College Research & Video Project

The AVID Juniors will be doing some research on the laptop computers over the next two weeks.

They will choose a college, research for information about it, find pictures and video to go with their school and then create a video from the website animoto to describe it.

The page below is used to guide their research:

College Research Project for AVID

The students will create an account on Animoto and then upload pictures and choose text and a song to create their videos. Using Animoto is very easy and friendly to use. Mr. Duez has a code that unlocks the site and will share that during the class period.

Very excited to see what you guys come up with! We'll link to the videos here on the blog when they are finished.

Agenda: Wednesday, Sept 30, 2009 & Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Wake me up when September ends." - Green Day

TUTORING TODAY - Bring a high level question, energy and willingness to learn.

Juniors (4th Period):
After tutoring we will be using the laptops, a grade check form and then working on a video project.

Sophomores (7th Period):
After tutoring we will be using the laptops, a grade check form and then working on the road trip nation website. Road Trip Nation.com and Road Trip Nation.org

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Quote of the Day: "Be a fountain, not a drain." ~Rex Hudler

Today we will do tutoring.
Bring a Level 2 or 3 Question.

Thank you for all of your hard work Tutors! You guys are doing a great job. We appreciate it.

Juniors will get permission slips for the Oct. 13th trip to UTSA.
Sophomores will get invites to the Parent Meeting on Oct. 6th @ 6pm in the PAC.

Agenda: Monday, Sept. 28, 2009

Quote of the Day: "You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth." - Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

Agenda:

Sophomores will be in the Blue LGI for a guest speaker.

Juniors -
1. Weekly Goal due at the beginning of the period. (2 Sentences, 1: What is your goal of the week? 2: How will you achieve that goal? Goals should be measurable, attainable, and important)
2. We will be discussing the packet that you received on Thursday during the sub. "AVID COLLEGE READINESS: Working With Sources"
part 1 - Analyzing the Prompt.
We will work in class to analyze college prompts for writing.
3. Inspirational Video (if time)

Did You Know? Videos

Earlier this week we were going to watch an episode of Road Trip Nation but the Internet was down. So I pulled out the New Did You Know 4.0 video.

How do you feel about our rapidly changing society? How do stats like "there are 240 million TV sets in America and 2 Million of them are in bathrooms!" -and- there are as many Facebook users as Americans! Over 300 Million.

Crazy, huh?

Agenda: Friday, Sept. 25, 2009

Quote of the day:
"Video Killed the Radio Star." -- Lyrics from the very first video on MTV by the Buggles. Aired at midnight on Aug. 1, 1981

Learning Target:
Juniors -- What is Road Trip Nation? How are we going to use it in AVID III? What does the phrase "Don't Fall Asleep at the Wheel" mean to you?

Sophomores -- What is a scholarship scam? How can I improve my chances of doing well in college?

Agenda:
Juniors will discuss Road Trip Nation. They will watch a video about Bev Kearney, UT Track and Field Coach. They will take cornell notes with a reflection. We will also see "Don't Fall Asleep at the Wheel." Students will take notes and reflect at the end. If time, we will group up and discuss our path to success. What will it look like?

Sophomores: We will be in the Blue LGI for Lilly Chu from the BBB (Better Business Bureau). She is going to be our Guest Speaker and discuss important topics like: Scholarship Scams and Cell Phones.

Have a great weekend!

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009

Tutoring Today! We will come with high level questions and work well with our awesome tutors. Let's get some work done.

Agenda: Monday, Sept. 21, 2009

Quote of the day: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'" - Yoda.

Agenda:
1) Correct Binders. We will do a student self check of their binder. The rubric is:

2.5 inch Binder itself: 60 points
Pencil Pouch: 10 points
5 Dividers: 10 points
Agenda/Calendar with class schedules, test dates, scores, and weekly goals written: 10 points
Cornell Notes: 10 points (to get credit for Cornell Notes this week the student needs to have 5 pages of perfect notes. That means they must have the heading (name, date, period), Title of the notes (subject and what the topic was), Notes in the right column, Questions and terms in the left, and a summary. One summary = one page of cornell notes. Perfect notes means that they must have all of the above to get the 10 points on 5 pages. If they are missing anything, the page doesn't count. If they don't have 5 pages, they get a 0.

Students can reassess their binders through the remainder of the week to bring their grade up to an 85, if it is below an 85. Binder grades = 60% of the total six week's grade.

2) We will watch an episode of Road Trip Nation and take cornell notes and write summaries. Even the juniors will see an episode so that they understand what it is and how it works. Mr. Duez will be going to Road Trip Nation training on Thursday and will not be here for school. It will be exciting to see how the training goes. The materials will be used mostly for 10th graders.

Open House Tonight @ AHS - 6pm.

Open house is tonight at 6pm at Atascocita High School. Hope you can make it.

We will be following a bell schedule so that you have equal opportunity to meet with all of your teachers.

Open House Bell Schedule
Monday, September 21, 2009
6:00 - 8:32

6:00 - 6:25 Parent can pick up child's schedule in front of the library

6:25 Bell rings for parents to head to 1st period
6:30 - 6:40 First Period
6:46 - 6:56 Second Period
7:02 - 7:12 Advisory
7:18 - 7:28 Third Period
7:34 - 7:44 Fourth Period
7:50 - 8:00 Fifth Period
8:06 - 8:16 Sixth Period
8:22 - 8:32 Seventh Period

Friday, September 18, 2009

Quote of the day: "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence." Robert Frost

AVID Sophomores 7th period - Guest Speaker in Red LGI

AVID Juniors 4th period - Guest speaker could not make it for today. We will see them again at a later date.

1. We will continue our socratic seminar over the text from US News and World Report "What students are most successful in college?"

2. We will also get into AP study groups to prepare for any upcoming papers or tests that are coming.

Super Site for Citing: Knight Cite

This is a great site for citing sources:

Knight Cite

It does MLA, APA and Chicago styles. Looks like this could definitely be helpful in creating source pages.

Hope it helps you in your AP Classes.

Agenda: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 & Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

Quote of the day: "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell if a man is wise by his questions." -- Naquib Mahfouz, 1988 Nobel Prize winner in literature from Egypt

Today is 80's dress up day. Pop your collars and peg your jeans. Yeah. (this is bring back bad high school memories for Mr. Duez - graduate of the year 1988!)

Agenda:
1. Tutoring
2. Socratic Seminar on the text from US News & World Report: "Which High School Students Are Most Likely to Graduate From College?
A study finds surprising evidence about which students are really on the path to a college degree"
By Kim Clark
Posted September 9, 2009
Here is the link if you were out of class: Socratic Seminar Text - Which are most likely to graduate

We will annotate the text, read in class, and then come up with 2 questions as we read. Then we will have a circle to discuss.

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009

It is "Tacky Tourist" Dress up day for Homecoming today. "Wow. I look good." -- Mr. Duez

Tutoring Today

Have a level 2 or 3 question. Participate in tutoring. Let's get after it in tutoring. I know we all need help.

Thursday - Tutoring & Road Trip Nation.

Rock On!

It's homecoming week. And it's dressup day. Today was "Rock T-Shirts." Rock on dude.

Agenda: Monday, Sept. 14, 2009

Today is the beginning of Homecoming Celebration week. Today is "Rock T'Shirt Day!" Mr. Duez will be sporting his Led Zeppelin T'shirt.

Quote:
"If the mountains crumble to the sea there will always be you and me." - Led Zep (Robert Plant)

Targets:
*Learn the fundamentals of a good socratic seminar
*Review how to set weekly goals

Agenda:
Warmup - Create weekly goal for this week. Must be 2 sentences: What is the goal, How will you accomplish the goal? (Must be measurable, meaningful and show how you will accomplish it)
Solve a mystery in class in groups. The mystery is a bank robbery. Each group will have 5 clues per person. They must work together to determine what must have happened. First group member to get the answer right wins a prize. :)

Agenda: Friday, Sept. 11, 2009

"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Junior AVID (4th Period):
1. Finish Obama's speech to school children. Discuss.
2. Read in class Campbell's "Six Characteristics of Exceptional Leaders."
3. Discuss which are the most important characteristics.
4. Explain how we'll be using Campbell's work over the next semester to write a research paper as a class on a leader.

Sophomore AVID (7th Period):
1. Road Trip Nation - Finish Episode 2 of 2007
2. Discuss Careers in class. What are their goals?
3. Quickwrite: "When I'm as old as Duez, I will be... "

Have a great weekend.

Inspiration: Heather and Troy

Watching the Steelers-Titans opening NFL game of the year and saw this on twitter at the 1/2. Very inspirational. A reminder to all of us to enjoy each day we are given and to try to make our lives here together the best we can.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Agenda: Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 & Thursday, Sept. 10th, 2009

Tutoring - students will come with a level 2 or 3 question for tutoring. 1/2 period is tutoring.

Rest of the period is - Binder Checks (test grade) and watching President Obama's address to school kids, taking cornell notes on it, and writing a reflection and discussing what the president talked about.

We will work on the college essay on Friday and check out an episode of Road Trip Nation.

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009

TUTORING

We will have full tutoring today. Our tutors are still working on being trained and we will only grade the notes during the session. Please bring your tutoring question. We will work on making that better in class if it is not level 2 or 3.

Wed/Thu - we will grade the binders. Make sure it is in order.

Progress Report date is Friday. Be sure you are up to date with your work in your classes and attending tutoring if needed.

President Obama's Address to School Children

What do you think about President Obama's speech on Tuesday? We will not be watching it during class because it is tutoring time on Tuesdays. But, I plan to show it on Friday during class to give everyone a chance to discuss it. Maybe even have a Philosophical Chairs debate?

This speech has caused some controversy. But, you can already read the planned remarks because they have been released by the White House.

Read the President's Planned Remarks - His Speech for Tuesday

Here are a couple of news videos that give a good slice of the different sides of the controversy. In the past other Presidents have done a similar address to school children, but is what President Obama doing different and do you agree with what he is going to say?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Agenda: Friday, Sept. 4, 2009

Juniors will meet in their AP study groups to prepare for upcoming papers and tests.

Sophomores will watch the end of last episode of Road Trip Nation and write about what they saw in a reflection. We will also explore the RTN website.

Both groups will have a binder check by Mr. Duez.

Binders will be graded next week. You have until Tuesday to get them into order.

Have a GREAT Holiday Weekend.

Sophomores: "Road Trip Nation"

This year we will be experiencing "Road Trip Nation" as a sophomore class. It has already been a cool experience and we aren't really even sure what we are doing yet! We have watched the intro first episode from the 2007 season. Here it is:

Students today in class did a quick pre-write on this topic:
1) What do you expect out of Road Trip Nation this year?

2) During the episode we wrote notes and questions that we were unsure about.

3) After the video we wrote a reflection and summary of what we saw.

We had about 3 or 4 minutes of the video to watch before it was over when the bell rang. (Bad timing on my part~Mr. Duez strikes again!) So we will watch the last few minutes as a warmup on Friday and then discuss.

During this episode - from 2007, they interviewed Joshua Jackson. He is personally one of my favorite actors. This interviewed occurred before his current hit show "Fringe." It is one of Mr. and Mrs. Duez's favorite shows. So it was so neat to hear his opinions on his early life and his philosophy. He is definitely a wise man and I think everyone learned a lot from his approach.

Check out the Fringe website here: Fringe TV Show Site on FOX.com

Agenda: Wed. Sept. 2, 2009

"Confidence is the companion of success."

Today we will be tutoring for the first 1/2 of the period and then working on our tutoring skills for the second 1/2.

Bring a tutor question and be ready to help others.

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009

Tutoring
1. Meet the tutors
2. Look at tutoring questions
3. Juniors will divide up into groups with their tutors and begin. Sophomores will work on levels of questioning, watch a tutoring video with the tutors, and then do a mock session of tutoring.

For next time -
Bring a tutoring question.