Simulation Blog Post

The simulation that we've done today was to write down all the workers' job and use the note to explain these info about the jobs in the Medieval time in Rachel's kingdom. Everyone tried hard on doing his or her own work. We drew the castle, which the pope, queen, and the noble lived. Outside the castle on top of the little small mountain, there was a very long and wide road that was built by stones, which people and horses can get through. Besides the road, the stores, shops, etc, and it was a very bustling town. Down to the mountain, there was a very big farm, a bit far from the mountain, which farmers lived in the downtown. People there work for the queen, we haven't finish our final decision and queen Rachel will still find a better way to compete the draft about her kingdom design.

image source: http://images.google.com.tw/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/33149539_426bae23ff.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/thisfrenchlife/33149539/&usg=__PSMU3Xe9XieYKIVzY9MylM3bnBU=&h=500&w=392&sz=48&hl=zh-TW&start=15&um=1&tbnid=8NSj9GL2OGkIrM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmedieval%2Bartisans%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dzh-TW%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

Blood Red Horse

The book Blood Red Horse, which was written by K.M. Grant. The story is well written and has a definite sense of period in the 1100’s but no old English dialogue. There are three main characters; will, Gavin and Ellie, are well drawn and have real depth. In the story, I think William and Ellie had a vivid characteristic. William is a young boy who lives in the city of Hartslove, governed by his father, Sir Thomas de Granville. Gavin, his brother, is a knight with a black stallion warhorse called Montlouis. William and his brother Gavin didn’t get along well; Gavin is a bully, and mistreated William. Ellie is a young girl, adopted by the de Granvilles and brought up with Gavin and William. Ellie is a little girl who is very clever and smart. I liked her the most. She was supposed to marry Gavin, but she was in love with William. In the 1100's in England most of the marriages were pre-arranged, especially in a big wealthy family. Through the book, you can follows their growth from children to young adults. As they age it becomes ever clearer that there is a romantic triangle of sorts here - Ellie is clearly attached to Will, yet must marry Gavin the oldest. How their emotional stories progress really holds the story together.

The 1100's was during the Medieval time, it was a custom that peasants live together in villages, and farm the land in strips, each peasant owning his own strip of land. The villages were mainly self-governing, run by the manor court, which was made up of officials chosen from among the villagers themselves. As people needed protection, they empowered kings and lords through knights to protect them, or those kings empowered themselves to make that transaction on their behalf.
As people developed crafts and began moving their lives more around larger villages and cities to ply their trades, a middle class and upper middle class developed, and standing armies began coming into favor as power centered around the royals - kings, princes, dukes - while knights and extended nobles became less and less relevant.

image source: http://www.inlyschool.net/summer_reading/BookImages6-10/proficient/BloodRedHorse.jpg

Bull fighting in Spain

Do you think Bull fighting is a humane or an inhumane sport? Why do you feel that way? Please explain....

For me, I think that the bull fighting in Spain is an inhumane sport. Watching the video on YouTube, there were many people around the bullring. It was very dangerous for neither the bull nor the bullfighter, and sometimes the bullfighter might be killed by the bulls’ horn and loses his life. People in the ancient time didn’t have much entertainment, so they treated bull fighting as a form of entertainment, not many people think this is inhumane. It was a tradition, for people to gather together and watch the bullfight, usually after the bullfight; there will be a celebration. As today, we are very advanced, there are many entertainments we can do today, I really think that we don’t need to have bull fighting anymore. I think some of the traditions are really inhumane that we should stop. Bull fighting is really cruel to the bulls; some people might be crazy about the bull fighting, but I found bullfighting is not interesting at all. In conclusion, I think that the bull fighting in Spain is really inhumane and the government should ban the bull fighting.

image sources: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1143/808223504_001ed822ac_o.jpg

The Quote

"The clock of life is wound but once, and no man as the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at a late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. For the clock may soon be still."

by Robert.H.Smith

This quote by Robert was very interesting to me. There is a very deep meaning inside the words upon. Life is very important to every living organism in this world. Time goes quickly, we need to be brave and try new things because while the time passes, it will never come back. We need to treasure the things, people that are around you now; we won't know when you will lose these important things in your life. Time is important to everyone; no matter you are rich or poor, you still have 24 hours a day, you can’t make time wait, you can’t buy time, and you can prolong the wonderful moment in your life. I have learned the clock of life is very short but important, no matter you had a long or short life, enjoy every moment you had, live till the fullest, the quality in life is more important than the time.

The Play

There were many different opinions about the play that the students performed during the all school gathering on Wednesday morning. Some of the people think that Peter should pay back Jacob’s computer with his own new Mac, other people disagreed, and suggested that he can just fix the computer instead. For me, I think that Peter should give his new Mac to Jacob to keep his promise. I think Peter made that promise because he though that he wouldn’t break Jacob’s computer, buy since he already made a deal with Jacob first, he should keep his promise. Plus, there were people witnessed the agreement.
Very few people realize, or wish to accept, that one of the worst experiences in life to an individual is a broken promise. We all have moments when we make a promise to someone and cannot keep it, for a variety of reasons. That is understandable. However, when there is a definite pattern in breaking promises is really not a good thing. Keeping promises is very important, promises mean a lot to people because they suggest appreciation, value and empathy and carry some pleasure in fulfillment.

This is a very good play which converted from Shakespeare’s play, I really enjoy the play and also the discussion during the all school gathering, it was very interesting and I heard many different opinions from many people, and they all have their reason which was very interesting. Hope that we have more fantastic activities like this, so everyone can give their opinions and learn to listen to other people’s thoughts.

image source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2005-09/13/xinsrc_142090213092814004951.jpg

Submarine SMASH Day Reflection

1. Summarize --
-- What did we do for SMASH Day?
On the SMASH Day, Ms.Smith had divided all our class into four groups with three people. The title was "we all live in a yellow submarine", which is very exciting. All the groups got some supplies that Ms.Smith had provided for us. Our mission was to make a telescope, which can help us to check what is inside the box. The rule is you can't go above the table because you live in the submarine, which means under the table is the ocean, and above the table is the island.

-- What was your mission?
Our mission was to make a telescope together as a group and try to use the supplies to make a tall and big telescope to find out what was inside teacher's box.

-- What supplies were you given?
We had got several pieces of paper and a small box, two pairs of scissors and four small mirrors which two of them are zoom in magnifier mirrors and two normal mirrors, we have a roll of tape to use to bind all the supplies together.

2. Reflect -- Scientists often make a hypothesis, test it, and then change (or modify) their design to make it work.
-- How many times did you have to modify your design?
Actually, we came out with our design in a very short time and it actually works. To place the mirrors in the right angle were the most difficult part in making the telescope. We tried about five to six times to find the best angle for our telescope.

-- How did you know that you should modify your design?
I know that we should modify our design because it didn't work and so we tried to find another way, for instance, the angle of the four mirrors didn't work successfully and we couldn’t see anything, so we adjust our mirrors until we found the right angle.

-- How did you know what to do when you modified it?
We thought about many ideas to solve the problem such as the angle of the mirrors, while we were making the telescope, you are not a hundred percent sure what will really work, in the process of try and errors, you just adjust the angle little by little until it works.

-- How did your team communicate to decide how to modify your design?
Our team members had good relationship, we communicated and made the group decision together. If any members had any new ideas, we will bring it up, then discussed about it with other members and worked together and concentrated on the problems until it works.

3. Tips and Suggestions
-- If you could give a list of tips and suggestions to someone who is doing this for the first time, what would it be? What would you tell them to help them out?
If there is someone who is doing this for the first time, I would suggest the person not to think about the angle too much because you will end it up thinking about the problem but not actually doing it. The best way is to try every possibility and learn from errors. The more you try, the faster you will figure out the problems.

Climate change "makes hurricanes"

The number of the extreme big storms in the Atlantic Ocean has been rising, it was because the climate has changed and effected by the major problem –“ the global warming”. The hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean have been doubled compared in the past hundred years. The ocean has been warmer and warmer, the sea temperature has been affected and changed the climate and increased the number of the hurricanes in the ocean. The experts estimated that in 2007 it will be a hurricane active year and about nine hurricanes were forecast. In this article, I have learned that the climate changing had affected the nature and created many problems. The hurricane is a terrible thing to most of the farmers because it will damage the crops and make them lose their money, all the hard work will go down in the drain. The prices in vegetables will go up to the public. The hurricane not just created a horrible situation to the human being, but also to the animals as well.

Monday July 30 2007
By BBC
source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6920000/newsid_6922700/6922763.stm

Calls for more deer to be culled

In Britain, there are calls for the number of deer were too many, and need to be controlled and try to cut down some on the road accidents. In the past, there were many creatures on the road and caused 200 car crashes per day. Some of the experts said that the deer should be killed; therefore some of the deer had been shot to control the population of the deer. But there were also some experts disagreed of culling the deer, they think that there will should other ways to control the numbers of the deer. People think that too much creatures will have many problems and they will be over populated in numbers, so some of the creatures still have to be killed for controlling the balance of the population. They have tried to make signs and special markings on the roads to stop the crashes but accidents still occurs.
For the deer article, I think the caused of the accident was that the deer population was out of control, and there is no effective way to protect and keep the population in the right numbers. I think if I worked in the city council, I will set up a hunting season, which will allow people to hunt deer during the hunting season, which can keep the deer population in the right number. Or I will have a reserved area for the deer, so they can get protected, and during the hunting season, the reserved area can also open to public for hunting.

Thursday January 29 2009
By BBC
source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7850000/newsid_7859000/7859019.stm

Effective Communicator

People use different kinds of languages and dialects to communicate with each other, every culture has their own way in communicating, yet many people have “poor communication skills”. For me, an effective communicator is a person that have very good relationships with others, knows how to communicate with each individual with their understanding, for example if you are going to give a speech in public, you need to study your audience first, so they will be able to understand you better.

They are many ways you can become a more effective communicator, is trainable, and with some practice, you can become a pro. Every communication has a purpose; no matter you are talking to your friends, teachers or even parents, what are the purposes here? You need to get your ideas through by using different techniques, maybe body language, facial expression or tone of voice to help.
Enable to become an effective communicator, you must change your communicating style to match that of the person you are communicating with, it is no use expecting them to change for you.
There are some tips you can use and learn enable to improve your communication skill. Firstly, you need to be able to listen and observe, people can listen more words then they speak. When you listen with a purpose such as to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, show support, etc. By defining your purpose in listening you can moderate your responses to accomplish your purpose.
Secondly, you need to listen actively, you need to concentrate on someone for a length of time, which might be difficulty, so if you can take notes while the person is talking, maybe that will help you focus more.
Thirdly, know how to respond. The first thing to learn in this part is that you will find communication much easier if you are speaking in the same way (tone, tempo and rhythm) as your correspondent: If you usually speak fast, find someone who speaks slowly (or vice versa) and match their tempo when you are talking with them, and then measure how successful that conversation was in comparison to a conversation with them which was entirely on your natural tempo. Also when you respond, try to use positive directions, I don’t mean being nice to people, but people’s brain response better with positive answers.
The last important thing to learn about communication skills is the goal of the communication. You must keep this in mind when entering into any communication for you to be able to measure its success and thus moderate your future attempts to achieve your goals through communication. If your goal is to cheer up a friend, you will be able to tell if you have been successful by comparing the tone of the friend at the beginning and at the end of the conversation. Or if your goal is to build a relationship more solidly, then you can compare your correspondent mood before and after each communication. You need to know in each communication process, did you achieve your goals through the communication or not. If you didn’t achieve your goals in the end that means you still have room to work on your communication skill.

image source: http://www.spokemasters.org/_borders/MCj03355720000%5B1%5D.gif

Humanities - Learning Outcomes

What of the Learning Outcomes did I use in my learning?

In the Learning Outcomes, i used the community contributor in my learning. I did some community service to help the people and the community, I help the community to clean the streets and I never litter. I have also used the critical thinker and problem solver in my learning. I helped my classmates to solve some computer problems before and also give some suggestions to help them to solve their problems. Sometimes help with their homework or even some personal matter.

How did I use each of those learning outcomes? How can I describe each one?( i.e, how could someone see me being an active learning, a community contributor?

As for the active learner, it means that the person want to learn more. I did some research for my projects, also for my extra readings. I sometimes ask for help from teachers, classmates or my parents, and it was very helpful.

The effective communicator means that the person has a very good relationship with other people; and they can communicate with others very well. I had helped my friends to ask for some information and also had communicated with people from other countries. I learned a lot of different cultures from them and I had also introduced my country to them and it was a good conversation.

The problem solver, the person solves the problem when they meets one and also help the other to get over their problem. I had once that helped my classmate to solve her computer problem, it took a while but it works after I fixed it and I solved her problem.

The person of high characters is with honest and loyalty. For me, I had always been loyal and honest to my classmates, friends, teachers, my parents and family.

Finally, the community contributor is a person that cares about the community and help it to make it better. I had done the community service before for about four hours during school hours. We took care of the dogs; I tried to feed them, took them for a walk and it was really great.

What content, skills and big ideas did I learn from doing the project?

The book report of the Language Arts class, i learned how to find out the plots, what are introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. These were very important tips to help you understand the book very well. We had also need to write down the characters from the book that you were interested in and described their characteristics with strong adjectives and give examples. It was a very big project and we also need to have a presentation in front of the whole class and give comments or suggestions to others and learn from each others.