During this unit we analyzed 3 different short stories. However even though there were only about 10-20 pages, we needed to analyze almost every page to help support the end essay we needed to write. During this period I learned multiple strategies and skills to analyze more efficiently and actually analyze the parts I need. Some challenges that I encountered was removing the pronouns to sound formal. At first I didn’t understand how it was possible to remove all the pronouns. Then I learn several strategies after Mr. Fisher gave us a mini lesson, I learned how to sound formal and sophisticated.
During this unit, we did three short stories, each roughly 10-20 pages long. Though short, we had to study nearly every page in order to validate our last essay. I acquired helpful methods for paying attention to important things within the stories, like themes and characters. A challenge that faced me was getting rid of pronouns to have my writing in a more professional tone. It was hard at first, but Mr. Fisher’s lesson taught me how to rephrase sentences. It improved me as a reader and writer, and I am now more confident when analyzing literature.
Usefulness
I give FocusToDo a 3-star rating out of 5. It is very easy to use; you can plan your day in the morning, on the bus, in the car, while commuting. You can add tasks during class as well to record what you need to do when home. This can include, presentations, tests preps, homework and much more. A problem surrounding this app is you need to go into the app to do your tasks, if you don’t go into the app, it has no way of reminding you. This was a big reason for why I gave FocusToDo a 3 star rating. Other than this, some advanced features and tools are, when you begin an assignment or task, it plays a clock full screen. It also has many tools to help focus your attention, for example, white noise. Bonfire, wind, rain, cafe, ocean, and much more options are provided. This helps a lot of people who can focus well with white noise, the timer also helps users keep track of their efficiency based on the time passed. Lastly I would recommend putting the app somewhere more assessable, it is a google extension, so creating a widget or put it somewhere on your desktop can be a great choice. FocusToDo helps with efficiency and procrastination significantly if you get into the app without distractions on the way.
Functionality
FocusToDo definitely serves it purpose. This is because it helps significantly with procrastination, paired with the do-not-disturb function on apple devices, it limits a lot of distractions and encourages you to finish your tasks. You can see all of your tasks with a quick glance motivating yourself. Aside from seeing what is need to be done today, you can also view and plan ahead for the future, for example, planning for tomorrow. This app helps me develop healthy habits like doing work early, leading to more free time for rest, hanging out with friends and sport activities improving mental and physical health. This app improves the brain, since teens are still young, their ideas and think can still be shaped. FocusToDo helps with developing habits of doing work first, early on making it a habit that will last in the coming years. This app help especially help with my physical health, normally when I’m not able to hang out with friends it is always because of my homework. With FocusToDo it provides more free time, when I hang out with friends, we always play badminton or other sports. This can help me get into better shape and help with my future too.
Design
FocusToDo has a humane design. This is because, other than a satisfying click and sound effects when finishing a task, it has no other addictive design. It’s similar to MicrosoftToDo with the satisfying click, and its just a simple homework and task managing app. FocusToDo only asks for your task title, time spent and done. There isn’t any addictive part to that, and the app helps with procrastination overall. It helps users feel less stressed and more motivated, with the features like white noise, motivation to complete a task is very high. The long term impact of using FocusToDo includes independence, organization skills, and stopped procrastination. This app helps with independence as you are on your own in this app, dealing with work on your own. This helps with future jobs and college work. FocusToDo helps with organization skills as it helps by have you put in the tasks needed to be done, so you can visualize everything. Naturally procrastination stops when these other skills are achieved. Clicking off a task feels like a small reward, and encourages you to finish your work.
For this project, sticker design, I learned to incorporate what I learned into real life scenarios. I learned about dilating, translating, reflecting, and I only used these strategies to create my sticker. This was a really fun experience for me, I was designing and calculating at the same time, at last when I saw the final product I felt proud of my design and what I did.
This dilating practice helped we with a better understanding during class. This helped me during testes as well.
Evidence of Organization
My science notebook was useful as I helped me organize my ideas.
Evidence of Active Learner Habits
I grew in active learning by preparing before tests more than I used to, helping me grow as a learner.
Evidence of Understanding of Key Concepts
The 3 for 3 helped me understand key concepts after we learned about it.
Evidence of Growth in Science Skills
I improved in writing CERs, and improved in communicating my ideas more effectively through CERs.
My skills in research improved significantly after this unit. I met a lot of challenges through out my research with difficultly in finding credible sources that show how Adidas grew as a company because of celebrity advertisement. After overcoming this challenge I have become more efficient with researching and can determine whether a source is credible or not most of the time. I felt like I did well with providing sufficient and crucial evidence to help prove my thesis. In addition to providing reasoning connecting my ideas back to the thesis.
After this unit I drastically improved my skills in communicating effectively. We needed to provide the information we researched in a certain amount of word limit. This was difficult for me at first, I wanted to included everything, and felt like everything was important, but some information wasn’t important. However there were still a lot I needed to include. This helped me enhance my ability to communicate my ideas.
For this Race Car Challenge, we had to calculate unit rates, predicted times, ratios. We used division mostly to figure out our data. We did pretty well as we got 1st place, but we could have also trusted our guts as we were waiting at the finish line debated whether we should go over it or not. We were 2 seconds off and we would have gotten a better time. We also should’ve listen to the teachers when they were talking, because we got a 30 seconds punishment. That really confused our team however I am proud of the results of the Race Car Challenge. We used seconds, meters and minutes as the units of measure in the race. Units were very important in our race because we could get easily confused if we confused minutes instead of seconds. Teachers could also misunderstand their units if they didn’t write it. Groups that didn’t include units probably confused the teachers. They were either disqualified or the teachers assumed their units instead.
I am designing a box to store items in. I am using cardboard to make this. I am using a ruler and utility knife to cut out the shape. I first traced the outline, then cut out the shapes, lastly, I hot glued it together. I am being safe by closing the knife when I’m not using it. I learned to sharply cut the cardboard box and cut it in a straight line.
This is my Defending the Clown post, I think I did well of getting a good visual layout and having a good claim, evidence and reasoning. I want to improve on getting a more accurate histogram. I also want get a more statistical and specific question.