Reflection Entry #16 March 31, 2009

Today I was able to complete 30 note cards, by working diligently and hard on researching information on law and government. Today I discovered many books on law and government. I also chatted with some of the people on the table but still kept on working. My guiding questions are guiding me well through my research and I have also come up with many answers to them. Today I was also able to put in a lot more effort than last time. I think to improve for next lesson I should try to come up with more guiding questions for all the information I’m getting and try to get at least 37 or 40 note cards this week as we will move onto the MM labs next week.

Reflection Entry #15 March 30, 2009

Today was not a good day for my research as I only finished 2 note cards; I am worrying that I might fall behind rest of the class. This was because I was got distracted too often and so I only got to complete 2 note cards, just like the previous lesson. SO next lesson I’m going to sit on a different table to complete more cards. I am now getting a lot of information on religion and education but not too much on law government. My goals for next lesson are: Sit on a different table and work harder, try to complete more note cards, and find more useful information.

Refelction Entry #14 March 29 2008

Today I was able to get alot of information about the variety of education in Ancient Greece as well as how and when their education developed and which people where allowed to get education. ( pooror rich.) I think today I did not put too much effort as I usually do and was able to finish 2 notecards, so i need to put in more effort because in the previous days I have been able to complete much more notecards. I am also worried that I am not getting enough information about Government+Law. SO next lesson i'm going to try to put in more effort and try to complete more notecards and not fall behind the class and find information on Government and law.

Reflection Entry #13 March 26 2009

Today was not a very good day fro research as I got somewhat distracted by some people on the table, so next lesson I need to speed up a lttle and complete as much as I can. By the end of this week I was able to complete 22 note cards, which is pretty good. I am getting a lot of books with a lot of information about education and religion. Types of festivals ceremonies, alphabet and writing system, etc. which is also leading me to better guiding questions which leads to better research. I am still working on my summarizing skills, trying to summarize it into my own words with all the important information.

Reflection Entry #12 March 24 2009

Today I was able to complete 19 notecards, mostly about education. I'm beginning to get good information about religion, I am glad that my amount of notecard exceeds the expected amount of notecards at this rate. Today I felt that I didn't give enough detail in my work so I went back and changed some of the layout of the text, discarding and adding useful information. Today I also found a whole batch of books talking about ancient Greece with all the characteristics we have been talking about in class, I didn't have enough time to use them, so next lesson I will use these book to hopefully inrease the amount of inofrmation I have. I also feel that my summary needs to be more of my work because I think it sounds a bit too similar to the original, so i am also hoping to change them a little next lesson.

Reflection Entry #11 March 23 2009

Today I have completed 15 note cards, mostly about education and Law+Government. I did not get as much religion because, even though I was able to find a lot of information about religion, some of the information was unneeded, but some of the information allowed me to make more guiding questions for the research. These guiding questions were general and not narrowed. I think I should continue coming up with these type of guiding questions for the research, they allow me to get the information I need and give me a broad understanding of the aspect.

Reflection Entry #10 March 22 2009

Today I used a variety of books for the research. Most of them ended up with summarized note cards about law. I was able to find the main structure sof law and government in the Greek cities. It was monarchy and democracy. Though the majority used democracy. I also wrote what each consisted of. I was also able to get plenty of notecards for education. Even in education cities were different. Each city with different subjects and different way of teaching. It was good that they had a variety of each aspect, it allowed me to have more information on the aspect and by the end of today's lesson I have 13 notecards. Next lesson I'm going to work on religion and by the end of the week try to get to at least 20 notecards.

Reflection Entry #9 March 19 2009

Today , I went straight to the library, grabbed the book about ancient Greece and sat on a table. I was looking for important information about education. In fact, I found a lot of information about education in ancient Greece, since some cities had different forms of education. My research was delayed because some students on our table began to annoy us, so we had to move to another table. There I only worked on education and not the other two, and at th end I was able to complete 6 notecards. I rushed them, so I don't think I wrote it in enough detail. So next lesson I'm going to go over it and improve it.

Reflection Entry #8 March 17 2009

Today was out third day for research, we went straight to the library. This time I have brought several new guiding questions with me and then they really come in handy with the new book I research in. I get a lot more information for education than I expected. I have also gotten a good amount of information about religion, though I was not able to get as much information as for Law+Government. I also jolted down the rest of the four guiding questions onto the process journal and looked and thought hard for guiding questions for law and government, even the information about law+government was tough to understand. Next time I come I will try to search more and ask Mr. sparks about the points I'm unsure of!

Reflection Entry #6 March 15 2009

Today was our first day of research. We went to the library, I grabbed two books about Ancient Greece and started work. Right after we got notecards and process journals I began to search information for government and law since one of the books I chose had a lot of info about it. Summarizing was easy. As practiced in class I read a whole chunk of the info, closed the book and then wrote down what I learned after reading. I did a note card for each of the characteristics I chose. I also wrote the bibliography at the back in the same format as the teacher told us to. Today I used my time wisely and I think I don't have enough guiding questions ( 4, because there was no space to write the rest.), for the tremendous amount of information in the books so I have came up with 4 more questions which I'm going to write in the process journal tomorrow since I ran out of time. Other than that everything else is going well!

Reflection Entry #7 March 16 2009

Today was the second day of research. As I went to the library, I couldn't find the books I used yesterday since they had really important information about the three characteristics I chose. When I looked into the information about government+law in these books it said something completely different than the book I used yesterday. It said: In Athens there was a democracy which had an assembly anyone can attend, the poor or the rich. The book I chose yesterday said: In Athens the democarcy was made by a gang of wealthy people. I checked in one of the other books and it proved that anyone can be in the democracy as well as make decisions. I realized I had copied the info wrong, so I copied the correct words down. By the end of the lesson I had two notecards for each characteristic. I forgot to write down the other four guiding questions in process journal, I will hopefully do that tommorow. Right now the information I'm getting is really important so its becoming hard to choose the right amount of information on the notecards.

Reflection Entry #5 March/12/09

Today we went to multimedia lab 4 to make a wikispace and a new blog for the ancient civilization project. In the wikispace we had to create a link for our electronic process journal. After this we had to copy all the reflections we did in the red book onto our blog. I decided to take away some fillers ( unneeded info) away from my reflections, so after I completed copying my reflections, I decided to improve them. The improvements they needed were longer lengths and a better way of reflecting what we focused on during class. It would also be better if I give examples of what I did and learned. These changes need to be made to help achieve a higher grade for the project. After making these improvements, perhaps my reflections will be much better!

Reflection Entry #4 March/10/09

This was probably one of the most important lessons which will come in handy in this project. We learned to summarize texts and excerpts from websites and books into very simple, into very simple paragraphs and then into very brief bullet points for the presentation. I think I need improvement on making simple bulletpoints for the presentation, I will try to make them as simple as possible while simutaneously using the important information. I also need to change the way I'm writing, not to use the same order of the words but to move them around and use my own understanding of the subject after reading the original source. This will show that my work is not plagiarised, but shows information of my own understanding of the subject.

Reflection Entry #3 March/9/09

Today we got our process folders. We got six pocket folders which we stuck inside the folder. We had to write a title for each pocket ( Intro, characteristic #1, " " #2, " " #3 and conclusion.) We had to write our guiding questions on the folders labelled characteristics 1,2&3. Some of the guiding questions I wrote on the folders needed improvement, so after i completed writing the g. questions I improved my questions by making them better "how" and "why" questions. While we are doing the research about the project, I might be able to make better guiding questions.

Reflection Entry #2 March/8/09

Today we learned to write a bibliography using easybib.com We had to choose a source and then fill in information about the title of the book, the publication information and the date of publication. I think it is going to be a little challenging since I did not really understand properly, It would be better if I could just do research on the internet, but it is a must to do it in the books as well. After learning about making a bibliography on the internet, we got a chance to look at some of the books in the library about the ancient civilizations. I found the books about the ancient Greeks interesting, the ancient greek civilization also fits into the three characteristics I chose. Most books show clear and understandable information about the government and law of the ancient Greeks, their religion and their education. It is also going to be easy to do the research about the Greeks since I already did a previous project about them in 3rd grade!

Reflection Entry #1 March/5/09

Today I chose three aspects of civilizations to research: religion, government+law and education. I was able to come up with eight questions for religion, seven for governmnet+law and seven for education. I struggled hard to get hard to get guiding questions for government+law, I should've just copied some questions when we were brainstorming questions in class. I tried to interact each aspect with each other. E.g. for the religion I said: Did they use any means of art and architecture for the religious beliefs?, I also forgot to bring my homework diary, this is because i already don't use a homework diary since I can remember my homework. During our class discussions I tried my best to participate in getting good guiding questions.