How to Create an “iPod App” of Your STJ iBlog

Create your own STJ iBlog iPod App
Pingo Lingo iPod App

Yes the title of this post is a bit misleading, you won’t really be creating an app. You will be creating a web shortcut to your STJ iBlog with a custom Apple touch icon that looks like an iPod app … in two steps.

First step, get yourself a snazzy gravatar with the admin email from your blog. Make sure your gravatar email, your STJ user email, and the email at Dashboard->Settings->General are all identical. Also double-check that your blog is set to “Show Avatars” at Dashboard->Settings->Discussion->Avatars. Activate the DS Gravatar Favicon plugin.

Second step, on the iPod send Safari to your iblog home page (and click the large  +) and “Add to Home Screen”. Name it and save it.

Add to Home Screen
Add to Home Screen

You are done. There is nothing else, unless you want to fiddle away for a few minutes enabling a special theme to automagically detect when iPods are browsing your blog. How? Activate the WPtouch plugin and then look for Dashboard->Settings->WPtouch. Compare what you see while surfing your blog on your iPod to the same pages you see in a desktop browser.

Pingo Lingo with WPtouch theme/plugin activated
Pingo Lingo with WPtouch theme/plugin activated
Pingo Lingo with the usual "Clown Pants" theme active

Anyway, there you have it: a customized shortcut on your iPod home screen that looks like an iPod app.

Did you know that the iPod will take screenshots by pressing and releasing the home and reset buttons simultaneously? Now all you have to figure out is how to get those images from your iPod photo app up to your blog. Any ideas?

ELA 20 Final Writing Assignment

Write a post in response to a text you read in ELA 20 in which you discuss 3-5 ideas the text creator suggests to you about The Human Condition-In Search of Self.

Consider the course focus:

The most profound discovery that we can make is our discovery of self. Our identity rests in the kind of people we are. To understand who we are and to develop fully as human beings, we must explore the nature of our humanness and the purpose of our lives.

  • Who and what are we?
  • What are the common human qualities and ideals we hold?
  • What roles do other people (e.g., friends, family) play in our lives?
  • What brings us joy, inspiration, and fulfillment?
  • What doubts and fears do we have? By examining our lives and searching for answers to these and other questions, we can find meaning and fulfillment as human beings.

Consider the rubric:

The Shack Writing Assignment

Write a post in response to The Shack in which you discuss 3-5 ideas WM Paul Young suggests to you about The Human Condition-In Search of Self.

Consider your discussions of key questions in the STJ forums on The Shack (login required).

Consider your many class discussions on the four postulates:

  1. Can something come from nothing?
  2. Does God exist?
  3. Do humans have immortal soul?
  4. Do humans have free will?

Consider the course focus:

The most profound discovery that we can make is our discovery of self. Our identity rests in the kind of people we are. To understand who we are and to develop fully as human beings, we must explore the nature of our humanness and the purpose of our lives. Who and what are we? What are the common human qualities and ideals we hold? What roles do other people (e.g., friends, family) play in our lives? What brings us joy, inspiration, and fulfillment? What doubts and fears do we have? By examining our lives and searching for answers to these and other questions, we can find meaning and fulfillment as human beings.

Consider the rubric:

Prepping for ELA 9 Achievement Test?

Part A of the Alberta ELA 9 Achievement test is itself in 2 parts:

  1. Narrative/Essay
  2. Business Letter

Suggestions for Preparing to Write the Narrative/Essay:

Assessment of the Narrative / Essay Writing
Assignment on the achievement test will be in the context of Louise Rosenblatt’s suggestion that “the evaluation of the answers would be in terms of the amount of evidence that the youngster has actually read something and thought about it, not a question of whether, necessarily, he has thought about it the way an adult would, or given an adult’s ‘correct’ answer.”
Rosenblatt, Louise. “The Reader’s Contribution in the Literary Experience: Interview with Louise Rosenblatt.” By Lionel Wilson. English Quarterly 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1981): 3–12.

Consider also Grant P. Wiggins’ suggestion to assess students’ writing “with the tact of Socrates: tact to respect the student’s ideas enough to enter them fully—even more fully than the thinker sometimes—and thus the tact to accept apt but unanticipatable or unique responses.”
Wiggins, Grant. P. Assessing Student Performance:
Exploring the Purpose and Limits of Testing. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993, p. 40.

Example Assignment for Writing a Narrative or Essay

Example Student Response for Writing a Narrative or Essay

narrative_2009
narrative_2010
narrative_2011
narrative_2012
narrative_2013
narrative_2014
narrative_2015
narrative_2016
narrative_2017


Suggestions for Preparing for Writing the Business Letter:
Wikipedia on business letter

Business Letter tips from OWL

Body
For block and modified block formats, single space and left justify each paragraph within the body of the letter. Leave a blank line between each paragraph. When writing a business letter, be careful to remember that conciseness is very important. In the first paragraph, consider a friendly opening and then a statement of the main point. The next paragraph should begin justifying the importance of the main point. In the next few paragraphs, continue justification with background information and supporting details. The closing paragraph should restate the purpose of the letter and, in some cases, request some type of action.

and more tips from OWL

Your letters will be more successful if you focus on positive wording rather than negative, simply because most people respond more favorably to positive ideas than negative ones. Words that affect your reader positively are likely to produce the response you desire in letter-writing situations. A positive emphasis will persuade the reader and create goodwill. In contrast, negative words may generate resistance and other unfavorable reactions. You should therefore be careful to avoid words with negative connotations. These words either deny—for example, no, do not, refuse, and stop—or convey unhappy or unpleasant associations—for example, unfortunately, unable to, cannot, mistake, problem, error, damage, loss, and failure.

Sample business letters from OWL

Canada Post Addressing Guide

Format of a Business Letter

business_letter_formats

format_of_a_business_letter

Envelope of a Business Letter
addressing_an_envelope

Example Assignment of a Business Letter

Example Student Response to Business Letter Assignment

Alberta Education links to Samples of Student Writing

 

Example Business Letter Assignment: Green School

green_school_business_letter_2010_1
green_school_business_letter_2010_2
Exemplars

green_school_exemplar_2
green_school_exemplar_2
green_school_exemplar_5
green_school_exemplar_5

Example Business Letter Assignment: Healthy Food
healthy_food_policy_business_letter_2011_1
healthy_food_policy_business_letter_2011_2

Exemplars

healthy_food_exemplar_4
healthy_food_exemplar_4

Example Business Letter Assignment: Homework Policy
homework_policy_business_letter_2012_1
homework_policy_business_letter_2012_2

Exemplars

homeword_policy_exemplar_4
homeword_policy_exemplar_4
homework_policy_exemplar_5
homework_policy_exemplar_5

Example Business Letter Assignment: Animal Shelter
animal_shelter_business_letter_2010_1
animal_shelter_business_letter_2010_2

Exemplars

animal_shelter_exemplar_4
animal_shelter_exemplar_4
animal_shelter_exemplar_5
animal_shelter_exemplar_5

 

Example Business Letter Assignment: Student Rewards Program

business_letter_rewards_1

business_letter_rewards_2

Example Business Letter Assignment: Work Experience

business_letter_work_experience_1

business_letter_work_experience_2

Example Business Letter Assignment: Anti-Idling

business_letter_emissions_1

business_letter_emissions_2

functional_2016
functional_2017

Rubrics

Business Letter Rubric: business_letter_rubric

Rubric

2017 PAT Functional Rubric
2017 PAT Narrative Rubric

Separation from a Loved One

Compare and contrast how the following two poems deal with the theme of separation from a loved one:

Focus on such aspects as imagery, symbolism, archetypes, mood, and characterization. Quote directly from the poems to support your points.

The Medium is the Message

According to Marshall McLuhan, television is a “cool” medium because it provides little information and makes the user fill in what is missing. How do the House Hippo and Media Monkey ads make the user fill in the information?

House Hippo

[youtube video=”TijcoS8qHIE”]

Media Monkey

[youtube video=”i9fSLdG2uYU”]

Do young people accept what they see in media as being reality? Provide specific examples to support your opinion.

Facts on Childhood Issues

English 30: Blake’s Romanticism

D.C.Williams (1899-1983) said that Blake was a romantic with a critical view on the world, he maintained that Blake’s Songs of Innocence were made as a view of an ideal, somewhat Utopian view whereas he used the Songs of Experience in order to show the suffering and loss posed by the nature of society and the world of his time. wikipedia: William Blake

Read several poems from Blake’s, Songs of Innocence and Experience.

In particular pay attention to the 2 poems titled, The Chimney Sweeper.

What idea(s) does Blake suggest to us about The Human Condition – In Search of Self?

February 2010: Update your blog, email, and forum settings

Check your email:

  • manage your contacts
  • deal with your spam
  • organize mail into folders
  • turn chat on/off
  • create or update a spreadsheet document

Login to (or create) your blog:

  • update your profile – email address
  • manage your comments
  • manage your links
  • update your tagline
  • manage your categories and tags
  • confirm your privacy settings
  • confirm your theme
  • manage your sidebar widgets
  • enable/disable a plugin or two

Login (or register) to STJ Forums:

  • update your profile – email address
  • contribute to a discussion
  • begin a discussion
  • update your profile – email address

2010 English 10 Final Exam

Consider the “Equality–Pain and Pride” focus questions.

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
– Edwin Markham

We want to be judged by who we are–our words and actions–not by mere appearances or social standing. Yet our world is filled with inequalities. In this course, students examined the issues of equality and rights recognizing that, in our society, we need to balance personal needs with responsibilities and demands required of citizens. There is both pain and pride in being human.

Make connections in your discussion to a book(s) you have read this term, personal experiences, and/or current world events.

What ideas(s) does the author of your chosen text(s) reveal to you about the need to balance personal needs with responsibilities and demands required of citizens?

Pingback/comment your final post here.

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