Almost Done, With Some Discoveries

I am now almost done my inquiry. I did most of the work, but now all that’s left to do are some calculations and the presentation. I have 4 days left to finish this, and I think I can do it. But not to skip over the whole morning, we finished our test/survey for the study on happiness. Then we did our online courses, but the internet was really slow, and my screen look like fifty shades of gray. All I have to work on now is the calculation of installation, I calculated that it would cost $21,996 without the installation. Mr. Sarte said that people spend something like $20,000,  that number  is somewhat close to what people spend on a kitchen renovation. So it  is in a realistic price range, but mind you that the house we are calculating this with is 25% smaller.

Inquiry, Things and Stuff

We did the happiness stuff this morning, it was fun, I actually didn’t struggle with an idea for once. After that I did some Rosetta Stone french, and I realized that it understands you better when you speak slowly. After lunch I did my inquiry and had some issues. Me and Liam calculated that with 20 solar panels, that we could produce more than enough energy for the house. It something seemed wrong, a calculation. I think that it had something to do with the fact that the solar panels produced 225 watts. It didn’t say if it ways watt hours or watt months or what. It really made me confused, because with those solar panels I wouldn’t need the expensive wind turbine. Because I would be able to produce 8212 kilowatts per year. But it just doesn’t sound right. I’ll ask my dad tonight though how much energy that would be. I asked Mr. Sarte just now and it seems totally reasonable, which is really surprising.

Final Day of Research

Where I am right now
I am in between the research and the solution

Where I plan to be at 2:45
Where i plan to be at 3 is done if not near done the research part of the inquiry.

Where I am at 2:45
I am getting everything together and done my reseach all I have to do are some calculations to do

Today we did some report card stuff, then our online courses. In the afternoon I did my inquiry and figured out what I’m going to do a webpage

Friday, October 12, 2012

Today we did some digital media with Mr.Truss, he taught and showed us how to get creative commons photos and how to do some other cool stuff. For my inquiry I started to look into nano technologies and how they could help. I found a good source for that, my main problem now is that I don’t have any really good ideas for the presentation part. I was thinking of doing a diorama  or maybe a video, but were still in the Alpha stage. If I were to make a video it could be a commercial, stop motion or event a power point in video format. If I were to make a diorama it could be cardboard, but that would look kinda bad.

October Scavenger Hunt

1.  a) Learning to cite and source – Scavenger hunt

b) Definitions of cats by Dictionary

“a small domesticated carnivore, Felis domestica  or F. catus, bred in a number of varieties.” – Dictionary

October 12, 2012

2. a)  Summery of Under the Following Condition

Attribution means you can only use the picture in a manor in which the artist wants it to be used. So if the artist only wants t to be used for blogs only use it for blogs.

Noncommercial means that you cannot use the photo to make money and commercial purposes.

Share Alike translates into if you change or add onto the picture you have to distribute the photo under the same license as the original photo

Source: Creative Commons License

b) A site you could use to search creative commons photos on is Wikimedia Commons

I found that the wikimedia Commons compared to Compfight  and Flickr is kinda outmatched. I searched a couple of things, like an image of a laptop and some animals, and I found that the photos on Flickr and Compfight are much better quality and there are much more than the wikimedia. So in summary Compfight and Flickr are much better for Creative Commons photos than wikimedia, but hey if you need another to site to look for CC photos, then try it. But mind you this is just my opinion.

3. Create a Motivational Poster

4. “Am I free to copy facts and ideas?” – Intellectual Property

Yes. You are free to report the facts and ideas embodied in another person’s article or web page. Copyright only protects the expression — the combination of words and structure that expresses the factual information — not the facts themselves. – Intellectual Property

Well, what does this bunch of words mean? It means that you can report facts and ideas from other peoples articles, blogs and web pages. The copyright only protects the way the words are placed, So if I copyrighted The sun is a star, you could say that the sun is a large burning ball of fire known as a star.

 

Tuesday, October 9 2012

Today I finish the secont topic of biology, and started working on my inquiry question which is, how do you design a self sustainable house. Or in other words, a house that uses only the power it creates. I did some research on the different types of clean and sustainable energy. I found that the best solutions are wind energy and solar energy, and that I would need to produce around 12,000 kilowatts of electricity a year.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Aujourd’hui I had to think of an inquiry question, which I didn’t end up doing. After many hours of thinking I have not come up with a good enough question for my inquiry. Then emotion I am felling because of this is indescribable. I hope to come up with a question asap, I am most likely going to do my inquiry in the subject of science, more specifically space travel.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Just a couple of hours ago Mr. Whiffen explained to us how to formulate an inquiry question. Now that I know how to make an inquiry question, I have to chose a topic from either science, socials, English or math. I’m thinking of doing a science topic ,maybe the topic on space travel, maybe. Even though my first inquiry is finished I still need to collect what remains of that project, analyse it and think on how I could improve it, or could have improved it and implement these things into my next inquiry.

I guess since we aren’t allowed to use any slide presentations, I will most likely make a video of some sort. Maybe a mix between lego stop motion and me, or maybe a stop motion of some doodles. Ya that might work.

Feedback

a.       What was the best suggestion or feedback that you got from classmates that commented in the forum? Who posted the comment?

The best suggestion from classmates was “I suggest more detailed information” from Aaron Creighton, there were allot of people who said that not just Aaron. I chose that suggestion because, we didn’t display all the information we had. And I know how we could have put on more information.

b.      Was the feedback useful? Why or why not?

Yes the feedback was useful, not just Aaron’s though. The information was useful for sure, you have to learn from your mistakes. So in a simpler form that is what I need to improve on for next time.

2.       Reflection

I think that our presentation was okay, it definitely was no amazing, we definitely could have better. Although we had allot of information we did not display it all.

a.      What is a key thing that you learned about inquiry learning? (the process of your inquiry)

The key think that I learned about inquiry learning, is that you need to learn from your mistakes and other people mistakes, and that it is not easy to do an inquiry.

b.      What do you need help with in order to improve?

What I need help with to improve is how to present an inquiry and dig deeper.