Saeri’s blog

Medieval Reflection

1. What did I feel successful doing during the process of the project? What am I proud of?

I felt successful during this process of the project when I finished my research. I used EBSCO for my whole research and I could find my information about monks and monasteries easily. EBSCO had lots of good sources that were easy to understand and were organized. I felt successful because I knew I had collected enough of information to write paragraphs just from my research records and I realized I had chosen a right topic for myself. The last time we did research, my first topic was trading in Ancient Rome. Most of the articles I found were too hard for me and I couldn’t find much information that I had to change my topic.

Something I’m very proud of about this project is my model of the monastery. It took me about 2 weeks to plan out, cut out the pieces (which I had about 50), paint them, and glue them together. Although it didn’t turn out exactly the same as I planned, when I finished the whole thing, it was pretty satisfying.

2. What new skills did I value learning?

The new skill I obtained from this project was the organization skill and skill to adjust the level depending on the adience’s age. From this project, there were no deadlines in particular part but had only deadline for the whole completed project. At the beginning, I finished my research and games on time so I thought I was doing good on my planning. When I started on my model, it was more complicated than I thought and it took me longer than I expected. And since I was rushing too much and didn’t measure properly, I had to edit my model so many times. This took me even more longer. Although I finished it before the fair, I think I could have done much better if I started it earlier.

Th skill to adjust the level for younger kids was very interesting to me. The medieval fair was meant for younger elementary kids. I had been writing and reading the articles in my level so when I first typed out my first speech for the fair, I realized that small kids such as 2nd graders wouldn’t be able to understand it. So what I had to do was to make my paragraphs easier for little ones using the same information. Another thing I did was to make my speech more interesting. I realized when I went to other class’s fair that audience would be bored and would want to leave the booth if your speech was boring. I added more active things such as asking them to raise their hand or take a guess at some of my questions. I think this was one of the important skill I learned from this project.

3. What was challenging during the process of completing the project? With what did I struggle?

The challenging part of the project was the making of the model. I used one picture of monastery I got from EBSCO. It was also hard because I had to do lots of maths. I measured each side of the building in the picture and multiplied by 4 so it would be bigger. Then one my challenge was here because on the picture, the building it 2-D not 3-D so I had to think logically and guess how long it would be. Then I had to cut out the piece from soft cardboard and see if it worked. I also had to make roofs and I even had to measure the angles. The painting part was not as challenging but the last part where I had to put all the pieces together was very challenging because I had to find the right pieces (many pieces were similar with their shapes or the shapes of the windows) then I had to hold them together until I was sure the pieces were strongly sticked together with the white glue. It took me long time and I think that was the most challenging thing I’ve done from this medieval project.

4. How could I have improved my process so that I would have been more effective?

I think I could have finished everything and had them all ready earlier by planning everything right. Just like what I said in previous questions, I did plan things but when I was doing my model, I realized I had more works to do than I thought so I ended it upworking on it later than what I planned. I could have also did parts of the project in order. When I started on my 3nd part: the game, I realized I should have written more information in the oral presentation for my questions on the game. So I had to edit those speech and had to restart on my game. I think I could have thought more about each part so I’d have it perfect and wouldn’t make the other parts of the project confusing.

5. Did I effectively create an age-appropriate presentation and game for the elementary students? (please explain how you know it was appropriate or how you could have changed it to be more appropriate)

I think I created an age-appropriate presentation, but I think I could have done little better on the game. For my visual presentation, I put some labels on my visual presentation (model) so my audience would know each parts of the monastery I’m talking about. For my oral presentation, I used lots of simple and easy words that 2nd graders would know. Then I organized all my information so each time I start talking about different things, the audience would know that I’m talking about different category and wouldn’t get confused. I think my game’s concept was simple enough for little kids to understand. It was my questions cards that I had problems with.  I think my questions were bit confusing and were little too hard. Also, for some of the questions, I used hard words for the small kids. But one thing that I think I could have thought about it was the size of the cards. My cards were quite small so the words printed were also small. I didn’t realize how most of the elementary kids liked to read the sentences aloud. Since my letters were small, they had a hard time reading it aloud and when I tried to read it aloud to them, they didn’t understand. I thinkmy game would have been more interesting and fun to them if I edited that particular cards.

The United Nations And Reform

The Focus Group Forum Question:

Q: Overall do you fell the U.N is a successful organization? Why or why not. Cite example to support your view.

A: I don’t think U.N. is a successful organization. It is because they have failed so many tasks they were supposed to do and people started to think U.N. is doing nothing. It is organization which is supposed to be helping the world for peace but there are few which they have successfully worked it out. They had perpetuated the political division between North and South Korea. If you look at overall tasks they had done so far, U.N. barely successed at all. Many people are concerned about U.N. and once, U.S. had ignored to listen to U.N. about the plan to make a situations better. Also, U.N. had made the situation worse. Some people want U.N. to play a greater role, while others want to keep it confined to only playing a humanitarian role. Some other people thinks it is ineffective and their countries would be better off not to be a part of it. From all these people’s opinions and work U.N. had actually done, I think U.N. need to improve (also make some changes) and need to be more successful to help the world since I don’t think it is not successful now.

Famous Egyptians Reflection (Part II)

Today, we had our speeches presented and I learned lots of things and found lots of things very interesting.

Everyone was doing different people so I learned lots of thing about Ancient Egyptians, although I don’t remember everything. I learned the most in how to give a speech and how we should present it. Some people have just read their speech paper for most of their speech and some people didn’t look at the audience that much. Or other people spoke too quickly and not clear that audience couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was being careful with those but I didn’t think that I put enough expression in my speech. Lots of people put expression in their speech and I have missed that so that one thing I want to be careful next time.

From all the speeches, I thought the costumes everyone was wearing were interesting and I think it made their speeches more interesting and also funny. The thing that I liked and thought interesting was that lots of people were related to each other and that they had a different point of view. For example, Daryl was Horus and Nick was being Seth. Seth is Horus’s uncle. Daryl (Horus) said Seth was evil and mean, but then Nick (Seth) said he was little evil but not as bad as Horus. Same things kept happening and I thought it was very interesting because when you are giving speech, you are trying to tell people that you are a good person and nobody wouldn’t want to tell the audience that he/she was being evil all the time. Lots of people said that we had to worship them (as a god) and some people even said you’ll die without me and I think that’s because everyone is forcing you to think that they are the important and famous people. I thought everything was interesting though.

Famous Egyptians Speech (Part I)

What do you imagine if you think of Isis? I am Isis and I’m Egyptian god. My life was very interesting, exciting, and very nice. I was very popular in lots of people in Ancient Egypt.

I am sister and wife of Osiris and Hours is my son. My parents are Geb and Nut. I also have another brother called Seth and he was mean to us all the time. In one myth, Seth killed my brother Osiris and I had collected all his body parts to make him alive again. Since then, I became a protector of living and dead. The reason I live in Ancient Egypt near Nile River was that Osiris and I came down from heavens for human with gifts. I wasn’t very special and I was just like other god that time.

After I came from heavens, I helped people in many ways because that was our gifts for human. First, I showed them how to harvest and process grains. Then I showed them the laws, institution of marriage, and institution of how to worship the gods. I have also taught lots of women how to tame a man so those women can live with them. Since then, many people started to worship me.

From all of the thing I had showed to human, I became very popular. People said that I brought happiness to them and they started to worship me not just as a god, but as a godmother. I was invited to lots of garden parties and I became one of the important sources for Pharaoh, the ruler of Ancient Egypt’s power. I have even traveled to Rome. I also got some temples of me in Egypt and Nubia. Then I became most popular god and also a popular goddess from ancient Egyptian Mythology.

Since I helped lots of people on Earth and brought happiness to them, I became very famous and popular. Although I’m a god, I am still treated like real person and was very important to Ancient Egyptians. From all the mythologies and ledgens, I am worshiped by many people from Ancient time to today.

Isis:

Picture from: http://grenier2clio.free.fr/egypte/pic/isis.jpg

Egyptian God

Egyptian God

Ra:

From: http://www.triplemind.com/images/gods/ra-drawing.gif

Maat:

From: http://www.linsdomain.com/gods&goddesses/pictures/maat.jpg

Osiris:

From: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/instruments/ir_instruments/osiris2soar/osiris_left.gif

Isis:

From: http://grenier2clio.free.fr/egypte/pic/isis.jpg

Horus:

From: http://www.windows.ucar.edu/mythology/images/horus_sm.jpg

Thoth:

From: http://www.enormousfictions.com/wp-content/5399a.jpg

Ptah:

From: http://ziggyweb2.wz.cz/egypt/obrazky/bohove/ptah.jpg

Hathor:

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/images/gods_hathor.jpg

Anubis:

From: http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/anubis_scales.jpg

Hapi:

From: http://members.aol.com/egyptart/myth/hapi.jpg

Sobek:

From: http://members.aol.com/egyptart/myth/sobek.JPG

Wadjet:

From: http://eu01.org/myPictures/OAM71695-TOR2-TOR3-wadjet-rechts.jpg

Bastet:

From: http://www.fantastico.uma.es/2005/exposicion_comic/images/bastet%20copia.jpg

Nekhbet:

From: http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/nekhbet.jpg

Mut:

From: http://www.aelives.com/gods/mut.jpg

Khons:

From: http://www.kenseamedia.com/egyptian_gods/images/rameses2_amun_khons_mut.jpg

Bes:

From: http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/bes_harpist.jpg

Reflection #2

What would you change about the final product (the wiki you created) if you were to do the assignment again?

I would plan at first. We knew which page we were going to do but we didn’t think of other thing. When we were almost done the wikispaces, we came up with some ideas that would make our wiki better and that was to make a source page. It was Kaite’s idea and I thought that was a pretty good idea but I had already put my source on my page. So I had to delete all my source on the page and put them on the source page. I really thought I had wasted my time.

I would also review my writing because when I used spell check at the last class period, I had so many spelling mistakes and some of the parts, I forgot to leave a space between word and word. I also found some sentence which didn’t make sense.

Look at some of the other wikis from any class and find a few that you think are done exceptionally well. Tell me the name of the empire and the block, and then explain what you like about their wiki.

Swahili Coastal Trading States- Block E

I liked their page because it was very organized and it was easy to see. All the pages were grouped into small paragraph or some were built pointed. All the pictures they used were in the right place, they were not in the middle, or too left etc. The words that I thought was hard to understand were all linkned to dictionary.com and all the citations I looked were linked well.

Songhai-Block H

I liked the way they put extra stuff that make people’s mind clear. They put Introduction but they also had something called, What you will learn. They also put URLs for the Songhai kingdom.

Swahili Coastal Trading States-Block H

I liked that they put little explanations beside the links to the other pages, because people who visit there will know what on that page. They also put the author of the page and some pictures to show about Swahili.

Reflections on Ancient Africa Wiki

1.What did you learn from this task?

I learned a lot about Songhai, the country we were doing. I did Location and Movement of Songhai. It was very difficult to find the informations about Songhai until we learned something called the boolean operators. It is used in search engines and they are, +, -, or “”. It really helped me find the informations about Songhai.

I also learned how to use a wiki more than what I used to know and what makes a good wiki, such as formating the letters, vocabulary, or to not write in your own words. When I was making my pages, I looked at my other group member’s page and I noticed that a big long paragraph made me not want to read, so I learned what makes the audience want to read and make them interesting and concentrate on the page.

One more thing I learned was to evaluate the website. Some of the websites I found were little doubtful and I had to use the website evaluation sheet that Ms.N gave us to see if the websites I found were good to use.

2. Did you find this difficult or easy? Why?

Some of them were hard and some of them were easy for me. Using wiki was easy for me since I’ve been using it with friends and we even used it during the science class. Though, I still learned something new, that was to use “The page list” to change the name of the pages.

The hardest thing was to find the informations about Ancient Africa. I found couple of the websites about Songhai but they didn’t have the informations I wanted. (It became little easier after we learned about boolean operators.)

3.What would you change about the process you went through to complete the wiki if you were to do the assignment again?

I would change the way I took the note because I just copied down the informations about Songhai and I was totally confused which informations belongs to which topic when I was making my pages. I even copied down the informations that I didn’t even need. I also didn’t copy down where I got each informations from so when I was listing the sources on my page, I had to go to each single websites to check if the informations I used on my page were from there. I think I had wasted lots of times doing all the things I did wrong.

Reflections for presentations about Ancient Africa

Today, we presented about what was happening in ancient Africa

What I learned:

I learned discovery of iron, how the country in Africa turned into bigger country, and how Morocco attacked Songhai.

At first in West Africa, there were no such a thing called Iron so people used, harpoon, arrow, and spire for hunting and fishing. But after discovering iron, fishers, farmers, and population increased. And sometimes, they traded foods because they gets too much foods by iron.

In the country Ghana, the king of Ghana contorlled the trade religion. North Africa had salt and Waragans (I’m not sure if I spelled it correctly) had gold so they traded.

After Ghana, the country called Mali was made. It was twice as big as Ghana and had strong power of nearly 200 years. They paid gold because people wanted this Mali to be on the map.

After Mali, the new country called Songhai was maded. The capital was Gao. Songhai took control of Niger river.

In Morocco, Al-Mansur the sultan of Morocco really wanted money. In 1580, he planed to attack Songhai so he can get money. Songhai’s government didn’t allow to trade. So then Al-Mansur decided to attack Gao. The country Songhai was destroyed and salt&gold trade stopped. Morroco ruled when Songhai was and they are still there.

That’s what I learned from this presenation.

What I found intersting:

I thought it is intersting that you don’t know what was actually going on in the whole Africa but your part. When we presented, I finally figured out about the movment in ancient Africa. (We presented in the order of what happened in Ancient Africa)