It's snow joke

A few silly gags just for fun - sorry!

What happened when the snowgirl fell out with the snowboy?
She gave him the cold shoulder!

What do snowmen wear on their heads?
Ice caps!

What's an ig?
An eskimo's home without a toilet!

What do snowmen eat for lunch?
Icebergers!

Where do snowmen go to dance?
Snowballs!

How do snowmen travel around ?
By icicle!

What sort of ball doesn't bounce ?
A snowball!

How do you know when there is a snowman in your bed ?
You wake up wet!

What do you get if cross a snowman and a shark ?
Frost bite!

How do you call an Eskimo cow ?
An Eskimoo!

Essays

I enjoyed today's session on essay writing and thank you to Christian for enlightening me on the referencing on Word, very impressive! When you have your essays back from Evan I can get them from you (either electronically or as a photocopy) and that will serve as an integrated assessment that we can use for one of the Comm 4 assessments. This means less work for you, 2 for the price of 1 - can't be bad! Have a great weekend. Unfortunately it looks like the football is ON this weekend, so that could be another loss for my team, grumble grumble...!

Presentation choices

I enjoyed the session on Tuesday where we piggy-backed from the session last Thursday to research for our next assessment, the 'how to do' oral presentation. I know that most of you have chosen a topic, and I have noted down some of the topics that I remember to demonstrate the wide range of topics to be delivered. These are not fixed and you are free to change your topic as long as you clear it with me!

• How to make porridge (or porage, depending on how you'd like to spell that)!
• How to juggle
• How to make money quickly
• How bubble gum is made
• How to make the perfect lasagne
• How to live in the Arctic
• How to create a new religion
• How to be awesome
• How to make the perfect Big Mac (aka deconstructing and constructing the BM)!
• How a compass works
• How to perform a magic trick
• How to tune a guitar

One thing is for sure - the presentations will be very interesting, entertaining and informative!

All the best, Mark

How to do the 'how to do'

Hi all,

I really enjoyed the briefing session today. We looked at lots of interesting ideas from my previous and present classes and we must have over a hundred ideas to 'juggle' with, ranging from performing origami to making lasagne, changing a tyre to getting your five a day, doing a wheelie (safely) to making the perfect espresso and being awesome to formatting a computer, amongst other ideas! I have popped the weblinks that we looked at on the blog for you and we have three Tuesday sessions with the PCs to research, write up the plan (typed or handwritten) and formulate the PP slides. I will type up the times for the presentation delivery too and give you them on Tuesday so you have a written record.

Have a great weekend and I'll see you all on Tuesday.

Mark

Feedback on the talks

Hi all, I would like you to add in a few comments about how YOU thought the practice talks went. I am interested to hear YOUR thoughts. You can make any comments, observations about your delivery and/or the delivery of others. Maybe you wish to comment on the feedback, nerves, using PowerPoint, stuff like that? Anything goes, so go on, what you thinking...

Overview of the unassessed talks

Well done to the thirteen students who delivered their unassessed talks last Thursday and today. They were fantastic and I hope you all learned something about your own delivery and the techniques of others. The subject matter was varied, from Jackson Pollock to Walt Disney and John McVicar to Bob Marley. And lets not forget the icons that are Sir Sean and erm, Godzilla! The talks were all researched well and I feel we all got a lot out of each talk. So a quick overview of the good and things to improve on then...

Room for improvement - time, completing the talk (something like 'thank you very much for listening, are there any questions'), taking the audience through the structure slide, not standing in front of the screen and having PowerPoint handouts.

The great - natural ability, being yourselves, time and effort put into the preparation of the talks, the variety of content, the use of visuals, the depth of knowledge, working with each other, involving the audience, being in control of the talks, upbeat delivery and many more facets besides.

I am in no doubt that the first assessed presentation on 'how to do something' will be interesting and straightforward for you all. Those who did not present for various reasons will now not get a chance to deliver a practice talk as I have a schedule I wish to follow to get us through assessments before Christmas.

I am very happy with the performances of the class, so a blooming big slap on the back all round guys!

PS - I am still awaiting a few Yearbook entries, so please do your best to get this done by Thursday if you can. Much appreciated.

All the best, Mark

Well done

To the four presenters this morning who gave excellent talks. I found them interesting, informative, thought provoking and illuminating. All four talks were delivered using well thought out structures, were visually appealing and gave us all a great range of topics to reflect on. I'm looking forward to Tuesday's session. All the best, Mark

Looking good!

Just a quick word to say that the PowerPoint slides for the unassessed talks are looking really good. Remember, if you don't have a memory / USB stick you should e mail me your presentation slides. I will bring the remote control presenter so you can move the slides with ease and are not hampered by the keyboard. I'm looking forward to the talks and I'm sure we'll learn lots of things over the two sessions. All the best, Mark

Schedule until Xmas

Hi all, here is the schedule until the Christmas break:

• Thurs 11th and Tues 16th Nov - delivery of unassessed presentations (as per agreed times detailed on previous post).
• Thurs 18th Nov - I will take you through the 'how to do' presentation assessment.
• Tues 23rd Nov - work on 'how to do' presentation.
• Thurs 25th Nov - look at essay writing.
• Tues 30th Nov - work on 'how to do' presentation.
• Thurs 2nd Dec - referencing.
• Tues 7th Dec - work on 'how to do' presentation.
• Thurs 9th, Tues 14th, Thurs 16th and Tues 21st Dec - assessed presentation on 'how to do'.

We will pick the dates for when you want to deliver your assessed talks after we have completed the unassessed talks. We will be mindful that some students may be travelling home near the end of term.

I have also contacted Evan to see how you are getting on with the History syllabus as we can double up an essay from his class which will help bring the workload down somewhat!

As a reminder, there are 13 assessments for Comm 4 and Oral Presentation Skills:

Comm 4

• 2 x writing (probably two essays, one of which will be integrated with Evan)
• 2 x listening exercises (we will look at a radio and a TV programme in the Ne'er).
• 2 x speaking - one presentation on an 'issue' lasting 8-10 minutes and discussions on agreed topics. We will split into groups for that and decide on what you'd like to discuss.
• 2 x reading assessments. You have all done the first one, the magazine article on Digital Books and we will do another from a newspaper sometime in the New Year.

Oral Presentation Skills

• 1 x 'how to do' presentation (done in December)
• 1 x presentation plan (on the 'how to do' talk)
• 1 x presentation on an 'issue'. You will be assessed for OPS at the same time as the Comm 4 talk to avoid over assessment.
• 2 x presentation analyses. Different to the Comm 4 listening exercise but looks specifically at how the presenter delivers their talk. One will be a presentation delivery from a film and one will be a presentation delivery from a formal presentation on an interesting topic.

I know it sounds a lot, but I had it in my mind that we would get three assessments done by Christmas and I am certain we can do that. It's all good, so lets keep going until Christmas guys!

Na zdrowie. (I hope that is accurate, please correct me if I am wrong!)

Unassessed presentation times

I really enjoyed the session today. It looks like everybody has picked a different subject to deliver their unassessed talk on - they are really varied which is great! I have added a few more helpful weblinks for you (on the right hand side of the blog) to give you supplementary information on presentation delivery.

Thursday 11th November in 425 at 11.15 - Ania, Ellen, Gary, Christie, Christian and Jon

Tuesday 16th November in 211 at 9.00 - Alma, Luigi, Vesela, Michal, Dave, Gavin, Sean, Hanni, Aaron, Lorena and Leigham.

NB - we are in the Learning Centre (on the second floor) on Thursday. I have only been able to secure six computers but am hopeful that we will be able to get a few more. In the case of us being unsuccessful, some of you can go to the library and I will flit between the two rooms. Now, where are those rollerskates of mine...