Derek!

What is a PLN?

PLN stands for personal learning network. A personal learning network is a group of people that teach and learn things that they are interested in. One way to have a personal learning network is on the Internet. For  example, you can create a Bloglines account.

What is a Bloglines Account?

A Bloglines account is one way you can make a PLN. You can subsribe blogs or websites that you find interesting in a bloglines account. The thing that is special about a Bloglines account, is that whenever a website or blog that you subscribed to is updated, it tells you. There are things that a Bloglines account needs like RSS feeds.

What is an RSS Feed?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. An RSS feed is something that allows you to subscribe a certain website or blog. RSS feeds are very important because if a blog or a website doesn’t have an RSS feed, you can’t subscibe to it.

My Personal Learning Network.

My class and I use Bloglines to subscribe interesting blogs and websites. Mr.Fisher had us subscribe some blogs and websites like Brainwaves on Suprglu, information aesthetics, and The Nata Village Blog put into “Required Reading” folder. Also, he wanted us to go to globalvoices.org. He wanted us to subscribe blog posts about a certain country/region and a topic. My country is Jamaica. My topics are disaster, racisim, and humour.

All the other things I have subscribed are blogs from kids. These are kids locally and from other places like Brazil and Australia. Blogs that I have that are local are Mr.Fisher, Joellee, and Toni. Blogs I have from Brazil are Felipe and Laura G. Blogs I have from Australia are Lillian, Sophie, and Keshia. That leaves a total of fifteen subscriptions. I also hope to find more.

What I Look For in a Blog Post.

I don’t look for much in a blog post. I usually look to see if they have a lot to say and what they are saying is deep in meaningful to me. What do you look for in a blog post? If you look for a blog post like mine, here is the url to my blog: www.dereksblog.learnerblogs.org.

That’s what I have to say about personal learning networks…

  In order for me to tell you how I think you take good photographs, I need to separate my information in three categories. These three categories are “Colour, Shape, and Line”, “Subjects and Meanings”, and “Editing”. Here they are.

Colour, Shape, and Line

Three factors in taking a good photograph are colour, shape, and line. You might remember this on my other post “How is Mood Created in a Visual Text?” The question is, though, is what are good colours, shapes, and lines. In my opinion, it depends on what the subject or meaning of your photograph is.

Subjects and Meanings

A photograph can have many subjects and meanings. What you have to make sure,  though, is that your colours, shapes, and lines have to match what you are trying to say.

For example, if you took a picture like the one at the top, wanting to show happiness, people wouldn’t get it. Most people would think it would be sadness or depression because the colours, black and white, show sadness or depression. Also, the shape and line in the facial expression show that the person in the picure is sad.

The one at the bottom, however, shows happiness. The colours are way brighter, and the shape and line in the facial expression show that the baby is happy.

A thing that is amazing about photographs, is that editing your photograph can help you show your subject or meaning.

Editing
Editing is an imortant part of photography. Unfourtunatly, you can only edit if you have a digital camera and a computer with the programing. If you do have these things, your in luck! There are many ways you can edit a photograph like morphing and changing colours ,but, there are things you might want to consider when you are editing:

• Play around- This allows you learn how to use different effects and it shows you what you are capable of
• Don’t over use effects- If you over use effects, odds are  your photograph won’t look so good

If you consider these things, chances are, you will make a wonderful photograph.

This concludes how I think you take good photographs…

Today, we are going to look at The Veldt story again. It was a really wierd story because the house could do anything for the people that lived in it. After that is break. I’m probably just going to sit there like always. After break is Social Studies. We are going to go in the computer lab to work on our individual projects on Feudal Europe (Middle Ages). My project is on Knights. To look at other project ideas in my class, go to www.jhkclassplans.pbwiki.com

Then it’s lunch time!! My favourite time of the day! Then it’s home economics. We are reviewing on how to sew a two and four hole button. I can’t even make a knot! After that, we’re going to have break. Finally, we will have math class. We are reviewing on angles and such. After that. it’s home time!!!

Hey!!

Last night was so much fun. First, I hung out with Ashley.H while she was babysitting. Then I left. Later on, Ashley.H phoned me and wanted me to go to her house. We watched television over there. A little after I went home, Ashley.H phoned me and said that her and Kate were going to the park. She wanted me to meet them there. So, I did. At the park, we hung out and talked. Then, Lana, Tiff, Matthew, Shyla, and Jordan came along. Then we hung out with them for a little while. They left a little while after and Kate, Ashley.H and I were hanging out alone…again. I really wanted for us three to go hang out with them, but oh well. Anyway, Kate wanted hot chocolate, so we went to Ashley.H’s house. It turned out that she didn’t get her hot chocolate. At 10:00 PM, Kate and I said our good-byes, and left. I went home, got on the laptop, then watched t.v, then went to bed.

Here I am now, with a really annoying cold. I’m not even sure why I went out, since I didn’t want my cold to get any worse. Well, too late. Now I really want a day to myself!! Things might change, though. Hopefully, it will be good. I guess that’s about it!!

Last night, I babysat Zach. It wasn’t very fun, since I babysat for him almost half of my summer. I wish I spent more time with my friends that summer. Anyway, we went to the carnival that was held in the Community Hall. It was the best!! I saw Amanda, Ashley.M, Kate, Ashley.H, and other friends too. The thing that wasn’t good about the carnival was that I lost my tickets and had to buy new tickets. Other than that, it was awesome! When it was over, Amanda, Zach, Ashley.M, Scott, and I went to my backyard. We played tether ball, and talked. It was grrreat! I, personally, wanted to go back to Zach’s house because I thought that his parents would be home. Also, I didn’t really want to babysit anymore and just have fun. What turned out to happen, though, was that we went to Zach’s house and hung out there. Skye, Logan, and Hannah came over too. It was cool because while we were hanging out, some people were shooting fireworks. When they came on, we whistled, screames, clapped and other things. After that, Scott, Amanda, Zach, Ashley.M, and I went inside because it was cold out. We had a blast! Then everybody left, except Zach of course. Finally, his parents came home. I got paid, went home, and went to bed. Here I am now, with a cold, sitting at the computer, writing down what happened last night. Here are my final words,

THE END

What is a visual text? 

Before I can tell you how a mood is created on a visual text, I need to tell you what a visual text is. A visual text is a text you can look at and understand its meaning. Some examples of visual texts are drawings, paintings, photographs and videos.
 

What does a visual text need in order to show the mood?

Now you guys need to know what a visual text needs in order to show the mood. From what I have learned so far, I think that there are three most important parts:

1. Colour
2. Line
3. Shape

They work together to show the emotion and mood of the art. They also make it easier for the person to understand what you are trying to say. For example, if you drew something that was red with jagged lines, you could tell it would be anger.
 

Creating  the mood…

Here is the big part: creating the mood on a visual text. It really depends on what kind of visual text you are doing. Here are ways you can create a mood on a drawing, a painting, a photograph, and a video.
 

Drawings

• Decide on a mood
• Decide on what you are drawing
• Use colour
• Use line
• Use shape
• Colour lightly
• Colour dark 

Paintings

• Decide on a mood
• Decide on what you are painting
• Use colour
• Use line
• Use shape
• Use different sizes of paint brushes
• Use lots of paint
• Use little paint
  

Photographs

• Decide on a mood
• Decide on what you are taking a picture of
• Use colour
• Use line
• Use shape
• Morph the photo
• Make it black and white
• Zoom in
• Zoom out
• Add objects
• Add a border

Videos

• Decide on a mood
• Decide on a type (i.e. movie)
  
• Make a setting
  
• Use different types of music in the back round
  
• Make a theme
  
• Use colour
  
• Use line
• Use shape

As you can see, there are many different things you can do to create a mood in a visual text.

Here is a painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

I think it shows happiness because of the bright colours and plus sunflowers, in my own opinion, represent happiness.

What do you think the mood is?

CLICK HERE to go to a cool music video website.

My family and I went to the meat draw at the legion today. It seemed like any other time at the legion. Every once in a while, we got tickets to win some meat. Then, two lovely ladies called the last four numbers on each ticket they pulled out. Scott won some chickens for us. After the last ticket draw, the ladies asked people to put our names on the back of each ticket,$0.25 at ticket. Then, we gave the tickets to the ladies. When they recieved all of the tickets, one of the ladies starting mixing up the tickets. My brother was asked to draw a ticket. Then he picked up my ticket! I found it hilarious because earlier in the day, he was complaining about how much money I had. I went up, picked up my money and went back to my table. I won $30.60! My dad said I had to give some of the money to my brother since he drew my ticket so I gave him $5.00. :( Then everybody left.

And that ends another post…

Mike “Boogie” wins Big Brother 7

Steve Irwin died September 4, 2006

Lukas Rossi is the new lead singer of SuperNova

Do you guys think that pictures instead of words are a good idea?

What’s your opinion on what I just showed you?

Well, I’m just playing around, trying something new. Who knows, I might write posts like this once in a while. And that’s the end of that.

What is a text? What is reading? What is writing?
As you guys might think, text is just a whole bunch of words. You guys also might think that reading a whole bunch of words and that writing is writing a whole bunch of words. At first, I thought this was text, reading, and writing. Now I know that I am WRONG. Text is more than just words. Text is active. It comes in different forms like paintings, photographs, and even video games. Text is self expression, art, and you even learn things from text. The most important thing about a text though, is that it has to carry a message that can be read by other people. Reading is more than just reading words. Reading understands the message that is meant to be carried, understanding some ones self expression, understanding some ones art, and understanding something that somebody put their heart and soul into. Writing is not only writing words, it is making something that carries your message out to the world. It is making something that at least one person can understand.

What texts do I like? What do I like to read? What do I like to write?
Texts that I like are written texts from novels, paintings, videos of all sorts, photography, especially video games, and more. I’m not sure if I have the ability to read text (except for novels and text books, of course), but I think that by the end of the school year or even before that, I think I can understand somebody’s self expression. I especially want to read paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. He is my favourite painter. Who is your favourite painter?                             

Here is a picture of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”

 Also here is a link to a website about Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. http://www.vangoghgallery.com/.

For writing, I think I am a good writer for novels. Sometimes, I think of ideas of a story in my head. One time when I was playing “house” with Kate and Ashley, I was an author. I had written a book in a game and some people made it into a movie. When I was telling Ashley (being my daughter for house) about the book I written, she said that she actually thought it sounded good. Now, maybe that is something I would like to consider, being a writer and all, but I would still like to try different things. I also like drawing, even though I’m not too good at it :).

That’s about it!!

Hey!! I survived the fifth day of school! Isn’t that exciting. Well, not really. It’s just like another day of school. So today, I did the regular things we usually did for the other four days we had of school. We talked about text in E.L.A (english language arts). In social studies, I worked on a couple of questions. Some of the kids were playing SIMS 4 because Mr.Fisher wanted to teach us about different societies and how to make one successful. We did mental math also. I hate mental math!! It is so annoying! This time around, he allows us to write down the question, but still do it in our heads. I’m really glad I got out of 20 on it. It’s the first one of the year, so I’m very proud of myself. Also in math, we had to do geometry. It was basically a review on angles. Well, I guess that sums up my day at school. (Sorry I don’t have anything else to talk about today )

And that ends another blog post…I’ll write soon.