I finaly get to read...

During the school year it takes me weeks to finish a book. Or the book is so good I finish it fast, but fall behind on a number of other things. A true sign of summer for me means getting time to read at least one or more books per week. I'm going to keep a list on the right of books I've read this summer.  So far it would say Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Island Beneath the Sea, all amazing so far. The best part is I have a lot more books I'm really looking forward to. Let me know what you're reading.

Highlights from the final...

Good evening,

  I've been reading your final essays all weekend. I'm so impressed. Either you have all really mastered the art of sucking up (and I should be taking lessons from you) or you learned a tremendous amount this year, much more than I even realized I was teaching you. You reminded me that the things I teach implicitly are often much more important than what I teach you explicitly. That means that what I teach you about yourselves and about life matters more than what I teach you about books.

I promised you I would put my favorite quotes on the blog, but when I typed them up it came to five pages so I'm giving it to you as a link. You said amazing things. Read through this list and be proud of yourselves yet again. Highlights from Period 3 Finals

The Final

Good morning,
   If you are reading this then you are done with your essay. Thank you.  I look forward to posting quotes from your essays.
   The second part of your final is on-line. Read the directions at the top of the form! FINAL PART II.

Thank you for a great year. I'm so glad we were able to learn so much together.

I forgot to show you this. The School Library Journal did an article about the Google block. It's mostly about our class! Read it.

Finals are coming... Friday!

Good morning,
  Yesterday you worked with your group to create study guides about the material we have covered second semester. I copied your work into a Google doc and published it so you can get to it easily again.
Second Semester Study Guide

Now is the time to go through that study guide and re-visit the readings and ideas we learned about this semester. You might even want to go back and look again at some of the things from your First Semester Study Guide.

Almost there...

Great job going on with the boards in the hallway everybody. Today is your last day for that. You ALL need more articles and information so keep printing. Don't forget to properly cite your sources. (Yes, blue group even you. And, no, I don't believe Zac Efron wrote one of your articles.)

Saw this yesterday via Twitter. It's about copyright law. You should read it.
If they were real, the kids on Glee would owe millions in copyright violation fines.
Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club

Voice of San Diego article about the Google block. (Includes quote from me and info about the impact at PLHS.)
  

Go team....

Good morning Red, White and Blue,
  You'll be working in your teams today to complete your project. I'll check in with each team, but is general you need to be finding articles and getting them printed IF they are good! Only computers numbered 1-20+22+35 will print, so check your number before you try.
  Your goal today is to get things up on your board. You can take down, rearrange or change things later, but get something out there now.
   Team leaders make sure you have a second in command who can fill in for you if you are gone.

Over and out...

And Blogger does NOT work again...(on campus)

Shall I tell you how I really feel about the security change that Google made resulting in a complete block of all secure Google pages in the district?  #*%&!!! (But you probably knew that.)

So yesterday you learned about Snopes.com and now you won't be fooled by strange e-mail chain letters, general scams, Nigerians who need cash fast, and outrageous urban legends.

Today let's explore some other useful NON-GOOGLE web-sites.  Delicious.com is a bookmarking site. It allows you to save all the things you'd like to bookmark in one place and access them from any computer. You can also add key words, called tags, to the links you save to make them easier to find later. Make yourself a Delicious account and play with what you can do there. Visit several websites you like and add their links to your Delicious collection. Bonus points: Share some of your delicious links with me or a classmate. (Then teach me how you did it. I haven't tried that part yet.)

Visit TeenReads.com and find books you could read this summer. (No, really, this site is cool, just like graduating is cool.)

Check out the T-shirts I made on Zazzle. Then make yourself a Zazzle account and make your own stuff.

After you've done all that go to your English Journal and write an entry about what you found and learned today. Ha! That was a joke! Did you get it? Go to your English Journal? Ha ha ha. (I crack myself up.)

And Blogger works again...

Welcome back,
    Today I want you to make sure you have a post on your blog that explains a bit about who you are and why you are writing your blog. Take a look at the one Dolphin wrote a few days ago. He did a great job with this. DO NOT include personally identifying info!
    Also read Top 10 Tips For Beginning Bloggers. This is a different set of tips from the ones I sent you to last week. There are dozens of sites with tips for new bloggers. You should check out several.