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• manage your contacts
• deal with your spam
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• create or update a spreadsheet document

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• update your profile – email address
• manage your comments
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• 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 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2010 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

“Rocks are metaphors.” – D. Sader

“They are just piles of rocks.” – K. Lumayko

In ELA 10 we have been discussing gender inequality: particularly as inequalities are portrayed in advertisements.

We think it would be interesting to create our own TV advertisements. So here is what we are going to do:

• write a script and storyboard for a 30 second TV commercial (2 days)
• reinforce gender stereotypes, take advantage of bias to sell the product
• use iMovie and export to youtube and embed in a post (3-5 days)
• oh, the product is 500g of parking lot gravel

I have 5 digital video cameras, so a maximum of five groups makes sense.

Let me know what groups you’ve made in a comment below.

Post a link to your script/storyboard for approval before you begin filming.

©2010 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

I have three boys aged 9, 7, and 4. It should be no surprise that we all like Star Wars. Well, we were all watching another episode of “Clone Wars” last week when all three of us reacted to a couple of toy commercials.

The first commercial we reacted to was for a Mommy Look I Can Swim Doll. The image of a 3-6 year old girl tossing a lifelike baby doll into the pool was horrifying to me. Doesn’t the product description at Amazon sound horrifying to you?

For ideal balance, the manufacturer recommends holding the doll underwater until all the air bubbles disappear through the holes in her back.

My boys and I struggled to make sense of why girls would want a swimming baby doll. Perhaps you can help abate my fears.

The second ad we reacted to was for a Barbie Totally Real House, complete with a toilet with “flush sounds” and a mechanical spinning washer and dryer. The commercial actually featured a barbie sitting on the toilet with a flush sound. The boys, and I, thought that was “totally” gross.

I asked the 4 year-old if Santa should bring him a Barbie for Christmas to which he replied, “Boys don’t play with dolls, Daddy.”

My boys didn’t detect the irony of the dozens of Star Wars Action Figures littering the living room floor.

At any rate, my boys are learning, defining, reinforcing gender roles from the advertisements on TV. Sigh.

What do boys learn about girls from watching the advertising aimed at girls? What are the girls learning about boys from products advertised to boys?

Your Task:

Consider the gender definitions portrayed in advertising directed at children. Pay particular attention to gender role reinforcement in children’s toys. Write a blog post in which you critically analyze 3-5 examples of toys (and their ads) directed at young children.

At the same time, discuss the “Gender Inequality in Children’s Toys/Ads” issue with your classmates in the STJ Forums.

Hint: Pay particular attention to your course focus questions as they relate to gender-based inequality.

RSS ERROR: "http://forum.stjschool.org/rss.php?tid=445" NOT FOUND!

©2010 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

Say you are writing a post and want to include a math equation of some kind. HTML or BBcode, won’t help.

You have 2 options:

1. create the equation using Microsoft Equation Editor (while working in a Word document) then save the equations as png or jpg and upload them to your blog.
2. activate the WP LaTeX plugin (Dashboard–>Plugins) and insert some latex code from the online LaTeX equation editor.

   The following shortcode will produce this LaTeX image:

   
   Similarly, this y=\sqrt{(x+3) a^2+b^2}
   will produce this:
   

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

Consider this article by Michael Kessler from the Washington Post.

It is the current trend to see anonymous comments attached to news stories at any popular news or sporting news site. Click on any hot topic and you’ll soon see the comments turn to ridicule and nonsense soon enough.

Michael Kessler in the Post article argues that intelligent, careful, and creative online writing is under assault by reckless commenters hostile to reason:

And then we watch helplessly while anonymous commenters hijack threads and launch screed upon hateful screed in every direction.

There’s nothing so deflating as to spend lots of time polishing off a thoughtful piece and then look at the comments to see lunatics ranting about Nostradamus-style end-times prophecy. Or conspiracy theories.

Worse are the haters and mockers who would disagree with even a simple hello. Worst are those who fail to read with any care, hurling canned insults at us, at each other, and at their political, religious, and moral opponents.

Michael Kessler cites a few examples of stories cursed by this affliction.

Can you find examples of “Anonymous Commenters Behaving Badly” in public stories at cbc.ca or tsn.ca (or some other news or sporting news site)?

Post a link to the story, state its main idea, then quote an example of the type of comment Michael Kessler cautions us about. What is your take on “The Problem with Anonymous Commenting”?

STJ School Forum : Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology : The Problem with Anonymous Commenting

The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
shmyshak, November 13, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
camyshak, November 4, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
krochford, November 4, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
dsader, November 4, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
klumayko, November 3, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
hcarlson, November 2, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
cdejong, November 2, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
apoliakiwski, November 2, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
jtimpano, November 2, 2009
The Problem with Anonymous Commenting in Staying Human in an Engineered Age : Test our relationship with technology
kmarsh, November 2, 2009

©2010 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

How do we write more, while at the same time we write less? This paradox occurred to me today while talking about writing with a student at STJ.

I also thought about the popularity of Twitter with its 150 characters “tweets” compared to the effort to maintain a blog with its posts in the 3-5 paragraph range.

Consider this analogy: Blog posts are to essays as “tweets” are to _________.

So I’ve weighed a couple of options:

• First, each blog could have a post dedicated to the blog owner’s current book(s) they are reading or have read. The initial post could be nothing more than an simple introduction to the author, title, and a cover picture. Now the blog owner comments on a regular basis on their own post – say 6-8 times or more per book until the book is finished(or put aside for another book). In the end, a quick visit to this page would provide evidence of “Book Talk”. I’ve added a “meta box” of Book Talk tips to the post edit form.
• Second, visit the STJ Forums and look for the Book Talk category.

STJ School Forum : Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion

The Lovely Bones in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
meghan, February 3, 2010
Nicholas Sparks' writing in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
mpottle, February 3, 2010
Nicholas Sparks' writing in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
aneigum, February 3, 2010
Nicholas Sparks' writing in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
ncourchesne, February 3, 2010
Nicholas Sparks' writing in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
jmcauley, February 3, 2010
Holes By Louis Sachar in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
skrys, February 3, 2010
Playing With Fire By Theo Fleury in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
tyberg, February 3, 2010
Playing With Fire By Theo Fleury in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
tyberg, February 3, 2010
The Lovely Bones in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
melyne, February 3, 2010
The Ellie Chronicles in Book Talk : Fiction Book Discussion
asommer, February 3, 2010

©2010 Pingo Lingo. All Rights Reserved.

I stumbled onto an online function grapher that pumps out nice looking graphs of non-linear equations:

I used a screen grab (Command+Shift+4 on a Mac), saved, and renamed the picture and uploaded it to this blog’s media library.

I haven’t figured out how to print and upload screen caps using the T-83, yet. I’ll need to download software, which at home is simple enough, but the iMacs in the lab won’t have the Connect Software.

Anyway, graphs such the above example have some advantages over the T-83 graphs, I figure.

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

Look at the weather map on page 48. Could it be smaller? Seriously. There is an even more indecipherable example in the teacher’s guide, which when photocopied is just plain impossible to see anything.

So, here’s an up to date Environment Canada weather map from http://weatheroffice.gc.ca/model_forecast/index_e.html

September 15, 2009 atmospheric pressure measured in hectopascals (hPa)

Example questions:

1. What is the lowest pressure in Canada predicted by this map?
2. What is the highest pressure in Canada predicted by this map?
3. What are the atmospheric pressures in Vermilion, Toronto, and Victoria?

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

If you start with some stuff, then later you have more or less stuff, what percentage did the amount of stuff you have change?

Comparing two numbers by describing its “percentage increase/decrease/change” is a common math skill.

Now keep in mind that to an English student the words “increase” and “decrease” are obviously opposite, but to a Math student the words can mean the same thing – a negative increase is equivalent to a positive decrease.

If you start with 40 “stuff” and end with 20 “stuff” would you describe it as a 50% decrease or a -50% increase?

http://www.ehow.com/how_4449676_calculate-percentage-increase.html

http://www.marshu.com/articles/calculate-percentage-increase-decrease-percent-calculator.php

http://www.tellmehowto.net/howto/calculate_percentage_change_6409

http://www.ask.com/questions-about/Calculate-Percentage-Change

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

Answer #2 page 14

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

Have a look at the Glyphs project from the Applied Math 11 project book.

Pick your partner.
Pick your topic.
Plan your project.

Look at the timeline for Topic 1. When is it due?

What day next week will be a work on project class. What will you need to do to prepare?

In 8-10 days, what will your final project be about and what will it look like? What will we be able to hang on the walls?

Leave a comment summarizing your decisions so far about the project.

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.

Someone asked me how many books we could buy for $14000 in one of the problems in Tutorial 1.1, but the way we looked at the linegraph, we were trying to price out 14,000 books. Holy Smokes!!!

Simply find $14,000 on the y-axis, look across at the red line then down to the x-axis … there’s the number of books.

We’ll try to do the best thinking we can with the problems raised tomorrow.

Another tip, the data from a graph may have once been in a table/spreadsheet, put it back and you may see a pattern there as well.

Thanks for sharing texts for the first day, should have new ones tomorrow from BSS in Wainwright.

Looking ahead, does everyone have a graphing calculator?

Course Outline

Detailed plan and timeline for Topic 1: Graphing and Design

©2009 Applied Math 20. All Rights Reserved.