Monday, April 29, 2013

Monday April 29th

Last class, which was friday, was my first day back from france after missing four days of school so i was a little lost... what i got out of class was that the class before they went to the library to work on a powerpoint presentation to sell a product from that time. I think the best arguement was made for barbed wire. Some people didnt even know how their machines worked which i thought was funny.

Today in class mr boyle wasnt there but we had mr wall as a sub. There was a movie playing but im not entirely sure the name. something like Red River? maybe? im not really sure... But I wasnt really watching it because i was trying to work on scratch a little bit...its really difficult...i have no idea how to work it. All i figured out in the hour was how to get the stupid cat thing to move to the right 10 steps. Progress i guess? hopefully tomorrow will go better.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Thursday, April 11th

Yesterday in class we discussed the erie canal, and since I already posted about that I wont bore you by rambling on about it again.

Today in class I immediately paired up with cara per usual.. We were to discuss the various questions pertaining to the topic of Manifest destiny. We then took a look at a couple different paintings and analyzed what they were trying to say about the subject. After this we were given some criteria to write a short dialogue to answer the questions we were given. Writing the script was really fun, but rather awkward presenting because it came out about 10 times shorter than we had expected... but we learned a lot so that is all that matters.

Erie Canal, Good or Bad?

Strictly economically and socially, the erie canal did have an overall positive effect on the United States.

When the canal was built it opened up trade with the west as well as an easier way to move people who wanted to add to the expansion of settlements. After the canal was built, the amount of people migrating around skyrocketed and more people were settling in the west. The Erie canal allowed people to not live in such tight close quarters and allow for the country to expand.

Economically, it created jobs and improved the economy of towns. The canal paid for itself in 6 or 7 years also. The concept of paying less to move out west became so popular which made people want to utilize the canal.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Monday April 8th

Friday was a half day so we didn't have class

Today in class mr boyle wasnt here so we had mrs jones for a substitute... We were given a packet to read and then summarize which isnt anything out of the normal for us, but mrs.jones made it sound like a really big deal. We learned about the oregon trail and different details about it. One of my personal favorites was the fact that they would use the dung to make frisbees to play with. I just thought it was funny

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Flipped Classroom/Snap Debate

There were four main causes that were thought to have started the war of 1812

They included,
         Impressment, which was when the royal navy boarded the american ships and taking citizens that they believed to be british(once a british citizen always a british citizen) to join their navy. The Chesapeake Affair which was impressment, with the british startinng to shoot the ships causing jefferson to sign the embargo act, not allowing americans to trade. The orders in council which restricted trade between everyone in france in response to Napolean taking over. And finally incitement which was when war haws believed that the british were arming and organizing american indians.

My group was defending Chesapeake Affair. We believed that this was a main cause because of the fact that it was putting US sovereignty in jeopardy, and was an actual start to violence.

I, after hearing the other arguments decided to switch the the incitement side for the reason that it was the only thing that was really effecting the US directly on US soil and was so close to them. Many of the other causes were effecting other countries more than the US

Honestly i dont know what i think about this flipped classroom nonsense so far. I dont really like it right now because I dont feel that its necissary to start changing the way the class has been all year at the start of the last stretch of the year. I personally have adjusted and grown to love how class had been in the past. I dont mind sitting and taking notes and I think that it makes more sense to learn in class and do activities out of class. I feel like im not going to learn as much teaching myself and may end up learning some things the wrong way.

However, if this is how mr.boyle wishes to run the class, I respect that.

Tuesday April 2nd

We have officially started the "flip classroom"

Yesterday we went to the computer lab and did an activity online about the Lewis and Clark expedition. We had to make decisions along the way and write diary entries as we went talking about what had happened. I never got to finish but mr boyle said to hand it in anyways. They say that it doesnt matter if its not finished but it always matters to me.

Today in class we did a snap debate about what we thought was the main cause of the war. We were divided into groups based on the survey we did the night before and had to defent it. I was on the side with chesapeake bay.