Unit 6
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Unit 6
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Part 4 — Video #1 - Addressing Student Questions (1:56)
I have received two student questions that are specific and related to the graphs and number information which are key to your project overall and specifically to “Part 4” of this project. Sumiya asks about number information. Zazeef asks about the graphs in Part 4. I would like to thank these two brave students for asking the question that many of you have probably thought of, but did not risk asking me about. I also understand that Magdalena has submitted a question, but I really really really cannot find it. I would like for Magdalena to send her question using email…so I can reply and say, “I got it and will answer it as soon as humanly possible.” I am going to address Sumiya’s question first because it is the foundation of understanding Nazeef’s question. But, before that, I want EVERYONE to think about the following information…. |
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Part 4 — Video #2 — CREATIVE MINDSET (13:36)
You have done a lot of research on numbers. Your topic is in fact, Animals by the Numbers. Number information means graphs could and probably should follow. Americans in particular like to downplay their understanding of mathematical knowledge. It's common enough to hear otherwise educated adults make self-deprecating comments, that's negative comments about themselves, regarding their abilities with math. DO NOT BE THAT TYPE OF PERSON. It helps no one. It hurts everyone. Understand math. Understand and be able to articulate, that's explain, math. Understand this visually. What does that mean? Understand math and how it looks visually, in a graph...and be able to explain it. Your task is to mine, or dig through, your information and find ways to SHOW math. This means you have information you already found, that has number information in it. Weights, heights, amounts, quantities of population, Much of this information can be looked at over time - meaning year to year, decade by decade, night versus day; or by gender- meaning boys versus girls; or by lifespan of the animal itself - meaning young versus reproduction age. All of this information about your specific animal can be looked at by geography - meaning region where your animal lives normally versus zoo populations, or pet populations (if any). You are discovery students, which means you are being asked to think creatively - in ways that you come up with. It is not up to Ms. Lembach, Ms. Miller, or your parents' jobs to "tell you what to look up" so that you blindly look that up. It is your job to understand the big picture of what you are being asked to do....What are you being asked to do??? Graph your number information. What is your number information? You answer that for yourself. Now take that information and think of the categories I mention above....in relation to.... Your information -- in relation to --- some category that is relevant. I know this is uncomfortable for some of you to think "outside the neat boxes" that some other adult or some other person has created for you. You are in Discovery for a reason -- you have the ability to do this task. You are being asked to take your information, add to it with other information if needed, and create graphs of your information. Think in terms of specific to general, local to regional, young to old, male to female, captive to wild, century to now, input to output (food eaten to weight), number of teeth of one subspecies to another subspecies. Ranges of feeding areas, breeding areas...etc. Literally, anything you can think of as you research and look at numbers collected and published in lists, tables, carts, and graphs. Sometimes it will be your own animal to itself, similar species, other animals that predate your animal, or that your animal is a predator of... You just have to be flexible in your thinkingand creative in your associations. I know how this feels. You are doing the equivalent of looking at a blank page, and being asked to "draw a picture." Yes...I know it is making some of you very uncomfortable. Welcome to divergent thinking required of smart, problem solving people of the world - wether they are in discovery or not...... YOU CAN DO THIS. Wikipedia might be a decent place to start looking for this information, but you will probably find yourself quickly into the very adult-level graduate level papers with tons of pages and words and tables of numbers. If you find yourself there, you are in the right place. You are probably not going to find a graph all tidy for you...your topics are too specific. Specifically, you can compare your animal to a "generic human male" or "an average human female" and create a table....than from that create a graph. Or if average humans are too big....compare it to an average house-cat, or an average mouse. If the average human is too small, try a school bus. Whales are often compared to school busses. In the coloring book example....this is the blank page. You are being asked to draw something. You have been shown how to hold the pencils/crayons, and how to draw the shapes. Now it's your job to put that information -- those pieces -- together. This is a bit of a leap of faith. TAKE the Intellectual risk and talk yourself through this process. Go ahead and RISK IT. |
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Part 4 — Video #3 — Number Menu Overview (1:10)
Sumiya’s Project Question: Project Question #2 from Sumiya: hmmmm i don't understand what info i put in there for number things menu Answer: Sumiya picked the Narwhal. I will answer specifically to her question, because she was brave enough to ask the question, so is going to get the most specific answer. I will also try to answer generally, so that you ALL can get an answer that can help you and your animal. |
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Part 4 — Video #4 — Number Menu Draft 1, Menu Items # 1 - #4 (7:31)
Look at the typed section on the website along with this video…. Ms. Miller’s “By the Numbers” Menu — Draft 1 I have a 9 button menu at this point. Each menu button has sub points. I will shorten the menus because 9 is too long, in my opinion. I think my users will appreciate reading through a shorter menu. I think how can I collapse some of my menus...??? My outline & index cards for Number Information look like this…
Now the list of 9 gives me my buttons on my NUMBERS MENU. But I want to look at each one of my buttons and see if I can collapse any buttons. I also want to think about what template each button in my Number menu will link to… I am not going to read EVERY single one of the details I typed out for my 9 menus…but I will read a few to get you started. YOU are responsible for reading the rest of these numbers 1 to #4. I will have another video after #5 of this list.
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Part 4 — Video #5 — Number Menu Draft 1, Menu Items # 5 - #9 (9:11)
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Part 4 — Video #6 — Number Menu Second Draft (2:07)
Ms. Miller’s “By the Numbers” Menu — Draft 2. ———Now I need to look at my number menus and collapse and combine any that are similar…. I get this……
Now, I have nine sub-menus at this point. Now, I think to myself, can I combine any of these numbers? Yes… probably… Can I reorder any of these categories into a more logical order? Yes…probably. Begin with Combining….
Combined….now I get this…
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Part 4 — Video #7 — Number Menu Third Draft (3:44)
Now, what can I reorder or what can I do to make this list shorter and easier to read? I know, I can move “Other Number Information” to the “non-number info menu” because even though there is some number info in that statement, I have actually put it in that section already. Most or almost all my number information can be put into a table…of some kind…and that information I have for this little section is singular and not really easy to put into a graph…I don’t want to compare it either….so I’ll put it in other interesting information. I also thought about language and titles of my buttons…. My menu title is “Numbers Menu” so I can remove “numbers” from some of the buttons that imply numbers….some I have to keep because it sounds weird without it…. Now I get this….
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Part 4 — Video #8 — Number Menu Fourth Draft (3:43)
Now, I will take this back out a little bit, and think about what kind of destination pages my links from my “Numbers Menu” are going to be… “Numbers Menu”
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Part 4 — Video #9 — Finding Numbers for Graphs, part 1 (11:05)
Project Question #2 from Nazeef & Summiah: Nazeef Asks, “I found only one graph. I could not find enough information to make the other two. I searched for answers like, "piranha population over the years," "piranha population in the world," "population of piranhas state-by-state." I could not find any information that I could make graphs with. Can you give me more ideas? Thank you. Answer: Nazeef did the piranha and Sumiya picked the Narwhal. I will answer specifically to these two kids questions, because they were brave enough to ask the question, so they get the most specific answer. I will also try to answer generally, so that you ALL can get an answer that can help you. Watch one or more videos until you get ideas for how to do your videos. You do not need to watch them all if you learn enough from one or two. That is up to you to think critically about your own learning and education. So for finding numbers data for graphs, return to the mindset video if you need to do so….it’s time to think widely and broadly and creativity. Think about and look...
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Part 4 — Video #10 — Finding Numbers for Graphs, part 2 (5:00)
Overall for the Whole class — you want to be a specific as you can be and still find information or data. You might have to think more broadly than you have so far. The problem with some of the class’s choices in animals you chose - your animals are so specific that you are not going to be able to find large pieces of information with your specific animal’s name in the title. That kind of detail is just too specific for Google to return anything meaningful. You’re going to have to search under broader terms. Instead of “piranha populations over the years” which is unlikely to turn up much unless some scientist already created that specific graph already, you should consider broadening your search. Looking at scholarly journals. Trying to get information on Piranha fish sales….commerce is a big driver of data. Threats to humans….another big source of data funding…so perhaps piranha movies, real piranha attacks…Most people do not go around searching for “numbers of___” and Google algorithms are based off of what most people actually go around asking. So even your search terms are a way to be creative and resourceful in your thinking and in your search term usage. The type of animal for instance instead of looking up piranha you might look up aquarium fish captured live each year to be kept as aquarium pets that information might be out there then you might have to go and look and see that that information is found over time and you find out that the industry of piranha keeping has Gone up and down in line with the overall aquarium industry… Maybe you’ll find a graph out there that has or a data table out there that has marine animals versus freshwater animals… In the aquarium industry over time. |
This video is normal sized...I don't know why the others are so large and this one is normal size. Sorry...
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Part 4 — Video #11 — Finding Numbers for Graphs, part 3 (5:45)
The final few suggestions I have for you all to find information or data for your graphs….these are the least creative solutions. You should NOT skip to this step and do it because you are tired of this project. With that said, if you have done a good faith effort and made at least one graph using the information and suggestions and lessons that I have provided above, then you may use this strategy, this least creative solution to meet the grade-level-number requirements for your grade level. Here it is. Go back to Ms. Lembach’s Blue chart of all your number information. This is the table with all your information in columns. Pick your animal. Pick another student’s animal with at least one similar or related element as your animal. Use that data and your classmate’s animal data. Consider picking two students’ animals and having a 3 column bar graph… If you are STILL at a slump, brick wall, stuck beyond all possibilities, take the ONE type of information you have on your animal and make a BAR GRAPH horizontally and a second BAR GRAPH vertically. Then make a line/plot graph of the same information. Write an interpretative paragraph explaining your data and how the information is shown by each graph. If you are still in a creative slump, watch all the other videos I have on actually creating different types of graphs and see if that inspires you to be able to make a creative comparison of the information you already have collected. Use the blue chart Ms. Lembach created with you all and graph another animal and compare it to yours on a few data points. Finally, make as many graphs as you can, using all the suggestions I have given you and make a diagram of your animal. |
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WHERE IS MS> MILLER"S AVATAR's BODY????? Where did it go? No one knows...And the backgroundis black even though it isn't night. Strange things are happening with Ms. Miller's technology. Oh my!
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Part 4 — Video #12 - Magdalena’s questions have arrived to me, finally!!! The questions are actually about turning projects in on Step 10, Pablo being blocked in Step 9, and the CYOA story in OPTIONAL Step 8. (6:36)Thank you for being both patient and brave for asking questions. It takes a certain amount of courage to ask a teacher questions. Yours are very well written and because of that, I can answer them both directly rather easily. Here it goes.
Magdalena Question #1 “ Ms. Miller where do I submit my work? For step 9 Pablo is blocked and so are the videos on step 10.” Question #1 Answers — You don’t turn anything in specifically yet. You are doing all your work in Mad-learn. Ms. Miller and Ms. Lembach can sign in and see what step you are on. At some point in the future, you will “publish” your site to do a test Beta run….and you will get a 9 digit code that will let you share your website with your Beta testers. They will give you feedback along with Ms. Miller and Ms. Lembach, and then, if you meet all of the criteria for publishing, you can apply to MAD-learn to make your site published, meaning available under keyword searches, and highlighted in the MAD-store. But, publishing and turning-in comes later. For now, just save your work in MAD-learn. For Pablo Step 9…. As you remember (I hope), several of you all helped me discover the district caused this problem…and we worked together to find a workaround live on one of my many live lessons. I guess some people missed it. So, refresh your screen and look at Step 9 again. It turned into 9A and 9B. I turned into Step 9A Pablo and 9B What program to use when the school Chromebook blocks the website Pablo. I said skip the videos in Step 10 if they do not load for you. I did play the most important bits in a live class, but they are not critical. Magdalena’s Question #2 “Ms. Miller for the app can we make a story where you live the life of your animal and have to choose decisions?” Question #2 Answer — This is a great question. Magdalena is talking about the Choose Your Own Adventure story on OPTIONAL Step 8. It is meant to be an interactive story, BUT BUT BUT, writing out your story with your animal (author) choosing decisions might be a good start. If you, as the author, are writing the story and making the decisions - Go in or Go out? And then you as the author choose that the animal “goes in” and then continues writing, what you essentially have is a narrative story. That is not bad in and of itself, but the purpose of the CYOA, is to have a kind of interaction where you as the author present a scene where your animal is faced with a decision… “Eat the blue shiny thing or “ignore the blue shiny thing and ignore it? Then you would write two consequences, that you will eventually program. This way, when the audience reads your story and arrives to the choice, they click Eat or Ignore. Eat takes them to the rest of your story where eating it means they die, or they get choked, or they enjoy a full belly….whatever you create. But, then, unlike other typical narrative stories, you also create a story if the reader clicks or chooses to “ignore and don’t eat it.” That could be the animal starves to death, the animal soon spots an even tastier meal that smells delicious. Again, this consequence is your creation. Before long, you will end up with a “decision tree.” |
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Part 4 — Video #13 - Brush Up on Graph Basics (OPTIONAL, only if needed).It occurs to me that some of you may need to brush up on types of graphs, and how to represent graphs, and just basic graph knowledge. So, I’m stepping back and showing you some Khan Academy links to watch and refresh your memory on the very basics of graphs, and graph types. We have easy access to bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts in Google Sheets.
Khan Academy -- 3 units on Graphs https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-third-grade-math/represent-and-interpret-data LINK Just the video LINK <-- Oh, where did Ms. Miller's Avatar's body go? No one knows...And the background changed...oh my. |