different novel study groups. I’m in the Blood Red Horse book group. 

 

Why we did it:

 

We did the note taking because the teacher wanted us to improve on our technique of note taking by using outline, web and Cornell note form. So we could be better at taking notes in class instead of copying her notes. We did the novel study I think because the teacher wanted to check our reading and writing ability better.