Finished Washington Excel Map! :)
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c616DBit9
Excel Map Reflection
Woohoo! I finally finished my Excel Map, and I think I did an above-and-beyond job with it. The guidelines were to have 20 letters of the alphabet on my map (I gave myself an evaluation of 5/5 points), to place my letters in an appropriate location on the map (4/5), to include an interesting, relevant, and original piece of data for each chapter (5/5), to bring the data to life with a picture, link, diagram, map, or something else (5/5), to explain why the data is an important part of Washington State’s history (5/5), to make the letter for each item stand out in some way (5/5), to use color to make the comments and map look nice (5/5), to organize the comments so that they pop up in an uncluttered way (5/5), to make it easy to tell which items relate to the chapters in the text (5/5), and to include some interactive ways of bringing the comments to life (5/5). We could also earn up to 10 points of extra credit by including additional items on my map, including a key, and doing something to make it stand out from others (9/10). I liked this project because it was very simple if you did a little bit of it each week. If I had slacked for most of the trimester and saved it all for the end, I would have probably not have done as well as I did. I didn’t like, however, that we had to make a blog post AND two comments in a 45-minute. I don’t do well when I am rushed. All in all, I believe I have passed my Washington State History Class! 
Times Square Terrorist Scare
Around 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 1, a vendor in New York City saw smoke coming from a box inside a dark green Nissan SUV in the Times Square area. The vendor notified the local police, and officers evacuated people from the area fast and efficiently. In the car, a bomb squad found three propane tanks, two filed five-gallon gasoline containers, two clocks with batteries, consumer-grade fireworks, and a locked metal boz that looked like a gun locker. Faisal Shahzad, the suspect of the potential bombing, was arrested late on Moday at the JFK airport, heading for a plane that was bound for Dubai. He now faces formal charges in the case.
Don’t Forget!
Everyone, please remeber that my Washington State History Blog posts are all on a page other than my home page. Just a reminder!
Washington State Blogs
I have made a new page on my blog called Washington State History Blogs. This is where I will be posting weekly about some stuff about our state. Other than those posts, all my other posts will be right here!
Crusades CBA Reflection
The purpose of this practice test was to prepare our class for the Washington State CBA on Causes of Conflict. We had to write a research paper on the Crusades. The requirements were to include a generalization on causes of conflict, to list the background on the Crusades, to list at least three causal factors that led to the Crusades, what the most important factor was, how the Crusades impacted one group of people (we had to choose from Jews, Muslims, or Christians) and about one individual from that group, if, how, and why the Crusades could have been avoided, and to make a bibliography using
MLA format.
The best part of my final product is the amount of detail and explanation it provides, which is very generous. The way I made it look like could probably be improved, and if I had to do it over again, I would change the amount of time I spent researching versus the time I spent actually writing it. I liked the Diigo process because I was able to highlight text and add “sticky notes” to add additional information. I didn’t like how the MLA format was put together because it seems confusing to me.
To see my final product, click on this link: http://crusadesresearchmrt09.wikispaces.com/The+Crusades+-+Jennifer+Clark
Islam Poster Reflection
This assignment was, well, fun! We were to make a poster describing the teachings of Islam: The Five Pillars of Faith, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, Jihad, and the Shari’ah. We had to include text and pictures. We were also assigned partners to work on it with; mine was Matt M. But the interesting part was that it wasn’t actually a poster! We used a website called Dabbleboard to create it, rather than using paper.
I think that the best part of our project was the more-than-necessary information and pictures. We probably could have made the words a little bit better (but, hey. It’s a computer we use a mouse to write with.) If we could do it over again, I would probably take more time on it throughout the time we got to work on it and not rush it all in at the last second. In conclusion, this was a very fun project.
To see what we made, click on this link: http://www.dabbleboard.com/draw?b=Jennifermrt09&i=0&c=072a328123634fbb3dca2b73b1795acd6be1e97c
Love the hair, Mr. T
Thanks to the seventh grade class at SMS, over $500 was donated to women in third world countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Our goal was $260, but we doubled that. So, Mr. Talmadge dyed his hair green on Friday. Geat job, everyone! And thanks for being embarrassed for us, Mr. T!
Muhammed Book Reflection
A class assignment we have been working on for the past two weeks was to make a small book summarizing the life of Muhammed, the prophet.
The first week we had to make a rough draft for the book. On Monday I wrote the summaries for 8.3 and 8.4. On Tuesday I wrote the summaries for 8.5 and 8.6. On Wednesday I drew the pictures for all the sections. On Thursday I drew the cover page and all of the Arabic words. On Friday, it was due. The second week we had to make a final draft for the book. I typed it all up and bound it together with glue. It took a while, but I finished it by the date it was due: Friday, January 15.
I think that I included more than enough information in my section summaries and made my pages nice and neat. The fact that I had a whole week to work on it gave me plenty of time to decide the layout of the book. If I could change how I did things, I would have written out the Arabic words instead of typing them up.
I learned a lot while I was doing this project. For example, I learned that Muhammed had an enourmous influence on the people of the Arabian Peninsula. I also learned that the more you work on a project in class, the less you will have to do as homework.
I actually prefer chapter assessments to projects such as the Muhammed Book. Though you learn more from doing things over a longer period of time, chapter assessments allow for more time for other things like starting on the next chapter.
Haiti Earthquake… And how to help
The 7.0-magnitude quake struck Tuesday, January 12 and killed an estimated 200,000 people, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. Countless dead remained buried in thousands of collapsed and toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince, a city of slums that drew migrants from an even more destitute countryside.
The staggering scope of Haiti’s nightmare came into sharper focus Monday as authorities estimated 200,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless in the heart of this luckless land, where injured survivors still died in the streets, doctors pleaded for help and looters slashed at one another in the rubble.
A frightening new aftershock Wednesday forced more earthquake survivors onto the capital’s streets to live and sent others fleeing to the countryside, where aid was only beginning to reach wrecked towns.
By boat or by bus, by bicycle and on foot along clogged and broken roads, earthquake survivors streamed away from this city and its landscape of desolation Friday and into Haiti’s hinterlands and the unknown.
Haiti’s government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the United Nations announced Saturday, saying there is little hope of finding more people alive 11 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble.
In Montreal on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and officials of more than two dozen other donor nations and international organizations met to assess the progress of the relief effort. The Haitian government asked the international community to provide $3 billion for Haiti’s reconstruction, the toruism minister told The Associated Press. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told the conference his impoverished nation lost 60 percent of its gross domestic product in the quake, the economic activity centered on Port-au-Prince.
If you would like to contribute $10 to the Red Cross, please text “HAITI” to 90999 or go to www.redcross.org. Thank you!
