The last thing I see before I sleep

This is the last thing I do before going to sleep every night of the school week. I took this picture after I turned off the lights, just before sleeping to make the point how necessary it is to make charging your electronic devices a part of your normal routine.   I make sure to plug in my laptop and iPad in the evening and remove the charge in the morning before heading off to school.

Gentlemen, I have stressed throughout the school year the importance of coming to class with your electronic equipment we use in class fully charged at the beginning of the day; moreover, I have made G210 available during both breaks to allow students to recharge their devices securely if necessary in order to be prepared for their classes. Please make sure to follow IAT's rules and regulations regarding the use of your electronic equipment, secure it during the school day and keep it charged for use during classes.

Reading Summaries

One of  our daily tasks is to spend 20 minutes reading books from ATHS' Learning Resource Center, more commonly known as the "library" and to write a report about the text we read during that time.  The summary of the daily reading should focus on the main idea that you read, and condensed or shortened to be approximately 3-5 sentences focusing on the setting, main characters, and the main action that occurred.  However, the summary that you write after you've read the entire book must be written with these minimum length requirements in mind; if your story was

20-100 pages long -10 sentences
100-150 pages long- 15 sentences
150-above- 20 sentences

Change in plans

 

There's been a slight change in plans. G10-02 on Thursday, please finish the mind mapping exercise on the author's information that  you started during your library session with librarian Ms. Smallpeice.  Enter the account you made the map with complete it then go to the settings menu, click on "export-pdf" and note where the pdf version was placed on your laptop. Go to your Schoology account's assignment and submit the mind mapped .pdf at the assignment tab labelled, 'Mind Map Screen Shot'.  This must be turned in by closing time Thursday. If you have any questions, please ask.  See you in class.

The Desert Ecosystem

Today we will be looking at the desert ecosystem. Here is a short video that explains what the desert is like.

G10-02 & 10-06 News here!

We've just finished week 4 of school, taken our first English quiz and still there's a lot more work to do.  Our oral vocabulary exercises will continue on Sunday with those students who were given vocabulary words on Wednesday coming back then to dictate spelling, pronunciation, meaning, part of speech and usage of their vocab words.  The next recorded reading homework assignment will be due on Monday and has been loaded into your Schoology accounts.  Finally, there's an important notice for those of you who cannot access your ebooks because of login error.   Information  appears on the home page of your Schoology accounts about what you must  provide if you are one of the students with login problems for your English ebook.  If you have any questions, drop me a line at Schoology.....otherwise, see you in class!

First Impression research project

Each class has been assigned five things most humans use to form a first impression of someone they meet for the first time.  Now each group in the class has to describe the role primacy effect, schemata, self-fulfilling prophecy and prediction play when we judge someone based on their body shape, clothes, hair, manner of speaking and expressions.

Each group has to summarize in 250 words the role one of the five things we judge people plays in making a first impression.  That means you must get your information online, edit, summarize it and present the important points in any program you and your group decide. Before you start writing you have to show me the sources you will use to write your summary.  You may use as many sources as you like but you and I have to agree the sources you have contain the information you need.  Along with the text you have to have at least five illustrations that show how your item can have a positive or negative effect on a first impression.

You will have time to do all of this project in class, but it must be completed by the end of this week; i.e. September 27, 2012.  If you have any questions please ask them in class. 

Catch up time!

I am aware there are new students who do not have their laptops and even others with mechanical problems which make it impossible for them to do the homework assignment that was given last Thursday for you to have turned in on Sunday, so everyone who has not turned in that assignment has until Thursday, September 20 to turn in the recorded reading task. The file you have to work on is on the home page of Schoology's English class.  Save the file like this:  yourname-ddmmyy then go to the assignment  folder to the "submit assignment" tab on the right side of the page. Don't forget this homework must be done in Word.

On Monday we will begin our daily reading task.  Please choose a book from the box at your group's table and send me an email with the name of the book you  have chosen.  You can only choose from the five books in the box at your table.  You cannot swap books with other tables or groups and once you have selected a book you must read it until you complete it, so choose carefully.  I will have detailed instructions on what you  have to write together with the daily writing, that is to say what questions you will answer or what words you will need to look up.  Everyone will be required to read from your selection  20 minutes each day while in English class so that even students who haven't received their laptops should be busy with this class task.

Finally, please make sure your laptops are fully charged when you come to school in the morning. Any student can charge his laptop in my class during either break.  I apologize for the late response to the Schoology questions some students sent me; God willing I will answer your questions more quickly in the future.  See you in class!

Laptops and ATHS

Gentlemen, this is something we posted for G10 students last year and it is still relevant today. The post is what I think should be your attitude about your laptops and how they fit in the English classroom.

  
We have discussed this before in your class; you cannot charge your laptops during class but I do allow charging during breaks.  Starting September 23 you will not be allowed to go to the IT staff during class to fix laptop issues because your laptop problems should have already been resolved; in other words all repairs will have to be made outside of class.

Please don't let anyone play with your laptop or don't carelessly leave it unattended.  Your laptops are a valuable learning tool that if taken care of will last you for many years.  Please respect it and respect and honor the reason for which it was given to you.

First Spelling Competition will be held on Thursday

G10-02 and G10-06 will have their first little friendly spelling competition on Thursday and it should be fun.  The words you will have to spell are the 28 adjectives we've been working on all week which are in your Schoology account files, PLUS the five vocab words found on page 2 of your ebook, Academic Connections used to describe the four faces of people in the table on that page. It would also be a good idea for  you to know the meaning of each of the spelling words just in case you're asked.  

The rules are quite simple.  In order to participate you must have finished the adverb-adjective exercise and show a completed paper to your teacher and that's it. There can be no talking while your opponents try to spell a word. After the second warning given to a team because a team member has been talking, that team will be excused from the competition.  There will be a prize given to the winners but that's to be announced later.

Also, your first ever homework assignment will be uploaded to your Schoology accounts by Thursday morning and due on Sunday, which means you'll have all weekend to do it.  The assignment must be turned in in a certain manner; you will receive instructions on how to do that on Thursday. I think that's all for now.  If you've got any questions don't forget to ask them in class........God wiling see you there!

10-02 & 10-06 Monday's work

If you have accessed your e textbook, we will begin to use it to do some writing exercises.  Look at pages 2 & 4 and get acquainted with the vocabulary on those two pages.  I will post a very brief writing exercise in your Schoology accounts for you to do in class that will focus on the material on those pages as well as get you to write using the adjectives and adverbs of the previous exercises.  So, look at pages 2 and 4 in your e-book and prepare yourself to work from those pages in class.  There is no written homework due on Monday.  Also, we will begin our daily reading on Monday with a visit to the library where we will collect the books we'll read in class.  More about that in classs.  God willing, see you then!

10-02 & 10-06....... here we go!

We're starting our first full week of school for the 2012-2013 academic school year and there's a lot to do so let's get started.  Last week we came up with adjectives to describe our first impression of several people we saw on the video, Without Prejudice.  Because these were adjectives that you, the student gave me, most likely you know what they mean; you could identify with them.  Now, I am going to introduce some more adjectives to you that you may or may not know.  Please go to your schoology accounts and download the file 1stImpression Adjectives and become familiar with them.  You can find the file in the files/link folder of your course in Schoology.  You are asked to write a synonym for the adjectives in the file.  We will do this much of the work in class and I'll tell you how and where to find the synonyms if you don't already know.  You will need to use these words (consider them vocabulary words) for a writing assignment we will do later in the week.  I will give you plenty of time to look up, know the definition of these adjectives in class, so don't worry this is NOT a homework assignment.  See you in class.

Heads up G10-02 & G10-06

This is a reminder to all students in sections 10-02 and 10-06 to bring your laptops with you to class on Thursday.  Your laptop should be fully charged and ready to be put to use.  Both sections will have at least two classes back to back on Thursday so you should have enough charge to see you through your class.  If you need to charge your laptop before coming to class, please do so during the first break after period one in the morning.  God willing, see you in class!

Welcome Back to the 2012-2013 school year at ATHS Dubai

Grade 10 students welcome to the 2012-2013 school year here at ATHS' Dubai campus.  I am happy to see you back here and am looking forward to a productive yet exciting year in Abdulkarim's Chaos Free Zone. 

The grade 10 blog will be your source for news and information concerning your English courses and my classes.  That means you will be expected to check this source daily for any news about homework or other assignments or about work done in class.  Bookmark this site in your laptops.  Any information that you need to know will be posted here by 4pm on any given day, God willing.  Because ATHS is now a fully online e-learning institute you can know about any of your classes at anytime of the day or night, no matter where you are.  That means you will never have an excuse not to know what it is you have to do or when it is due.  Keep your laptops charged and brains in gear and ready to work this year. 

We will have fun, learn a lot and work hard.  God willing at the end of it all, you will be smarter and better citizens of your country and we all will be better locals of the global community.  I look forward to working with you all.  Now, let's get this show on the road.

The Obesity Poll

We all know what obesity is; excess body fat that  may have a negative effect on health and lead to a reduced life expectancy.  Some grade 10 students want to see what  you know about why people become obese and what you can do to fight it.  Take a look at the Obese Survey here and contribute your knowledge on the subject.

Non Verbal Communication as seen through the eyes of G10-08

Relaxed

Thinking

Surprised

Explaining

Angry

Not in the mood

Types of Advertising (G10-02 Obaid Rashid)

In these days companies that are producing video games want to attract asmany  people as they can to get their games but they are using a special type of advertisement. There is one type of advertising these companies can use that is adver gaming. It means to use an existed popular game or a game that is played by many people to market their brand product by reviewing it before the game runs or as a part of the game. Moreover, this type of advertisement is used or targeted for gamers because they are addicted video games. Also they want to try new games if they saw it in the video game that they play.  Finally, Adver gaming is a good way of advertising but if it not chosen to advertise in the right game the companies will not benefit from it.

Kinds of Advertising (G10-05 Abdulrahman AlMazrooie)

I will advertise my product on radio stations and it will be in afternoons the people who like to listen radio stations in night times they might listen to this advertisement and think about buying it or at least they will tell other people about this. The product advertisement will include prices and the model number with the company name. The radio station that I will advertise will be the most popular radio station that people listen to. They may listen to songs and after it the advertisement will show up.

Kinds of Advertising-(Khalifa AlHammadi-G10-08)

Today I would like to talk about a way of advertising sport shoes and clothes. The companies can advertise their merchandise by letting famous soccer players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi wear their clothes when training before any match. Also they can let famous players wear the company’s shoes. Unfortunately, not all the soccer spectators are going to buy your merchandise because everyone supports his favorite team, so the company must choose the most popular players to let them advertise their shoes and clothes.

Types of Advertising-(Nasir Khalid-G10-05)

I chose TV as my advertising tool.  We can make a channel or advertisement abut our product the motorcycle.  We must make a nice advertisement for getting more people to watch it. We need more people we need a famous channel to put our advertisement to broadcast all over the world. Ok when we broadcast the advertisement like a soccer match or wrestling show or football game these some examples so that’s it.

Types of Advertising-Abdulla Khalid (G10-02)

There are many ways to advertise your product. Blogging is a method  just like  article writing. You write what you want in a good content for your audience in blogs. The better you get, the larger your audience. You can also submit the same contents that you wrote in blogs in article directories. You get instant viewers if your article is in top ten within your niche. In conclusion advertisers should advertise in a good way for children.

Types of advertising- Mohammad Ahmad (G10-08)

The newspaper advertising help the companies to sale their products. The companies should pay the newspaper to put their advertisement in their newspaper. The newspaper company should make customers a good advertisement for the customer, and make it with good colors to attract people. The people will read the newspaper and the advertisement will attract them and they will be customers for the company, and by that the company will sale their products.

Types of Advertising-Abdulla Omar (G10-05)

Any product needs advertising to make it  famous. I chose to make  advertising by bikes, cars, and trucks on the streets to let the people see it and make them think to enjoy us. This way is quick to make the people see and know about our product. We will provide the motorist and the vehicles 12 hours daily and the motorist will be in troupes and they will be in V.I.P neighborhoods for the famous and rich people. The vehicles provided with a big photo for the advertising and the people can see it from two sides. The motorist is comfortable in the work because they will work 12 hours in a day and the work will be shifts every 6 hours.

TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN

This week marks your SWQ term 3 exam. You should be well prepared in reading to answer True/False/Not given questions. More tips to come.... Stay tuned

Student work on niche marketing

In response to the prompt, who is the product you want to produce and market designed for, who are your competitors for this product and why do you want to compete with them in offering it to the public; how will you market this product, and how is your product different than other products like it, Ibrahim Mohammed, Khalifa Mohammed, Hamad Khalid and Hamad Jasem of 10-08 using unit vocabulary that is highlighted in red wrote

         Mr. Manager

Mr. Manager is a unique program that is used to organize daily schedules and assignments.  It is different from other software in many different ways. First, it is multi-platform, which you can use in windows, mac, and smart phones. Second, it can be used easily and has an organized GUI. Third, it is new idea in the programming world. In conclusion, these facilities will make this program unique and that will attract a lot of consumers when it will be advertised.

All university students who want to organize their work by software and have a hard time with their unorganized work are our target market. Our company product will attract students because it will help them to manage their time easily. It will be sold in two ways, for students individually and for the universities. In future, if more people demanded the software, we will sell it for high school students and middle school administrators.

Students in universities have some difficulties and/or not enough time to organize or mange their work in a proper way. Also some students have some difficulties in using other professional managers, which are hard for them to use or they don’t have the time to learn how to use it, so our company has designed new software for our consumers, which are students that can help them to organize and manage their work in and better, organized way.

The company’s product will be marketed in many different ways. First, it will be on billboards on the highways and advertisement posters and hangers in supermarkets. Second, it will be advertised on major business and educational websites and in the universities’ campuses and we will sponsor shows to introduce and convince television audience to buy the product. There will be a free trial to persuade universities to try for 30 days and the product will be available at major computer shops.

All competitors in business want to attract consumers, so we checked the feature of our competitors’ product and tried to make our product more efficient with more recommended tools than our company competitor that will make us win. JobPro central company and individual software company are some of our competitors, which we tried and we are still trying to attract their customers by surprising the customers with our best product features that are really unique.

Students sound-off

There's been a lot in the news here and here  about how students treat one another at school and the consequences of their bullying.   This is what one of our students had to say on his English blog.

Bullying is a prevalent form of child abuse. Many students are suffering from bullying in their schools and this thing is common in all schools in the world. Also bullying can cause death like what happened in Oikos University in Oakland, California. Some people in this university were teasing a Korean man called One L. Goh over his poor English skills. Because of this bad behavior with this man, he forced some people to line up in a classroom in the university, but some of them didn’t , so he started shooting them with his hand gun and killed seven people last week on Monday (April 2, 2012). Someone commented that this Korean man doesn’t need to be remorseful because the bullied person may keep feeling bad forever, which is right in my opinion; however, I don’t think teasing or bullying should lead to death. Also this person commented that if a person teased another person, over time the person who teased would not feel remorse and I agree with him on this. The lesson that I learned is that bullying and teasing are very bad behaviors that can lead to serious risks and we have to respect everybody.

Niche Marketing

What is niche marketing?  Our text book describes a niche market as part of the population that buys a particular product or service.  Another definition is a very specific, specialized and profitable corner of the market.

Your task is to define a product and say how you want it to meet a certain niche or group of people in society.  In writing your essay, follow the guidelines sent to you in schoology.  You have to use the following unit vocabulary words and highlight them with red font in your composition

advertise attract  customers  niche market  target market  unique  consume  consumption, consumer, case study, compete, competitor, persuade, convince

Each group member will have to write in the first draft a 75 word description of one of the 4 topics about niche markets detailed in your schoology assignments.  Further instructions will be given to you here via the G10 English blog.  See you in class!

EXPLORING NASA

I went with ATHS students to NASA SPACE SCHOOL in Houston Texas My name is Rashid Ali a 10th grade student. The trip was 7 days long. We were 34 students and 2 supervisors.

Our trainers in NASA were Miss Rachel and Mr. Dived. We were from all ATHS campuses. We learned a lot of amazing things like diving in the place that astronauts trained. We built the robotic rovers that they used on Mars like Spirit and Opportunity the rovers launched several years ago to Mars.

NASA is working hard to discover a sign of life on Mars. Secondly we built rockets and landers to launch the rovers to mars and land them safely. We were 10 teams divided into Group A & B; the names of the groups were gold, sliver, red, blue and white. Our trip was amazing. I recommend every student have a chance to visit NASA Space School in Houston Texas. That was a great chance we had and I wish that we could have other chances. America is a nice country and American people were friendly. Those were the best days of my life.

10.3, 10.6, 10.9

Gentlemen,

I know some of you couldn't come to school today due to yesterday's fatigue.I appreciate all those who made up coming today. Hence the work at school doesn't stop as we have calculated days left now to our 3rd Semester. On Sunday we are going to start Reading from Unit-7 that’s why it is important to finish the pre-reading vocabulary. The worksheet is attached and the task is explained. The boys who are in the class are uploading it as soon as they will finish but for those who are absent are required to complete it and submit on edmodo.com before Saturday,14th April 2012, 8:00 pm. See you all in full swing on Sunday in the class.

Renewable energy: How does it work

In preparation for Thursday's English exam we will spend the remaining periods writing about a form of renewable energy of your choice from the four major types we studied in class.

You will be provided  a video that you can get from my public folder when you log onto the network I created in class. There are four folders: biomass, wind, solar or geothermal energy.  In your schoology accounts there is a file that contains at least two links for each of the types of renewable energy mentioned above.

What do you have to do, then you ask? Decide on which field of renewable energy you want to write about; choose the video from my public folder and the links from your schoology accounts and then watch and read about the renewable energy you chose. Then  write a 150 word essay on how that form of renewable energy provides power in the form of electricity or heating and cooling to the consumer.


But wait, there's more. You have to write how this form of renewable energy helps the environment we live in.  What are the reasons why governments and countries should use the form of renewable energy you chose; why change when we already have plenty of energy, electricity and air conditioning. You should show at least two distinct paragraphs in your essay and spelling will count.

 

After you complete your 150 word essay, please turn it in via the schoology assignment tab.  This is an individual assignment, which means you must work on it alone in class.  You have plenty of reading, listening and writing to do, so class should be quiet.  I'll be there as usual so if you have any questions please ask.

Headed towards the home stretch

We are headed to the end of term 2 and there are some things I want to place on the record for the students of G10-02,05 & 08 especially regarding their assignment and grades.  First off there will be no more homework assignments for you to turn in after this week, however, ALL homework assignments given during this term will be used to calculate your term 2 grade.  Please make sure you've turned in all your homework.  I will follow the rules about late assignments turned in that are posted on the bulletin board in our room.

We have had over 50 assignments for this term; all of them will not be counted, but please make sure you've turned them in.  This work has to be turned in by Thursday, 8 March. If I don't have any work from you I am obliged to give you a zero for work not turned in.  The due dates for all assignments are clearly posted with each piece of work you had to do so there are no surprises that will pop up in your schoology accounts. Please take time to look at your work for this term and make sure it's been turned in.

Finally all supplemental vocabulary work and quizzes will be suspended, so we WILL NOT have our RAK pearl museum vocab quiz.  Instead we will continue with our green chemistry material, so be prepared to do more speaking and writing during class.  If you have any questions, please ask.  See you in class.

Tying up loose ends

Now that system wide quiz week is over we will resume our normal schedule.  That means a return to our weekly recorded reading sessions.  The first assignment due this week has been loaded onto your schoology accounts and is due by the end of the first break on Tuesday.  We will also have a supplemental vocabulary quiz on the RAK pearl museum vocab on Wednesday G10-05 G10-08.  G10-02's vocab quiz will be on Thursday.  The second of our weekly recorded reading homework assignments will also be due by 3pm on Thursday.  That will be loaded on your schoology accounts by Tuesday.  This week will also be the wrap up for all project activities, so please come to class and complete your project assignments as directed.  We will not work on them anymore beyond this week. If you have any questions please ask.  See you in class!

SRA READING 10-01

10-01 celebrating "World Book Day". They have started reading the SRA books.They all seem to be diligently reading, focused and interested. Let us see who will be the hare or the tortoise of this reading race.
All the best. Keep up the reading.It is the best practice.
Pictures will be posted soon

What is green chemistry you ask?

We've started a new unit on green chemistry and it's full of information that affects the world community and the UAE in particular. There are 12 main features to green chemistry which anyone can read about here, but they include important features such as prevents waste, increases energy efficiency, cuts down on chemical "accidents" like fires or explosions.  G10-05 put together some presentations to help one another understand the issues surrounding green chemistry which I think are notable and would like to highlight here.  These are the people we hope will be leading the way to the UAE realizing its goals of being environmentally proactive.

RAK's new pearl museum and associated vocabulary

Photo courtesy http://livingthetravelchannel.wordpress.com/

The National newspaper online edition had a very nice article on the new pearl museum in RAK, from which we extrapolated some very common, often used vocabulary as well as learned a lot about the pearling industry in the UAE.  The article entitled, New Pearl Museum Opens in RAK, can be found here and gives a brief description of RAK's historical relationship to the pearl industry that goes back to the 17th century when it was known as Julfar at that time. 

Students were assigned the task of producing class presentations using targeted vocabulary, and we hope to post some of them here on the blog.  In the meantime, here are the vocabulary words we are concentrating on this week that we read in the article above.  The quiz date for the vocab words will be announced here later this week, God willing.  If you have any questions, please ask or drop me a line at my email address.  See you in class.

revival         precious       myth     legend      precipitation    monarch  excursion   replica    merchant        artificial      render        obsolete     shimmer         
moisturizer   precaution   edible       insert             enthusiasm

Reminder

G10-02,05 & 08....you can access your vocabulary word quiz on your accounts starting at 4pm today, Thursday, 26 January until mid night.  There is a 45 minute time limit on the quiz but you can take it anytime between those two times today only!!  Have a safe weekend; read, study and prepare for your system wide quizzes which start Sunday.  See you in class!

Stress in G10-02's world

What's coming up!

There will be no English classes on Wednesday because all English teachers will be attending a conference in Abu Dhabi, however, we will have classes on Thursday during the 3rd and 4th period so be there.  You should know where your classes will be but if you don't come by G210 first thing Thursday morning and I may be able to help you find your way. 

You have a homework assignment due Thursday evening....The Traveling Chef which you must record and answer the 11 questions at the end of that text; as usual turn it in by schoology when you're done.  Also the vocabulary quiz will be available for you to take between 4pm and 12midnight Thursday while you are at home.  We had the pre-quiz on Tuesday and you will be tested on the same words but in a different style of test so study. 

Next up  G10-05 will be treated to a presentation by Abdulla Salim and Majed Essa on 'hacking an electric power system' which I certainly look forward to seeing and finally next Wednesday G10 English will have their system wide quiz from 9:00-9:40 am. In the days before it please intensify your reading and come to class prepared to work.  Make sure your laptops are working and bring your text book too. God willing see you in class on Thursday!