Passing in storyboards

I got William Paterson on the founding fathers quiz and I didn't know who he was before, and in my VoiceThread, I said it like Pay-Ter-Sin, because there's only one "t" which implies the "a" is pronounced like "a", not "ah". So please if my VoiceThread sounds dumb because of the pronounciation, I am sorry.

VoiceThread

Friday's Class

I think I already made a post for this, but whatever I'll do it again. In class we talked about who should elect the president I think, if I remember correctly. I think there was a little dispute about those games Mr. Boyle told us about. If the band t-shirt was speech or not. And I was thinking, it doesn't matter if it's speech or not... the school can ban whatever it wants. If shirts like that cause problems in a learning environment, I think the school should be able to ban it. I think the problem we were looking at was whether or not the punishment was too harsh. Even though I'm student, I still think that the school can ban clothes in school. We're lucky to not have a dress code, so honestly I think people need to calm down and just get over it when they get in trouble for wearing strapless shirts and tiny skirts. It's not appropriate in school, you're supposed to be learning, I don't think it's necessary to look really formal, but be respectful at least. I know I'm getting off topic but I can't stop. I know a lot of people were saying he should be allowed to wear it in school, but why fight the school? It's a school... you're not going to win, schools have so many priviledges, as Mr. Boyle said, the second we cross that threshold, we have little to no rights. And as long as we're in school, (until we're 18, adults) I think we should just live with the fact that if a teacher tells you that you can't wear a mini skirt, (which is just as expressive as a band shirt would be) then spare us all the drama and wear pants, honestly it's not a big deal. I think the only thing that's worth debating, is the punishment the student recieved. Personally, I thought expulsion was going a little overboard, but that's just me.

Due Dates Pushed Back

Today Mr. Boyle gave us the weekend for extra time on our storyboard and voicethreads. I've already finished everything, but I haven't embedded the voicethread because I'm waiting to go to my friends house so I can use his computer because he can embed stuff onto his blog really easy, and my computer doesn't. Also, I found out that we have a quest on thursday about the constitution. I'm pretty confident about the material that I expect to be on the quest. Today a lot of my confusion about the electoral colleges was cleared up. I understood the gist of what it was, but I wasn't really sure why it was considered the best system for electing the executive. Now it makes a lot of sense, the people get an indirect vote, so technically the people choose the president, but it's through their election of the electoral colleges, and not the state legislature. I think this evens out power more too.

and also, was that guy the french principal?

James Madison Partners

I thought that the homework we did last night was actually kind of confusing, but when we went into class and Mr. Boyle explained the spaces they left in the documents, it made a lot more sense, and I felt like an idiot, not figuring that out last night. Also, I have to redo my storyboard because it says my complete script, not a summary of what you'll hear in my voicethread... Unless I reword and add details to the script thats on my storyboard, and use that as a script and make a new voicethread, which might be easier because I wouldn't have to draw my storyboard all over again.

French Kids and History Don't Mix

Well first off, a lot of my confusion was cleared up today, because I really didn't know what a "storyboard" was, but now that Mr. Boyle expained to us about it, it sounds fairly easy. I'm planning on working on it after blogging, but I'm not sure, because it's kind of late, and I've been doing homework for the past three hours. Also, the french exchange kids came into our class. All three of them sat at my group and the two boys were sitting across from me. I felt bad for them because it must of been really boring, since they most likely haven't learned many words about politics, like state legistature, they probably don't even really know how the American government system is run. I could tell they were getting bored because the two boys just got up and started walking around and talking while Mr. Boyle was talking, but hey, it's okay, they're french.

About Friday

Friday we went back into our groups and all three groups summarized what their documents said, and we took notes about it. My mom said that Mr. Boyle was the teacher that impressed her the most because of all the technology and other cool stuff he's teaching us. No one else incorporates the internet into class, so we're ahead of the game.

Groups

Today we got into 3 groups of 6, and each group got a different document. Ours was about how the legistatures should be voted. It was agreed that one branch should be voted by the people and the other branches should be voted by state. Personally, I think that its good that we have the state choose the majority of the government, because no matter what we do, there will always be that group of people who aren't informed about government issues, while it's basically the job of the state to know what's going on in the government today, what needs to be fixed. Their jobs are to protect the state and make sure that the government isn't screwing us over, and even though it's kind of hard to accept the fact that the state is more knowledgable and they actually care about the state as a whole, I think it's smart that we trust them to make the decisions and not leave an unfortunatly large uninformed part of the population to vote on government.

Today in class

Today in class we did the documents and me and Sammi were the people with group 9. Not much happened at the actual meeting because the just voted president and started to think of the new laws and orders for the document. It's interesting how James Madison knew to take down extensive notes, thanks to him we have a ton of resources to use and basically we know exactly what happened during the journey to gaining independence. It makes me want to take more notes. Just in case.

Groups

Today we made groups and we decided that I would be the one who makes the google doc and it sounds pretty easy. I have Group 9, and I don't know what it's about yet, but after this I'm just going to get it over with and make the document and invite everyone so we can get it out of the way and all printed by Tuesday. I hope everyone in my group is responsible enough to remember to add their posts, because if not, we'll be in trouble on Tuesday. I like working on the internet, but some people aren't so tech savvy and can't figure things out, so it holds us back, but I'm glad we have the oppurtunity to explore the web and what it offers.

Today in class

Today in class we went over what the most important battles were in the south. I like using the interactive maps because they help me remember what order the battles were in, because it's a really good visual. Also, Mr. Boyle explained a lot and cleared up a lot of my confusion about some battles, like I didn't really connect two and two together, and it forces me to actually engage my brain in it...