Tag Archives: first day

10/28/2013

by

Welcome to Term 2!

If this is your first time on board, welcome! If you are a returning member, I’m glad to have you back! 🙂

The first thing we did on day one was create to characters for The Pride of Riley. The things that I’ll be focusing on when I grade them are your Nature, Demeanor, Attributes, and your (4) R’s. If you weren’t here, you can find this material in BB under Welcome to the Ship: First Day Stuff: Gamification.

Creative Coloring

After that, we did Creative Coloring and the discussion board to go along with it. If you weren’t here, do the best you can answering the questions over group work, but you should focus on the fact that you were absent and how absences affect group and partner work.

20131028_144500_resized

20131028_144547_resized

 

20131028_144517_resized

We then talked a little bit about The Buried Life and the book that resulted from the tv show. The trailer was really moving and those of you who hadn’t seen it before were interested in watching the tv show.

Lastly, we talked about what we would do if we only had 48 hours left to live. If you were absent for this, make sure you get a post-it note and write down what you would do. You do not need to put your name on it, but please make sure to keep it school appropriate.

20131028_145631_resized

XP Awarded:

  • Character Sheet

    Creative Coloring

8/26/13 (IVA and IVB)

by

Welcome to Vistas! This first day of school was pretty uneventful, but I’m excited for all of my classes. It may take me a little bit to get all of your names, but just bear with me.

Today, we only worked on the character sheet and did normal first day activities.

Please note that I am teaching an A and a B section at the same time, so don’t assume that all of these posts apply to you. I will have separate categories for A and B, so if you know how to do an RSS feed, you can only look at the section that applies to you. Or, you can just ignore the posts that you don’t need to see.

I take a lot a pictures that usually end up here on my blog, so just be aware that if you need visual examples, this is the place to check. 🙂

1 day down, 179 to go (for most of us, that is!

4/1/2013

by

Welcome to Term 4!

We have ten weeks in this term, so let’s make the most of it!

Today was pretty ding dang simple. We created character sheets (focus on the nature/demeanor and the R’s). For the nature and demeanor, look at the list in LMS – choose ONE that describes you at your most basic – who you REALLY really are. Your demeanor is the mask you wear here at school, what you present to the world. You may find that you see lots that describe you in different situations – choose your nature as the true you, and choose the demeanor that you use here at school most of the time.

We also did the First Day Survey.

Creative Coloring is an activity that we did as a group – if you missed out on this one, you’ll have to do some dinky make up grade since you missed the whole point of the group work. For those who WERE here, we drew a picture and then answered some questions in the discussion board. GIGO!

Lastly, we answered What You Heard, What You Know in LMS. It’s pretty simple – if you are a new student, write down one thing that you heard about Riley or her class. If you have had Riley before, write down one thing you learned from her – you can either do this as a new post or as a comment to another student’ post.

IV – 10/29/2012

by

Welcome to Term 2!

Remember, you can exempt your finals this term! You have to have an 80 average in your class and meet the following requirements:

  • Have no more than three absences in Term 2
  • Have recieved no more than five tardies in Term 2 (three tardies = 1 absence)
  • Have not been suspended or been OSS during the school year
  • Have maintained and conduuct grade of an “E”, “S”, or “N” for the term.

Today, we created character sheets – make sure you complete your nature, demeanor, Attributes, and your five R’s.

Then, we did Creative Coloring – make sure that you answer the questions in the Discussion Board in complete sentences.

Don't steal my gold!

IV – 8/27/2012

by

I have English IV classes for 2nd and 3rd block.

Today, we created character sheets. Here is a quick breakdown of what we did and how you can do it:

  • Name – Give yourself a cool pirate nickname
  • Player – That’s you. These two names can be the same.
  • Chronicle – Term 1
  • Nature and Demeanor – Your nature is your true self, your demeanor is that “hat” you wear on campus.  There is a list of archetypes in Game Mechanics in LMS. Read through them and find one that is your NATURE and one that is your DEMEANOR.
  • Concept – What do you want to be seen as in my class? A Vistas Viking? Slacker? Deep Thinker?
  • Age
  • Home Campus
  • Disembark – Projected graduation date
  • Abilities
    • Physical
    • Social
    • Mental

      Find the column that is your strength and distribute 7 dots between the three categories.
      Your middle column gets five dots.
      Your weakest column only gets three dots.

  • Reading, Writing, Conventions, Research, Listening/Speaking, Figure 19 – These are the things that I am required to teach you. For today, give yourself one bubble in Vocabulary
  • Compass – These will determine what you roll if I catch you on your cell phone
  • The R’s – You are responsible for four of the five R’s. As a teacher, I make the curriculum relevant. You have ten dots to grade yourself in the remaining four R’s
  • Health 0 Your health is your conduct. Stay healthy.

Back Page

  • Merits, Flaws, and Achievements – These are “super powers” you can earn
  • XP Sheet – you can keep track of your experience (grades) here.

After that, we did the First Day survey, which can be found here.

We then created Edmodo accounts. Get the class code from me.

We closed the class with a silly number “game” where we had to circle numbers in numerical order. Riley then taught us a “trick” to help us do better the second time around.

The Character Sheet and the Survey will be easy ways to earn XP. Simple!

III – 8/27/2012

by

The good news? I only have English III first block, so when we lose time to Vistas Visits or slow buses, I don’t have to try and rush us to catch up with my other classes.

The bad news? We lost about 40 minutes of class today.

Today, we created character sheets. Here is a quick breakdown of what we did and how you can do it:

  • Name – Give yourself a cool pirate nickname
  • Player – That’s you. These two names can be the same.
  • Chronicle – Term 1
  • Nature and Demeanor – Your nature is your true self, your demeanor is that “hat” you wear on campus.  There is a list of archetypes in Game Mechanics in LMS. Read through them and find one that is your NATURE and one that is your DEMEANOR.
  • Concept – What do you want to be seen as in my class? A Vistas Viking? Slacker? Deep Thinker?
  • Age
  • Home Campus
  • Disembark – Projected graduation date
  • Abilities
    • Physical
    • Social
    • Mental

      Find the column that is your strength and distribute 7 dots between the three categories.
      Your middle column gets five dots.
      Your weakest column only gets three dots.

  • Reading, Writing, Conventions, Research, Listening/Speaking, Figure 19 – These are the things that I am required to teach you. For today, give yourself one bubble in Vocabulary
  • Compass – These will determine what you roll if I catch you on your cell phone
  • The R’s – You are responsible for four of the five R’s. As a teacher, I make the curriculum relevant. You have ten dots to grade yourself in the remaining four R’s
  • Health 0 Your health is your conduct. Stay healthy.

Back Page

  • Merits, Flaws, and Achievements – These are “super powers” you can earn
  • XP Sheet – you can keep track of your experience (grades) here.

After that, we did the First Day survey, which can be found here.

The Character Sheet and the Survey will be easy ways to earn XP. Simple!

3/26/2012

by

It’s the first class day, and I am so happy to meet all these new landlubbers!

Yesterday was pretty simple – we filled out out character sheets (that’s the yellow sheet of paper). There is a PowerPoint in Riley’s First Day Folder on LMS.

We also did a survey on LMS and a message board on LMS – make sure you answer a question and also make a meaningful response to someone else’s post. If all you do is put a smiley face, it won’t count. This is all located in the First Day Folder.

Make sure that you turn the Character Sheet in the “Old School Dro Box” so that it gets graded.

Riley does a point system – the most points we will have in class will be 1500, so you can always figure out what you need to earn credit for the class.

First Day Rumors and Concerns

by

Let’s be honest here. What have you heard about me and my class? If you have already had me, think about what you have heard people say (or even ask you).

What concerns do you have about English IVA?

If you have already had me, are you planning on doing anything differently? Why?

Before you hit submit on your response, copy it – just in case you get an error and lose all of your writing. This isn’t LMS – this is a public blog, so this is relevant technology – it’s WordPress for schools!

1/17/2012

by

Wow. Riley has some huge classes this year! Today was pretty easy – we started off by taking a survey in LMS – you can find it in the First Day folder – So You Wanna be  Pirate.

Then, she talked about how she is running her classroom as a roleplaying game – she won’t give “grades” – she’ll give experience points for you to level. She’s also going to give out what every pirate wants – BOOTY! Well, Booty Cards, that is. She let us know that as long as we do out work in class that we have nothing to fear – except her smelly feet, that is. Basically, her class is time management – use it wisely!

We did a character sheet – we talked about archetypes, nature and demeanor, and rated ourselves. You’ll need to print these bad boys from LMS, but they are there. Just make sure to print back and front.

After we did that, we did a Matching Game over five words that we learned today: Martyr, Curmudgeon, Architect, Conniver, and Deviant. If you weren’t here, Riley has a few copies left over, and you can also print this from LMS.

We didn’t get all of our work done today, so let’s make sure that we hustle tomorrow! Also, she’ll be looking for other people to take over Scribes to earn extra credit!

Arrr!