PeaceFlower1016

     Today we were given time to finish our slide shows.      I added the limitation slide and the conclusion slide. The picture that I chose for the limitation slide didn't have a lot of space to add text, which made a have a hard time placing it and arranging it. I first made the words white but the right half side of the word was hard to read. So I made the words black but the left half side of the word was hard to read now. I was stuck and couldn't think of a good way to solve this problem. I didn't want to change the slide because I thought that picture really matched what I was going to say in the presentation. Then at the last minute, I thought of an idea. I made the left side white and the right side black. At first sight, it seemed as if it was hard to read but when after that it was easier to see than the other colors. 

     Today we were given time to work on our book reviews since it was due tomorrow. I was mostly finished so I checked my AWL, readability, and the score for paper rater.  My AWL wasn't too low. Mr. Paterson told us that since it is a book review our AWL score can be low, which is about 4. Mine at that time was 4.61 so I thought I would give it a try to make the score higher. In the first half of the class, I worked on making my AWL score higher. I eventually made it to 5.25. Then I checked my readability, and it was 10.57 so I moved on. Then I went to use paper rater. It was my first time using the new tool. I had a weird feeling getting a score for my book review before I get graded for it. At first, it was 80, but I wanted it to get higher so I followed the advice and solved some problems in my writing. I got a final score of 83 and I felt satisfied with that score so I stopped there.      In the last few minutes of the class, I used turn it in to ...

     Today Mr. Paterson introduced us to the new tool called turn it in. When I was going to a cram school called KA, I used this tool to turn in y essay homework and get grades from teachers. I didn't know that this website was searching more plagiarism. I was only using it to get feedback from teachers that lived far like Hawaii. I also forgot the account that I was using so I made a new account.      When I uploaded the book review, it showed 8%. Apparently, this is how much of my work is similar to other people's work. However, when I checked things that I can't change popped up. Things like "Whiz Kids practice quiz". This whole term was mentioned in the reading and I shouldn't be rephrasing it. Also things like "the communication device, Medi–Talker". I don't want to change this because this is most concise way of explaining this device. I thought that it is inconvenient that things I didn't copy are considered as plagiarism on the websi...

     Today we had time to work on our presentations and book reviews.      I worked on my presentation today. I chose many picture today. I thought that I was running out of time and needed to work quickly. I tried to focus and not talk with my neighbors today. This worked out really well and I was able to add 5 pictures to the slides today. Because I used less time to choose the actual pictures I had time to position the text neatly. Especially for the slide with the wheelchair I had a hard time trying to place the text in the best position. There wasn't many spaces where I can put the text in the first place but it was hard to adjust the place. I eventually gave it an angle and made it diagonal so it would be easier to read.       I  also put effort on the slide with the blizzard. I reversed the original picture to make the text on the right side. The previous slide had the text on the left side so to make the overall presentation...

     Today in our class Mr. Paterson introduced us to two new writing tools.      The first one was word counter. This tool not only counts the words but it gives us the time it takes to read the whole writing. This really surprised me because there was no tool that I've seen which had this tool. I thought that this kind of tool was something you would think we had but nobody actually made it. I thought that this tool would be useful when we make scripts for our speeches. I really wanted to have a tool like this last last week since we had to turn in an assignment for our Japanese class which included speech. I want to have a Japanese version of this tool to use it when we have an assignment like this in the future. Also, I've always wanted a standard or a basis of speed in reading something because when I give out instructions by paper, I don't know when to start talking because I don't know if everyone is done reading.      Another tool Mr....

    Today we were reintroduced to lextutor and AWL. Last year we used this writing tool in our individual essays and our brochures. I've been using this tool in other class' essays so I remembered how to use it. We needed to have the AWL score of 4 or more. When we used this on our brochures we needed to have a higher number but since we are writing a book review it can be lower. This is because book reviews include character names that can't be replaced and wordings that can't be changed since it is already written in the book. I was relieved to hear this because when I checked, I only had 4.58 and I was shocked. I made me overwhelmed by the imagining myself trying to get the number higher by replacing almost all the words.      Today after I changed a few words on my book review, I worked on the author slide. I needed to find a picture of my author, Sharon Draper. This didn't take that much time to find a few pictures. I chose the one with the author holding t...

     Today Mr. Paterson taught the new students the tools and how to present so the other students worked on our slides. Today I had a hard time trying to find the right photo for the title slide. Last class, I could only work on the content slide so I thought I had to work faster and quicker.       I started looking in pixabay but couldn't find the right tone or color. I wanted my title slide to have goldfish in it since it is a important symbol in the novel. I wanted to be in clear water with a light blue background since the book cover had that color. But the ones that I was looking for were copyrighted and I needed to pay to use it. Also, the ones I thought fit my standards those weren't high resolution pictures. I used a lot of time to find the best picture so I gave up and moved on. I picked a picture that had a goldfish in it but it did have a light blue background. I thought that giving up is not always bad and is needed in some cases. I didn't...

     Today we were told that we wouldn’t be doing our presentations today. Since the ministry of education (monbukagakushou) didn't change the deadline for the grades which correspond to the corona pandemic, our presentations would be postponed to next semester.       Honestly, I was relieved. I wasn't really confident in my Pecha Kucha style presentation and I didn't practice enough to be presenting in front of everyone. When I got the email last night I was working on my slides. I was having a hard time finding the best pictures, so having more time to work on the slides made me really happy. However, we were told that we are going to turn in our book review, book review terms, and the presentation slides this semester and that these would be our grades.      I understood that we had to turn in something so this sounded like it was no big deal. However, when I started working on the slides again, it was really hard work. My slides were...

     Today in our class Mr. Paterson introduced us to tools that we can use to research for our book review essay. First off cliffs notes. There are facts and discussion questions about the books on this page. Next, Sparknotes. This was made by Harvard students for students to help students with student assignments on book reviews. I thought that these are very useful because it will help students like us to have detailed information that we wouldn't have gotten. I'm not a very good researcher so I thought this would help me fill the gap between students who have loads of information.       I was especially intrigued by Thug notes. I thought that using pictures, animations, and talking is a great way for people who are lazy to read to get information. I am not a fast reader so these audio versions of summaries and analysis help me a lot. However, all of these tools only have a few books. I searched for my book immediately but none of the tools had it. ...

     Today was our first day back in our class. I wasn't very worried about coming back to school because I've heard that closing the school didn't really help to stop the coronavirus from spreading. However, I thought that only using masks and face masks won't really help. Because mo st students were close to each other since we haven't met for so long. I thought that the school needed to be stricter about these rules if they really want to prevent corona from spreadin g. But I also am really happy to be back in school. I was really sad that we couldn't do the final presentation last year so I am really excited about our class.       Mr. Paterson told us that since we won't have time to do our long presentations we would be shortening the time. He introduced us to a format called Pecha Kucha. I've heard this word in Japanese but didn't know that there was a presentation style named after this word. I thought that 20 slides 20 minute rule is very eff...