September 30, 2014

What is an infographic? If you don't know, go look it up. Read about it and then in your own words tell me what an infographic is. What do infographics do? How do they work? What makes a really good infographic?

An infographic is a form of visual aid that portrays (visually) important information regarding a specific topic. For those visual learners out there, infographics help to organize the information in a way that is usually easy to understand. They're usually formatted like graphs, charts, or some other type of animated or creative design. Good infographics usually include lots of colors and eye-catching images.

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September 29, 2014

Tell me about your Homecoming weekend! If you didn't participate in the Homecoming festivities, what did you do? Share pics!

This weekend I went to Olathe East's homecoming with a group of my friends from youth group. There were about ten of us girls who went together and a couple of us stayed up pretty late that night at my friends house and went to church together the next morning. We danced the whole time so of course my feet are incredibly sore. We took our pictures before outside and it was pretty hot and humid where we were so by the time we finished, we were already super sweaty and gross but at least we got our pictures! I think it's safe to say that I'm pretty exhausted.

September 24, 2014

Imagine Mr. Bacon has asked you to suggest one way of improving Blue Valley High School to make it a better place for students. Think about the changes that are needed at your school. Pick one change you feel would really make a difference and explain what it is and why you'd make the change.

I would extend the passing period time. I don't think 6 minutes is enough time to rush to your locker after every class. According to a study that Mr. Mowry showed our class, your brain requires certain stimuli to maintain learning throughout the day. Having every seven teachers teach something to you for an hour and having to absorb so much information can be tiring for our brains. Our brains require physical stimuli (walking around in the halls) and a break from all the learning, which would be us socializing for just a few minutes or talking to someone about something rather than what we learned about in the previous class. I would make this change because longer passing periods would increase our attention in class as well as give us enough time to actually walk all the way to our lockers and all the way back to our next class.

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September 23, 2014

What are your favorite apps on your phone or tablet? Why?

My favorite apps on my phone are definitely Spotify and Netflix. I listen to music all the time so Spotify is like my best friend, and I love not doing my homework and watching Netflix so it all works out... but really, I love watching movies and TV shows from start to end, so the Netflix app is a convenient way to do this because no matter where I am, I can pull up a movie or show straight from my phone! Then of course my next favorites are all my social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, GroupMe, Facebook, and so on. I absolutely love these apps, but they all consume so much time, so whenever I actually do have free time, these are all my go-to apps on my phone!

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September 22, 2014

What is email? When do you use email in your own personal life? List reasons and ways that people use email. What do you know about "email etiquette"?

Email is basically a more formal way to text. I personally don't use email on a daily basis, but it does come in handy in some cases, such as contacting a teacher, an employer, a college or university, etc. People use email either to formally discuss something, or to advertise something. Email subscriptions to stores I like are life savers. I love getting notices about upcoming sales and such, but other than that, I rarely even check my email. I also hate junkmail and spam mail. They're probably the most irritating things ever. Email etiquette is the way an email should be formatted or worded. It is kind of the "norm" for how you email. One usually doesn't say "Hey what's up? yeah I'm just hangin out n stuff," in an email. Email Etiquette usually involves a greeting in the beginning such as "dear" or a "hello," and usually ends with a "thank you," or "sincerely." Emails should not include any grammatical errors and should always be appropriate and proper. These are just a few components of Email Etiquette.

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September 19, 2014

Now that you've been in Emerging Technology for several weeks... what do you think? Do you think the web tools (Drive, Evernote, Bubbl, etc.) are helpful to you? Do you think they will be helpful throughout high school or even college? Explain.

So far, so good! I never used to use all those Google features (Google Docs, Slides, Drive, etc.), but now that I actually know how to use them, I use them all the time. Evernote is also extremely useful. Instead of having to print off articles one by one, I have them all online so I can have as many as I want. This will definitely be helpful later on if ever I need to write a research paper or have to do a research project. These tools will be VERY helpful, especially in college when organization can tend to get a bit chaotic... I look forward to having all of these useful tools in college to make my life easier!

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September 17, 2014

Do you enjoy writing? When do you enjoy it? What kind of writing do you enjoy? Why do you think the ability to write is so important no matter what kind of writing it is? Give an example that you enjoyed writing or hated writing. Why?

I do NOT enjoy writing. I think that if writing wasn't a part of school or if I had discovered it before writing papers was introduced to me, I probably would have enjoyed it. I used to read a lot when I was younger and all throughout middle school, so that is why I don't always complain about reading because I love it. If writing had been like this, I probably wouldn't complain so much about having to write in English class. I don't enjoy writing as much as I could because AP English has pretty much ruined it for me! Although my writing skills seem to be improving, my desires to write are not. The one day in particular that I hated writing was the day of the AP exam last year for English. I had to write three solid essays in two hours. It was a rough day. I despised writing on that day in particular. However, there are some occasions that I do enjoy writing. I enjoy journaling or writing creative essays from time to time, but I would not consider myself a Writer. 

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September 16, 2014

Reflect on this quote. Give an example of a time in your life that this might have been the case.

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To me this quote means that you always need to be prepared. If you don't prepare for a test by doing your homework or if you don't practice all the plays for a football game, you simply won't be ready or prepared. One time in forensics (competitive speech) I waited until the week of my in class performance to start memorizing my speech. When giving a performance, you can't have any notes or anyone to prompt you if you forget your lines. Mr. Riffer wants to see that you are prepared and what you would do in front of a judge. Well I was unprepared. The night before I felt semi confident that I was well memorized, so I went to class the next day and found out the hard way that I failed to prepare, therefor I was prepared to fail. Because I did not prepare properly, I was halfway through my speech (and I was rocking it so far) I drew blank. I could barely even remember what my speech was about! It was one of the most embarrassing failures I have ever endured. That taught me that this quote really is true. If you aren't prepared, you won't succeed. Simple as that.

September 15, 2014

What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

This weekend was very stressful for me. I had a ton of assignments that are due this week that I've procrastinated on for so long, plus the ACT, and to top it all off I babysat from after school Friday until late last night. This wasn't an ordinary babysitting job. Consider babysitting a 3 year old with major ADHD, two very rebellious middle schoolers, six little dogs, and four chickens. It was quite the weekend. The ACT went surprisingly better than last time (even though my stress level was about maxed out) so I think I improved my previous score by a few points. I also went to church last night and we prayed for a girl who the day before had fractured her wrist in gymnastics and had an appointment to get a more permanent cast on Wednesday. The doctors said it would take six weeks minimum to heal, but we prayed for her last night for about five minutes and she was doing cartwheels all around the church. Seeing God's miracles was a great way to end a very stressful weekend! 

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September 12, 2014

What is the importance of research? Why do you need to know how to research? What have you learned in high school about researching topics and finding quality resources? Have you had a helpful teacher that has taught you to research? Explain.

Research is very important because, in order to find accurate information on any situation, one has to research. It's not good to walk around your whole life being ignorant to history or current events or whatever it might be. Throughout high school, it has been strongly enforced on us not to use Wikipedia. There are many rumors about inaccuracy on that site, so I avoid it because of those rumors, not necessarily because it is inaccurate. It's one thing to walk around full of ignorance, but it's another to walk around full of false information. It is very crucial in the "real world" to be well informed, and research plays a big part in this. 

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Global Issue Selection

For my Global Issue Project in Emerging Technology, I have chose Animal Cruelty. I have begun researching the issue and you can find my research questions here.

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September 10, 2014

Today, kids don't do anything. When I was a kid, I didn't have an iPhone. I had a job and money and a car. I didn't need a boyfriend in middle school. I only dated when I was out of highschool! I honestly think that's the best way to keep these middle school girls from getting pregnant: don't have a boyfriend that young! Anyways, I didn't sit around with my eyes glued to the TV screen or on my cell phone. I was out and about, hanging out with REAL people who you could see right in front of you. We didn't text, we had actual conversations every few days. If a guy wanted to ask out a girl in high school, he wouldn't just text her "hey bae, lets get something to eat some time." He would have to ask you to your face with actual words in person, or over the phone. Kids these days are just too lazy to do any of this stuff because they have all this technology sucking their brains out of them. It's a shame.

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September 9, 2014

Tell me about the global issue you selected. What do you already know about the issue? What are you looking forward to learning about it? Explain.

Well I chose Animal Cruelty because I love animals and I felt like this would be a good topic to establish a well informed opinion on for myself. The only background knowledge I really have is that some people believe animals have rights, just as humans do. Some stores are even starting to advertise that they do not test their products on animals so I would like to learn if and how this affects their sales. I also know that there are some puppy shelters that advertise that they are no-kill/kill shelters. I'm really looking forward to be more aware of the problems that animal cruelty cause.

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September 8, 2014

What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

Friday night I went to the Varsity Football game at SMN with some friends, and then we went to iHop for two hours afterwards, which was pretty fun. On Saturday I accidentally slept in until 1, so I felt like it was a good excuse to be unproductive the whole day. I went to church Saturday night, and afterwards I stayed up pretty late doing homework. Sunday night was our youth group's first Sunday night service and it's always a good time with them soo it was a pretty good weekend. :)

Here's a picture of my friend who came to the football game with me, even though she doesn't go to either school.. She's pretty fun.

September 5, 2014

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Watching Netflix: A

Procrastination: A

Texting: A

Taking More Ugly Pictures Than Attractive Ones: A+

Loving Animals: A

Underwater Basket Weaving: F

Waking Up On Time: F

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PSA

September 3, 2014

Yesterday I asked you to "think differently" and push yourself to be uncommon with your PSA project using Google Slides. Why do you think I asked you to do that? What is the point? Why not just use bullets and headers? Explain.

You probably wanted us to learn how to be creative with this program. If we ever need to use this format of presentation in our college or work career, we won't want to just fill every slide with bullets and titles. The audience we are presenting to would be bored out of their minds if this is all we had on there. For example, if we are throwing a pitch, we want the presentation to stand out from every average slide show that our audience has seen before. We really have to BE CREATIVE if we want it to be successful. We have been taught very well throughout highschool to just throw some facts onto a slide and call it a day. We should be able to do so much more than this, especially since the use of technology like this is becoming more and more widespread.

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September 2, 2014

Tell me all about your Labor Day weekend. What did you do? Include photos!

This weekend, I, despite my excessive amount of homework, went to Table Rock Lake in Branson, MO, with my parents to visit my grandparents. We go down to the lake every few months, but since it is starting to get colder and colder, that was probably the last weekend we would get to see my grandparents. It's about a three and a half hour drive, which isn't all that bad.. The only thing that makes it worse is when you have a sixty-pound, five-month-old Great Dane "puppy" wanting to jump in your lap every fifteen minutes or so. The whole weekend I was there, I was doing homework. I had many many assignments to complete for today and the rest of the week that I barely had time to relax. On the bright side, I was extremely productive! I actually got more assignments done this weekend than I would on any regular weekend. It feels nice to be productive every once and a while.

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