Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Secret Master Plan

Alright bloggers you've been doing some really good work. You've learned to post and also found many useful articles about your topics. I am surprised by how many of you are surprised to be learning some pretty basic facts about your topics. This encourages me that you're learning some things you really should know.

It's time for me to reveal my secret master plan. I asked your group to select the five best articles about your topic. I will make those articles available to the whole class. What this means to you is that everyone in the class will have read about the basic information on your topic. Everyone will soon know as much as you do now about your topic. This means you must run faster, stretch out your arms farther and ... LEARN MORE. (Anyone get the reference?)

Your group will make a presentation to the class about your topic. Your presentation must go far beyond the basics. Many of you have large groups. I suggest you break yourselves up into smaller sub-groups and have each sub-group focus on a different aspect of your topic. For example, the group studying food shortages could have some members focusing on causes, and others on effects. The group studying climate change could divide into geographic areas and focus specifically on the way the climate is changing in that part of the world.

Think about how you want to divide yourselves, think about how each person's work will contribute to the whole. Use your blog to assign jobs, post progress, and link to useful information. I am grading your final presentation, but I am also evaluating the contributions you make on your blog. The blog is a good place to write intelligently about your topic.

Today (Wednesday)
1. Sign on to your groups' blog and post a comment about someone else's post from yesterday. Look for the place at the end of their post that says 0 comments" Click where it says comments and write what you want to say about their post.
2. Then use the links on my blog to visit the blog of another interest group. Post a comment there too.
3. Read several of the articles linked below. They are all about climate change. ON YOUR GROUP's BLOG post your response to the article. Make sure you include the title of the article, a brief description of it and your thoughts. Remember not everyone in your group is reading the same articles so you need to explain what you read about in your post.

  1. Life feels the effects of a changing climate

  2. State of Knowledge
  3. Climate change: A guide for the perplexed

  4. Climate Change Has Major Impact On Oceans

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