Shasmeen - Blog 3

    

    Welcome to another AEP Blog! AEP this week was fairly relaxed, and I was able to keep up with the lessons even with a lot of technical issues.

    First of all, I have to explain why none of my other blogs are published. I'm actually not sure why, but all I know is that sometimes I'm locked from editing or publishing my blogs if I close the tab and don't come back for a long period of time. I'm hoping that I'll be able to publish this one!

    Okay, onto this week's classes. I had been able to wake up much earlier than usual, so I had quite a long time to prepare for class. This is somewhat a good thing for me, since I take a long time to fully wake up

    Once the meet had been started, I joined quickly and went over to Typeshift. Most of my blogs (counting the ones from last year), mention that I enjoy playing Typeshift. Well, there was no difference today! I finished well enough at a minute and 53 seconds.

    While typing in my time on the Google Sheets, Miss Disa started the lesson with our entrance ticket. I went over to Miro to see three sticky notes: on each one were "friend", "mate", and "partner". We were told to write down our understanding of each of the words under their respective sticky note. Me, Meral, and Chloe got to work immediately. 

    After we were all done writing our definitions, Miss Disa gave a more visual and in-depth explanation on each of the words. By drawing the relationships out, it surely was much easier for all of us to understand them. A friend is someone you are properly acquainted with, while a mate is someone you are much more casual and well acquainted with.

    Now, we started talking about the definition of "partner". Miss Disa explained that partners are people one is in a romantic relationship with (or maybe the both of you are cowboys, who knows?). This is a convenient word, because it might be one is in the situation that they don't want to give too much information on their partner's background. It also may apply to gender neutral people, people who are not sure of their gender identity or are more like themselves by identifying as such. 

    I have a lot of online friends and a few real life friends who identify as non-binary (a more common term for gender neutral). One of them fluctuated between gender identities, too. I really appreciate that this topic was brought up by Miss Disa clearly and with good meaning.

    We then started our assessments for the day. Like a few weeks ago, we had a matching activity for the topic words in the lesson. We all finished fast enough as we were familiar with this type of work. We read our answers out loud, and Miss went on to explain the differences between "estate" and "inheritance". 

    Before, I always thought that the two were interchangeable and meant the same thing, but that wasn't the case. Apparently, an estate is the all of the property, which includes money, furniture, pets, jewelry, and other worldly items being given to a person or group. Inheritance, on the other hand, is a portion of all possessions that is handed over to close family and friends.

     After those two activities, our ten minute break gave us a good rest from the screen.

   When the ten minutes were over, the next assessment was to read a paragraph on how parents should treat their adult children. I found the topic interesting and skimmed the text immediately. We were only given 30 seconds to read it, but I already started before I noticed the timer hadn't started, oops!

    The timer dinged to signal the end of our allotted reading time, and Miss Disa hid the paragraph. We were instructed to write a short summary of the text. I finished mine quickly, and looked over at the others'. Once everyone was finished, Miss made corrections and suggestions as to how to make our summaries more precise. Mine was already very short, so I thought about adding something before deciding against it, to keep my interpretation clear.

    At last, we had reached our last activity for the day. Miss allowed us to choose how we would like to do it using a poll. If you couldn't tell from my classmate's blogs, I was the one who chose the individual option. I chose the one I was most comfortable with, but I would be okay with the result if it wasn't individual. A few seconds later, it was concluded that we would be doing the last activity as a team.

    I went back over to Miro, and I noticed something weird was happening to my mouse cursor. It was jittering wildly. This had happened a few times before. In a panic, I rushed to shut down my laptop before I remembered I was in class. I told Meral using my tablet that my touchpad might be damaged and that I might miss the end of AEP. She told me that she would inform Miss Disa.

    After that problem had been solved, I checked around my touchpad if there had been any water. There was. A small droplet possibly from my nearby water bottle had made it's way onto my laptop. Quickly wiping it off, I continued to inspect if any more droplets had come near.

    A few more minutes of checking I was able to confirm that my laptop could be switched on again. But, of course, I had missed the last minutes of AEP! Nevertheless, I still went over to Miro to complete my Exit Ticket.

    And that concludes this Blog. Thank you so much for reading!

-AEP-Janek-Blog 3 "chapter 3, A bad day doesn't mean you have a bad life"

        This week of AEP was another week filled with many works that I was unaware of. Tuesday was another gruesomely suspenseful day. I sat there, In front of my laptop, waiting for that AEP feed to update.  Every time I did my other works, I would check AEP's feed from time to time. And to my surprise it was very effective, I got to see miss's announcements early. 

        

        Miss thankfully didn't add much to the feed because my homework were starting to stack up, especially in most of the minor subjects. Instead, she just added some pictures showing a group work that they completed that Tuesday.  It had something to do with family relationships, which was expected. But other than that, nothing else. 

           You know, the feed isn't the only thing I can use to get to know what happens in class. I can actually use blogger as well. Reading my friends blog really helps me catch up to things. Their detailing really helps with knowing what "Exactly" happened on that date, so if miss were to ever post something on Miro some of their blogs would say something like, "Miss gave an activity on Miro, we read the sticky note and we did some work" it's not exactly like that, but you get the point. 

            Being in online school has really been putting pressure on me. I try to find new ways to make learning and doing works quicker and more efficient, since most of the time I am occupied here. I have to move places because of my parent's work, and having to adjust to the continuous travelling makes it difficult.

            

            Subjects with recordings especially have an effect on this. Most of the time I am out, so I have to decide to just watch the recording or do the hw. Some days or weeks this is easy when hw's/recordings aren't stacked. But, when they are, it's a nightmare. sometimes I have to exceed my bedtime by 2-3 hours. but thankfully all that stressful venturing will be put to an end on the 1st week of September. More specifically September 4th. This will stop the mass amount of stacked hw and recordings. I'll have much time to myself then.

    

            During my free time I still try to study, so that I can get a true understanding of my lessons. I really hate being behind. You don't know what your missing until you watch a recording. So sometimes, if ever I don't feel like playing my games or going outside, I try to rewatch the video's or takes notes. Thing is, AEP doesn't have these recordings. Instead, we have a collaborative board where they get to answers questions by miss Disa. But since I have a different situation, I will be given random questions about their lessons or questions. 

            having a different routine from what my class normally does, I have to do these other special tasks. It's, I guess, Better in a way. I get to have a variety of different works. It makes me feel like they are all getting the usual and I get some random or unique questions. Miss Disa only does this so that I don't copy their answers through the board. But still, I find it cool.

               From what I've learned, the many couple weeks and days that had many homework due was just 1 of many day's/weeks that are to come...I know the stress sounds real, but there is always hope in finishing a job if only you believe. Sure, you didn't have a good day at school. And sure, you are having problems answering your homework. But...that's just one bad day. Having a bad day is never a good thing, but don't keep that gloomy mindset. All I can say is, never make a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life. There are many days in a year which you can make better. There is many room for improvement. So, If you ever feel like you aren't doing good enough, like I did, just don't. The reason what makes you who you are is that you strive, you try, and you accomplish. Even if you may fall, you can always stand up right?

                AEP has been a crazy adventure last year, but with my special routine this year, who knows what may come to me. All I know is that Me and My class are gonna make the most out of this schoolyear. We are going to try to have the most fun this year, and making a couple memories along. I can't wait for what changes AEP will bring to me in this year. You can say that this year's book could be the better sequel 👀. We will never know until this book closes ;). onward to our next chapter!

Trip to A Busy City- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 3

 Hello😊 Welcome back to another blog of mine! Before I start, I would like to expand to what I am meaning to say in the title. A Trip to A Busy City shows that this week's AEP class was filled with lots of activities and work. Not only that, but also the atmosphere pretty much seemed like one. It is a trip since it is one that you wouldn't want to pass over or miss! If you are willing to be a part of this trip, you may as well read the rest of this blog😃.

Typeshift

The Monday started with the usual Typeshift. I was hoping to get a better score than last time. Unfortunately, I had fallen a step back😞. I finished it in 2 minutes and 18 seconds. On the bright side, the result wasn't that bad and was still better than what I have expected from the experience duration of the puzzle activity😀. We wrote down our scores in the google sheets titled "AEP8 TYPESHIFT".

Entrance Ticket

Afterward, we did our entrance ticket. Miss Disa sent us a link that drove us straight to Miro. There were 3 sticky notes each containing a word📑. At the first glimpse, I thought that I had clicked the wrong link since we had already done a seatwork about this concept. In a matter of seconds, I realized the actual purpose of an entrance ticket is to remember past activities and assessments💡. Whereas an exit ticket is to write down your thoughts and feelings about the day. To get an overview, the words in the sticky notes were: friend, mate, and partner. 

Miss Disa instructed the class to fill in the sticky note with the meanings of each word. In that way, Miss Disa can get to know our general idea about these words and use them as evidence that we had read the comments in the assessment in Unit 1📜. Weeks ago, I had read it and knew some details about the meaning and difference between the words. I started typing... 💬

Once everyone was done, Miss Disa gave a broad explanation. A friend is someone you know but aren't that close with and you don't hang out together as much as a mate. A mate is someone you hang out with and have a close bond together. Honestly, I was quite surprised by the difference between the words😮. I had always thought that mate was only an informal word for friend. 

Moving on, Miss Disa talked about the word "partner". There are people that rather choose not to give much information about the relationship they are in. Therefore, they use the word: partner. Miss Disa also talked about gender neutrals. They are people that are unsure of their gender. This conversation gave me a better understanding about these concepts👍. 

Activities and Assesments

Next, we had a matching activity. Sounds familiar? Well, yes. This was also from a previous session in AEP class. There were in total 12 words to match to their definitions. Some of the words being: widower, will, and deceased. These are words related to family and death. The activity finished alot faster than I've expected😄. Miss Disa asked each of us to read the definition of the words in order. 

Miss Disa highlighted the words "inheritance and estate" by writing them into sticky notes of two shades of pink🎀. Basically, inheritance is something one gives to their loved ones when they pass away💸✉. It can come in different forms like cash, jewelry, or valuable objects. Meanwhile, estate is all the money or property given to their loved ones💰.

After all the work, we had a ten minute break✨. Following up, we moved on the next activity. There was an extract that we had to skim- read. This reminded me of Reading classes. It was one of my favorite class and it sure was one that I truly enjoyed. Miss Disa put on a 30 second timer⏲. Not goanna lie, I was quite panicked. Panic does no good in situations like these. Therefore, I started reading when there was only a few seconds left for the timer to finish😨. As you might have guessed, I couldn't finish the extract. Honestly, the extract was quite short but I was quite slow. 

The time had come. We were going to write down the main details we could grasp as we had schemed through the text. Miss Disa hid it from us so that we could write down our answers without reading it one more time. Chloe and Shasmeen were going on the right track. As for me, it was as if I had read another passage🤔. I did get a thing or two about the topic but was looking at it in another perspective. The passage was a reminder that parents should treat their adult children as adults and not as kids. Luckily, Miss Disa gave everyone another try to form one sentence about the topic in another sticky note😃. This time around, I was sucessful in forming a correct explanation. 

Answering the Poll Question

Moving onward, there was only one last task to complete! When Miss Disa placed the image of the page of reading extracts and questions, I was both excited and scared. Miss Disa gave us a choice on whether we wanted to work as a team or individually❓. She placed a poll in the activities section in google meet. I was not sure at all. Chloe and Shasmeen had answered the question quite quickly. 

As to Miss Disa's expression and to what she said, I am guessing it was a tie. I was the one who was to make the final decision. I was still deciding on my answer. I kept switching from teamwork to individually and vice versa🔍. All of a sudden, I accidentelly clicked vote when my option was teamwork. I was shocked. Miss Disa announced that we were going to work as a team due to two out of three voting for that option. I went along with it. I have to say, I didn't regret a thing🎉!

The Final Assesment

The assesment could have taken alot longer if we had done it individually. Plus, it would have been harder for us. The teamwork was real! Everybody answered about the same amount of questions🎯. Shasmeen disappeard in the last few minutes of answering the seatwork. She messaged me to inform that her computer mouse was acting up and that she had to restart her computer. Therefore, I told Miss Disa. When we were all done, Miss Disa checked each of the questions with a tick mark✅. We got an "excellent work" stamp. 

Exit Ticket

Finally, we did our exit ticket. I chose a blue sticky note since it matched the background picture which was a feather falling from the sky💫. I wrote down my thoughts and feelings about the two AEP classes of the day. Once we were both done, we each said our goodbyes to Miss Disa. 

Thank you so much for reading another of my blogs! Have a great weekend✌! 

Signing off - Meral

Variety -AEP- Chloe -Blog 3

 

Having a variety of different things in your life can make you grow stronger. Sticking to something you know well prevents you from growing. Taking chances and including new things in your world is what life's all about. And it's exactly the lesson I learned in this week's AEP class. 

Logging in at 8:32 a.m., I headed over to "Typeshift" when I quickly glimpsed the announcement in our stream. I finished in a minute and ten seconds and posted it at the usual spot. 

Starting the class right away, Miss Disa sent our entrance ticket link. Waiting for us there were three sticky notes each containing a word: friend, mate, and partner. Instructed to write their meanings, I grabbed a pretty, light pink post-it and began typing. 

Did you know that friend and mate are actually different? A friend is someone you know a little about, but you don’t hang out with them as much as a mate does. To be honest, I didn’t really even know there was a difference until we did that activity two weeks ago.

Moving on, after we were finished, Miss Disa explained to us the different meanings of each. She grabbed her tablet and drew pink stickmen to represent their relationships.

Surprisingly, this method was very effective! I guess I’m more of a visual learner after all.

Then, Miss Disa got into a rather serious talk about partners. She explained that lots of people use this term to say they’re in a relationship with someone without giving them too much background. For instance, if a woman is married to another woman, she doesn’t have to say she has a wife if she doesn’t want to. Instead, she can say she has a partner.

The conversation got to the point where we talked about gender neutrals, people who don’t know which gender they are. I’m really familiar with this topic since some of my friends have actually come out to me.

 I’m glad that she addressed this to the class. It really shows how Miss Disa thinks we’re ready to learn more about the diversity in our world.

Anyways, we moved on to the next activity with a new mindset, one much more open. It was the same task we were assigned to do two weeks ago, specifically the one where we had to match the words to their correct definitions. Wow, I am sure getting a lot of deja vu.

Once again, the board kept shifting every time someone accidentally touched it (including myself). Not to mention the straight line problem last time too; however, I did discover a line tool to help with that.  To fit the atmosphere, I also chose the same lime green color. Hopefully the luck didn't already wash off.

This time, we were a lot faster in answering. We finished in about 3 minutes and were ordered to read the answer in this order: myself, Meral, and Shasmeen. (Apparently, James has dropped out of AEP and moved to ESL class, so it'll just be us, girls, from now on.) 

It was quick and short, but we went into a more in depth explanation this time. Our teacher mainly focused on estate and inheritance. They are quite similar, except for the fact that estate means everything will be bequeathed to particular people; whereas, inheritance means only a portion of the total possessions will be bequeathed to their loved ones.

Now you may be wondering what bequeath means. Until an AEP meeting, I had no clue either! It's pretty much another word that means giving. For some strange reason, one of my TV shows that I watched right after also used the word. Crazy, right? I guess it's a more common word than I thought. 

After that little breakdown, we had our ten minute break. It was after this when we started completing even more tasks.

Miss Disa had posted the full definitions of estate and inheritance on the board. I got to read the inheritance sticky note, while Meral read the other. 

By 9:28, that's when Miss Disa started freezing. Her voice was a bit choppy, but it cleared up eventually. 

The day was packed with activities that  just kept coming and coming! The next one was an excerpt that we needed to read in thirty seconds. I speeded through, trying to grasp and soak up all the information I could. 

The thirty second timer was up and we basically had to summarize the whole passage into two sentences. Our teacher hid the passage, so that there'd be no cheating. I chose a light yellow post-it notes and wrote how it was mainly about how parents should accept their kids being adults as they grow older. 

Eventually, she showed us the excerpt and told us to modify our definitions to match the passage. Mine had pretty much the same concept as the text, so I just shortened it.

I have to admit that these exercises seem to be effective. They force me to speed up and enhance my summarizing skills, which can make me faster at answering homeworks, seatworks, exams, and tests in not only AEP, but in other subjects too!

Finally, Miss Disa told us that our last activity would be done as a team or individually depending on the poll she would post. I voted for "teamwork" because I figured that it would be a lot faster and more efficient. Plus, I didn't think I could finish the work all by myself in the time remaining.

I waited for the results to come in. There seemed to be one person that had voted for individual; so, it was up to the last person to decide.

Thankfully, they also picked "teamwork," which I was both thrilled and relieved to see. We all started right away, picking different questions to answer.

In total, I answered four questions. It was actually pretty fun, since I got to take my time. However, Shasmeen did disappear during the last two-three minutes, meaning I needed to answer more questions faster to make up for it.

On the positive side though, there was also some pretty cool music that gave me the feeling as if I were in an arcade game? Strange, but empowering I guess!

Me and Meral finished at the last second and finally relaxed. The last few minutes of AEP were spent in total silence while we filled out our exit tickets. 

I talked about how productive I felt. We accomplished a lot that day. From activity to activity, we completed them all! Not to mention how it wasn't as stressful as last time. I chose a sticky note that resembled a bright, juicy orange, which represented my mood: happy and proud. 

Recalling the lessons, learning about different kinds of people, and experiencing a variety of things were some of the things that really amazed me in this week's class. Seeing the variety in our world has opened a door to a path full of future growth. It fills me with the hope and pleasure I need to look forward to our next meeting in AEP.

A Lively Week- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 2

Hello😊! I am back with another blog. This week in AEP classes we did a lot of things! Surprisingly, all these assessments and activities were done in only the two periods of AEP classes. If you are willing to take a trip to a thrilling adventure, then you may as well read the rest of this Blog😀!

A few minutes before joining the google meet, I was feeling active. I was pretty surprised since on Monday mornings I would mostly be sleepy. Therefore, I opened my camera. Before starting the class, Miss Disa saw the rainbow decoration on the wall that I decided to use as a design to create a more positive atmosphere🌈. She asked several questions like whether it was handmade or not. I had made it in summer as one of my crafts.

The first activity of the day was Typeshift. Therefore, I went to the website and started solving the puzzle🧩. At about half of the game, there was a letter that I couldn't match to form a word. Luckily, after about a minute I solved it😊. I finished it in 2 minutes and 11 seconds. It was not the best score but I was still quite proud of myself. Next, we did an entrance ticket🎟. You might be wondering "What entrance ticket?" Apparently, we will be reviewing for the previous sessions by having a sort of activity to enhance our memory. As a forgetful person, I find this very helpful and useful. The class clicked a link that drove us to miro. 

First, we had to draw non-identical twins. Miss Disa started the timer⏳. As the background music played on, everybody started drawing. I decided to draw the eyes and ears of the twins differently. Afterward, we drew a widower. When the timer ran out, we were all done🎨. It was a very fun activity!

Moving on, we had to choose whether we wanted an upbeat or quiet class for that day. Chloe went right on to the upbeat choice. I was unsure since I wanted it to be calm and lively at the same time. Soon, I chose upbeat since I was feeling energetic like I've mentioned at the start of this blog📄. 

Miss Disa announced that Chloe and I would be reading an article in DOGO News. Meanwhile, Shasmeen would finish Unit 1 from last week's meeting✨. Miss Disa had provided a website called "HowToPronouns" that helped me very much. It was very useful in finding the pronunciations of some specific words such as Gansu, linxiaens, and paleozoological. 

Thus, Miss Disa sent a google document titled "Things to finish: AEP 8". At first sight, I got quite scared😲. Fortunately, I realized that I had finished most of them. I immediately ticked off Unit 1 Questions 1&2, Blog 1, and the Labelling of the Blog✅. Therefore, there were only two things left to do. First, I had to make a final recording. Then, I would have to type the words I found difficult to pronounce. 

Honestly, finishing this activity took a lot longer than I expected. I had to keep redoing it until I could pronounce most of them correctly🔊. I have to admit that it did give me some hard time when there were some background noises. Even so, in the final outcome, I was the only one heard. As a whole, reading the article made me pronounce words I've never known before and learn many facts about dinosaurs.

I knew my time was limited so I told myself that I would try recording one last time or upload the spare one just in case it reaches the end of AEP classes. Well, I guess that technique worked. I was finally done with the recording😄!! All I had to do was to upload it in the Padlet link. Suddenly, I noticed that there was no add button. Turns out, Chloe had noticed it too. Therefore we both told Miss Disa about the issue. 

Eventually, the problem got fixed! I uploaded the final product. Now, there was only one task left to do. I had to write down some challenging words from the news article📰. I wanted to get the merit points so I typed as fast as I could. Some of my answers were: paraceratherium, linxiaens, and bugtience. In that case, I ticked off the last two tasks and was good to go! 

We wrote down our thoughts about the day in Miro to serve as our exit ticket🎫. Therefore, we all said "Goodbye and thank you, Miss Disa." and exited the google meet. Thus, the class had ended.

Thank you so much for reading this blog. Have a great weekend✌!

Signing off - Meral

Overcoming Challenges -AEP- Chloe - Blog 2

Getting used to going to school again is no picnic! My body's still adjusting to waking up very early; so, as you might've guessed, I was still groggy when I logged into AEP. I didn't have that much breakfast either, but I knew I didn’t want to be late. 

I tried my best to wake myself up and prepare for the day. Thankfully, "Typeshift" helped with that, since it acted as our warm up. Just like last week, the "Typeshift" challenge seemed to be easier. I finished in under a minute and proudly posted my time on the Google Sheet Miss Disa instructed us to paste it on.

After that, we headed on over to "Miro.com." There was a single post-it note waiting for us on the board. It instructed us to write down the things that we had learned last week. Whatever we wrote would act as our entrance ticket. So now we have two tickets: one entrance and one exit ticket. Honestly, I think this is a really efficient way for students to remember what they learned from their last session. It helps us to recall everything we did and strengthens our memory. 

As I selected my sticky note color, which was green, the things we did finally came flooding back to me: family vocabulary, "Typeshift," exit tickets... It amazes me how if I wasn't instructed to remember what had happened, chances are, I probably would forget all about it. I can't even think of what I had for lunch last Friday, which was only five days ago! I guess these entrance tickets really do serve a useful purpose!  

Anyways, I wrote down the topics we had learned and waited for the others to finish. After about five minutes, it was time to move on. Our teacher then posted more post-it notes on the board. This first one said to draw two non-identical twins, while the second said to draw a widower. I was pretty excited since I love drawing! 

However, right off the bat, I started losing control of the mousepad. Whenever I tried drawing circles for the heads, they turned out wobbly and I'd have to restart. I guess I need to work on having a steady hand more!

On a positive note, I found the music being played by the timer quite fitting. It really gave me the feeling like I was in one of those Mission Impossible movies! It adds a nice touch to the AEP atmosphere and lets me have fun! 

Moving on, Miss Disa gave us a chance to choose the type of class we wanted: upbeat or quiet. Surprisingly, only three of us attended class today: Shasmeen, Meral, and myself; so, it was a smaller class than usual. I voted for upbeat, since I still felt a bit groggy and thought it would keep me more alert. Meanwhile, my classmates were still deciding. Eventually, Meral chose upbeat as well and the voting ended. 

Meral and I were then told to read an article about dinosaurs, while Shasmeen would finish up on last week's activities and blog. Our teacher directed us to "DOGONews" and I got started right away.

There definitely were some tricky words in there like paraceratherium, lixiaens, Hezheng, and many more. I needed to look up how to pronounce all those words, since we were assigned to record ourselves reading the entire article. Thankfully, we were given a website called, "HowToPronounce," which helped a lot! It did take me a few times to correctly pronounce them, but I got the hang of it eventually.

However, when it was finally time to record, I did encounter many problems. I was using the website "Vacaroo," which was highly recommended. Yet, my first two tries both ended in the same way: they ended up getting deleted. It was really frustrating. I kept pressing the "upload" button, thinking that it would give me a link to upload it somewhere when, in reality, it just asked for new audio and deleted my hard work. 

I reminded myself to not hit the "upload" button when it was my third attempt. I copied the link and decided to test the audio. Only, this time, my voice was too soft! I could barely hear myself. Even when I maxed the volume, I could barely be heard. So again, I had to re-record myself. 

I guess the fourth time’s the charm because my next attempt was a success. My voice came out loud and clear. Once I finished recording, I copied the link and found that the audio was finally perfect! Only ten minutes were left for our AEP sessions and I was finally ready to upload the audio. I do admit that this experience was a bit stressful for me. I know I could've been faster if only I hadn’t encounter such problems. 

Even so, my problems were still not over yet. When I headed over to "Padlet," which was where we would upload our audio (because "Miro.com" didn't have that function), I noticed that there wasn't the usual add button. I knew immediately what I needed to do: inform Miss Disa to give us access to edit the board. 

Meanwhile, Miss Disa was creating a to-do list for us to complete. If we did everything written before the session ended, then we'd receive merits. The list consisted of: unit one, questions one and two; blog; blog labels; news recording to "Padlet;" and difficult words on a sticky note. I checked off most of them except the last three. 

Quickly, I opened the blog website and labeled the blog I'd made last week with my name and grade level. After that, I decided that posting the difficult words I found in the article would be the fastest. I chose a pale, yellow post-it note and wrote down the words I’d mentioned earlier (paraceratheriums, lixiaens, Hezheng) and some others like paleozoological and Gansu. It was simple and easy, just a matter of typing them correctly. 

Moving back to the "Padlet" problem, coincidentally, Meral was also facing it at the same time. We both informed Miss Disa. It wasn't at all complicated, but class was almost ending. I hurriedly pasted and posted the link I got from "Vacaroo." With the last few minutes of AEP, I checked off all of the things on my to-do list. I felt proud, but the day was not over yet. I still needed to write my exit ticket. 

I headed to "Miro.com" and chose a light blue sticky note. I typed like lightning, talking about how I felt productive and even managed to finish everything on time. With that done, it was finally time to leave AEP class. What a rush the whole experience was! 

Even though I met several problems while recording, I'm happy that I still got to finish everything on time, learned some new words, exercised my tongue, and even think I'm getting better at "Typeshift."  I really do hope that I persevere through more tough times like these in the future. The road ahead may look smooth, but it is also filled with many bumps. Overcoming them is what makes you stronger and I'll do my best to prepare for them. 

AEP-Blog 1.2-Janek "chapter 2, mistakes have to be understood, to be able to fix."

                     Being in a different time zone and all, I am not able to join the 2 meetings that we have on that Monday morning. that being said, the seatwork's I missed would have to be confusing to me, right? If you think so, then yes, you are absolutely right. Being one of the 2 students who are having problems with the time will have to obviously be puzzled which thing to do and how. all the instructions were most certainly said in the class I was never in. This makes me kind of annoyed, but that wouldn't stop me to try and figure out the work. so during the second meeting, which is the one I am writing my blog in, Miss Disa would ask me how I was doing with these assignments, and would then start to give me and repeat the instructions that were said in the previous classes. And thank god for that, cause without that info I would've been answering a whole book right at this moment. 

                        I missed many assignments, one of them was the one about family. without miss's instruction 'don't answer the whole book' I would've still been stuck on that thing. instead, miss asked me to answer the recent assigned work, which is the literal page about family. not only that but they read something without me, oh how much I feel left out right now :(. but, what can you do, the show must go on right? so I guess the finished some news about dinosaurs with one of the MOST difficult words to pronounce. and how do I know this? Well, miss actually made this for us to recite on our oral activity. But, I am guessing they just read it again so that miss can help with the pronunciations. you know, the word linxiaens took me a whole 20 min to make sure its pronounced correct. I just don't want to sound like a guy choking when I try to pronounce the last part of that word.

                        missing a meeting is ok, but missing many things said and instructed is another thing. having to ask miss many times about: what to do, why is this like that, and how do I do this, is soo tiring. but, at least I am trying my best to cope. situations like this are normal to me, so I am sure it will be fine

                           to tell you the truth, all my blogs have just been about me struggling to catch up to the class and assignments. But that's how its gonna be for the rest of my blogs. This makes me pretty sad, due to the fact that each story will have a repetitive idea. Its just gonna be me saying how difficult it is to do this and do that. and I really hope all you readers don't get bored with my blogs.

                           things is, the repetitive blogs actually can help me improve. I can look through them again and again and see what can make my next blog more colorful and creative. but, for now you'll just have to wait. the stacked up homework delays me to learn my mistakes or even try to recheck works and stuff. this makes it kind of difficult to get good grades

                            but anyway, this weeks AEP was actually quite informative and i got to be notified about my current and upcoming works. not only that, but I also got to write this blog which was really helpful in understanding how I felt about everything. I also had fun writing it, which is what counts. To end it, I would just like to say to always believe in yourself. Because, you know that you can strive and really get there. This was my mistake, and I have learned to overcome it with this blog. Thank you for reading and I can't wait to tell you my next story ;).

Promises -AEP- Chloe - Blog 1

 

Coming back to AEP classes as an eighth grader was definitely something I looked forward to. I just didn't know it would happen so soon! On Monday, the second of August, I woke up to find AEP as the first two classes of the week. It was pretty exciting knowing I would be having a relaxing morning filled with activities that included no stress. Even so, I could already tell that this year was much more prepared than the last, since Miss Disa had already begun posting assignments and instructions even before school started. I gathered all of my materials for school: my two binders, a cup filled with writing tools, a water bottle, and my sleek computer. 

Good first impressions are always important, so I made a point to be about five minutes early. It was around 8:26 in the morning when Miss Disa noticed me and told me what was planned on the agenda for today. We'd take it easy, beginning with "Typeshift" to wake up our minds and then we'd begin with the real assignment. I quickly opened a fresh, new tab and headed on over to the website. 

The letters, surprisingly, were a lot easier than I remembered (or I was just lucky). In forty-one seconds, I had finished the exercise. This made me quite proud, since I remember "Typeshift" as not being one of my strengths. Upon finishing, I noticed some old classmates of mine logging in: Meral, Shasmeen, and James. It was nice knowing others stayed in AEP and didn't switch to other classes like ESL and Filipino. I wave of relief washed over me, but also a tinge of sadness. No one new had joined AEP and I was a little disappointed since I love starting new friendships and beginnings. Oh well... better luck next year! 

Back to the agenda, Miss Disa started talking about the workload we'd be handling. The class started with page eight of our first unit. It talked about family and the different vocabulary you can find in one. In total, there were about twelve things we needed to answer. Although that may sound short, it took forever just to finish the first eight questions!

We needed to look up all the words' definitions listed and explain the differences between them. Some of the words we were dealing with were: friend, mate, flatemate, aunt, step-sister, and lots more! Doing half of the work was easy. It was simple enough to look up the meanings of the words, but a bit harder to differentiate them on a five minute time limit. Did I mention we only had five minutes to complete this page? No? Well, that was another problem of mine. 

You see, whenever I type about something, I like making my points very clear by explaining them  descriptively, which is one of my weak points. I type so much that I end up not having enough time to  to finish the task at hand. Although this has been happening a lot, I do believe that I've managed that bad habit a bit better.

So, knowing that, I speeded through the different definitions and checked off every question until I finally reached number eight. I have to admit, I was very stressed out when doing this with the time limit and all. It just seemed impossible. 

Fortunately, I wasn't the only one experiencing some issues with the time. My classmates and I struggled to just get around to copy the definitions without them being marked as plagiarized. Overall, it took about a whole AEP session/ forty minutes just to finish all twelve questions. I was really thankful that questions nine through twelve were simple fill-in-the-blank questions with multiple choice answers. Otherwise, things would've gone downhill for me. 

After that little fiasco was over, we decided to move on to page nine. However, we would be doing this one as a class, not individually. I was ecstatic to hear this because group works in AEP rarely happened last year, so to finally have one this year was like a dream come true! Our teacher instructed us to open this new website called "Miro.com." There, we could collaborate and write our exit tickets. It's honestly a really fun website and one of my favorite ways to learn by far! I'd definitely suggest for other teachers to use it in the future.

Moving back to page nine, the instructions, this time, were much simpler than page eight, since all we had to do was underline all the words associated with family. The excerpt was honestly really interesting, since it talked about what happens to families with widows, why writing wills are important, and included lots of other interesting topics! Miss Disa then told us we would be having a race to see who could underline the most words in the article connected with family. We each had our own color to help identify who underlined which word. Mine was a lime green color. 

As soon as she said we could start, everyone started reading the passage and underlining frantically. My tactic was to just keep underlining words that made sense in a family setting like widow, divorced, separated, relationship, etc. Meanwhile, Miss Disa had set up a timer to help us stay on track. It also played music, which is another reason why I like "Miro.com" so much! The music really woke me up and filled my soul with the energy I needed to finish. 

Finally, when everyone was finished and couldn't find any more words, I saw lime green marks covering most of the words in the text. I counted and found myself having fourteen words! I was pretty shocked and felt very proud of myself. Miss Disa pulled up the answer key and I thankfully got all of my fourteen words correct. I won by a landslide and was rewarded with five merits and a virtual confetti blaster provided by our teacher. I was exhilarated! Winning the first part of page nine really boosted my enthusiasm and prepared me for the next task to come.

Continuing on with the next half of page nine, the task seemed fairly easy at first glance. We just needed to match some of the words with their right definitions. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, for me, the main issue was trying to draw straight lines. All of my lines kept looking squiggly, resulting in confusion and overlapping of lines. Since they weren't straight at all, the definitions kept getting a little mixed up. Even more so, my classmates were also in quite a pickle, since some of them drew lines at the same time or didn't know that the answer had already been found/claimed. Overall, the exercise was not necessarily tough to understand, but rather, difficult in terms of answering altogether. I also got one of the words mixed up with another definition. Whoops! I think a bit of organization is needed in order to better avoid these problems. However, as a first attempt at group work, I'd say we didn't do half bad!

As we finished page nine, class was almost ending. So, I headed over to "Miro.com," which is pretty much our new "Padlet," where we write our exit tickets. I chose a purple sticky note, since it's my favorite color, and wrote about my learning experience. For example, I learned there are many words that are connected and can be described with family like separated and unmarried. Along with that, I didn't even know that widower means a male widow/person whose spouse has died and hasn't remarried. Up until today, I didn't even know there was a difference and just thought widow and widower were the same. AEP classes are really opening up my eyes to all the words we use around us one session at a time.

Looking back, I can see that I was very productive and, even when things got tough, I pushed through until the end. I'm very proud of myself for accomplishing everything that needed to be done and also managed to somehow overcome my stress, problems, and slowness. It is truly amazing to see how far I've come from being a seventh grader to an eighth grader. I hope this evident progress still continues with me for the rest of my time here in AEP. This year seems promising and I hope it stays that way.

Blog 1.1 Janek , "The 2nd book to our hexalogy, chapter 1, curiosity isn't always bad"

            Coming back as an 8th grader feels rather weird, doing the many things I love over again but with a twist. For this year's AEP, here I am sitting on the other side of the world. it would be far too difficult to even join most classes, since the time zones are too far apart. The difference in time here and there is that here I would be 6 hours before your lunch time with just me sleeping, waiting for my alarm to go off singing bohemian rhapsody and then I am off to join the last 2 classes - Here I am in one already! Technically, this is the only AEP class I am physically able to join, unless I am able to force myself to join the early AEP classes. I feel pretty bad not joining Miss Disa's early morning class, but I am trying my best to cope with the situation.

            Speaking of situation, what's going on with AEP you might ask... well, nothing much actually. But, don't fear there are lots of fresh activities that we are going to be doing throughout the school year, which means more stories for you guys! I really hope that this year's activities will be stress free and that we wouldn't need to worry about any online error in the activity 'cause last year was one heck of a year. Sure it was an amazing year. but it still had its difficult times, like that time where we could only write numbers on the Google form.

             Last week, during class the only activities I got to do were to finish the AEP to-do list. It was Child's play to me, sophisticated laugh*. I had done most of them before, well because we already had this prepared last year so it was not a problem at all to me at the time. Then whilst I was done, I was doing my little dance of joy, but all was not done yet. I scroll up the stream, AND THERE I SEE IT! Another work? It said there that it was an LC Quiz. Me being a very curios lad clicked on the link that had led me into a form. There were questions there related to the learning contract. I then realized that LC stands for Learning contract, silly me. how could I have not noticed that! Then after my realization I then started to answer the questions written. Most didn't confuse me because I once in a while took a peek from the learning contract, hehe. 

            I realize that now I am not able to join some AEP classes, I am very behind in the latest news or announcements. For example, they just started the 1st unit of listening, which I was very unaware about. I thought I had to submit it that day, but as I clicked on the assignment....there was nothing there!? A sense of shock and realization hit me once more. "Where could the work be!?" I asked loudly, as I scroll down and back up I see at the edge of my eye another assignment, with its title 'new material: unit 1' I sighed with relief as I saw it. when I opened it however, I stopped breathing after seeing what was inside.....8 pages of listening. Could this be a nightmare or was I just hallucinating? Nope, it was real. It wasn't a problem for me though for it's still due until august 17...I think. Until then, i'll be working on it every weekend or if I have no hw on one day. 

            Maybe next time I'll have to scroll through AEP's stream quite frequently now that I am not aware of the class's report. Of all things to miss from announcements, it would certainly not be AEP that's for sure. If you miss one announcement or instruction, you would need to have a word with Ms. Disa. As the little annoying boy I am, I have to bug our lovely teachers rest, but I think she's fine with it anyway. 

                From all of this, the one thing I learned is to be more attentive. Staying in a burrow while looking out at that warm sunny day isn't going to get you anywhere. You need to be out there, know what's going on in the class, maybe ask the class what's going on, what works did I miss and what do I need to do about it. adjusting to the situation may be a bit hard, but its always best to try.

                To sum it all up, this school year of AEP is looking to be going in the right track. Everything was properly organized to have close to no problems. This is why last year was a really good reminder  of what we did wrong and to be corrected this year. Let's hope we can accept the past, and move on to the better sequel. This is Janek, signing out. Onto the next blog :D

            Hope you guys enjoyed! Please if you may, just add a comment to help improve my blogging skills. I'm still trying to warm up to writing again. but anyway, until the next blog. See ya :D

The Start of a New Journey- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 1

Introduction 

Hello!😀 It has been a long time. Summer is already over! It seems to me that it has passed by very quickly. Even so, I am glad to be back with another school year. A new school year is like a new chapter and a new door yet to be unlocked. Although I haven't experienced face to face classes in Grade 7, I am looking forward to getting a chance to do so this year. Even if that might not be the case, I hope to spend this school year in my best possible way😊.

Monday was the first official day of Grade 8 AEP classes. I must admit that the first day of  AEP classes in Grade 7 did flash before my eyes. It was also the first two subjects on Mondays. I remember having a technical problem with my school Gmail. I had to contact the school admins and my advisor at the time. Being the hesitant person I was, I couldn't quite explain what was going on. At least it is a funny memory to hunt me forever😆. 

This time around, I wasn't feeling nervous at all! I knew that I had enough experience to deal with a technical problem if one would arise. I guess mistakes do teach you lessons. Therefore, I joined the google meet. The first impression I had was feeling relaxed and calm. From there on, is the new chapter to fill in to the book📖! The book of which I have paused on writing for quite some time. The last part being titled : "Some see weeds, I see wishes" and now I am glad to be back on track✨.

AEP Class

The first two sessions of AEP classes were cancelled due to the first day of school. All grade levels were in one google meet. The orientation and guidelines were discussed. Thus, our first meeting started on Wednesday. 

On Wednesday, we had one period of AEP class. We got an invitation to blogger. There were no technical issues this time around🥳! For the rest of the period, we were each given a dogo news article to read about. Miss Disa gave us time to record ourselves. My article was titled "Rosetta Sone Eruption Provides Insights Into Solar Explosions." It was about powerful explosions that might be dangerous for astronauts and disrupt satellites in orbit. Many space agencies stated that it all comes from the same source/ mechanism, but the explosions are at different scales. I was able to finish my final recording after class. 

On Monday, we started with a quick typeshift. The moment I heard that we had to do this, I was very excited. I didn't struggle to find the words. Thus, I finished it in 40 seconds. Miss Disa and my classmates did great too. I am looking forward to continuing typeshift since it has always been one of my favorites!

Next, we did Unit 1 "Family Matters". We had to answer a page testing our vocabulary skills. There were two sections. At first, I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do in the first part. Meanwhile, Miss Disa told the class that we would be given 5 minutes to finish the page. It was then that my panic mode activated. Not goanna lie, in between of panicking, I was also glad that we had five minutes to finish everything. I hear you questioning "Why?"🧐. 

Well, there is this personality trait in me. Basically, if a teacher gives a short period of time for an assessment, I happen to feel like it is in a simpler level of difficulty since they acknowledged the fact that us (students) can finish it in a simpler way than being given a long period of time and having to put more effort in it. Maybe it's just me...

Turning back to the topic, I read the instructions one more time. I realized that the task was rather understandable. We had to write the difference in meaning between the words in the groups. Basically, in one group there were about 2-3 words we had to differentiate. As I had just started, Miss Disa asked the class if we were all done or close to being finished with our work. To my relief, my classmates also needed more time to finish it⏰. Therefore, for the next 35 minutes, I was able to complete my assignment. I had to share my screen to prove that I've been working on something. I am glad that I had finished it.

After a ten minute break, the next part of AEP classes had begun. Miss Disa sent a link to a new website called "Miro". I am happy that Miss Disa has found this website because it's very fun and useful. This is coming from both my personal experience and my experience as a student. Once everyone in the class clicked to the link, there was the next page of Unit 1. There was a passage and we had to underline the words related to the topic of family. Miss Disa set the timer. The whole class interactively underlined every word that we could relate with family👨‍👩‍👧‍👦. Some of the words were: modern family, grandchildren, divorced, brothers, sisters, and so much more.

Once the timer run off, Miss Disa checked and made a tally of how many words each person had underlined. In my case, I had underlined about 7 words. I didn't know that our tally score would be individually written. I thought we were scored on how many words/ phrases everyone underlined. Either way, we all did a great job. The person with the most underlined words was...(drum roll)…Chloe. I want to congratulate Chloe and everyone else🎉.

Next, we did the following part of the page. We all needed to match the meanings of the vocabularies which were from the passage. This time when the timer hit on and the music played, I got more competitive. I matched some of the words to their corresponding meanings. The end result was quite successful🎯! 

 I have learned so many new vocabularies that would help me in the present and future. I took into account that in AEP classes we don't just learn for the sake of our grades. We also learn for our future. For example, back in Grade 7 we did many listening exercises and exams. This made us clear out some barriers in communication like the accents, word choice, pace in talking, and so much more. I hope to continue this way in AEP classes. 

Our exit ticket was in the same link. Thus, we all wrote down our feelings and thoughts about the day! I learned a lot from these exercises. These activities and assessments activated my brain a whole bunch more! Plus, I had lots of fun :D Now that we are tested on our reading skills, I hope to get better in that part of English. As the famous saying goes "There is always a room for improvement.✨"

Thank you so much for reading my first ever blog! I wish everyone the best of this school year!

Signing off - Meral