Time Management Part II

Earlier this month (February 4) time management was a blog topic. Many of you shared what worked for you in managing time with your family, work and school life. We had some great suggestions! Thank you all for sharing.

Time Management is the ability to reclaim the minutes (or 84,600 seconds) in your day and to make those minutes more productive and not time wasters. Some of the most important steps in managing your time is to set a goal, keep track of wasted time, and avoid interruptions.

Can you share with us one of your current goals (in regards to your school work), something that you consider a time waster (there is no wrong or right answer-just your opinion), and what you do to avoid interruptions when you are working, completing your homework or studying?

Also, if you have some TIME consider viewing a presentation we conducted in July 2008 on time management. Visit our Elluminate workshop review area link below and click on 2008-July.

http://www.elearningbroward.com/html/workshop_review.html

Writing - Complete Sentences

One of the most important parts of good writing is to make sure that you are not writing sentence fragments. Remember that a fragment is sentence that's missing either its subject, its verb, or both. Let's look at three examples of fragments.

Example 1: "Went running for miles."
(In this case, the subject is missing. Who went running for miles?)

Example 2: "My cousin Henry."
(In this case, the verb is missing. What is it about your cousin Henry?)

Example 3: "At the mall."
(In this case, both the subject and the verb are missing. Who was at the mall and what was done there?)

You may hear the word referred to as a "predicate." A complete sentence must have a subject and a predicate (or verb). The subject is who or what the sentence is about. The predicate (or verb) is the action that's happening. Sometimes the verb will seem to not show an action, as is the case if you use the verbs "am," "is," "are," "were," "be," "been," etc.

Look at the predicates (verbs) that are underlined in the sentences below.

Kristen was at the mall today. The stores were all open for customers. She shopped all day.

Now that you've had a chance to review subject & predicates, try your skills at identifying them in this Quia activity. Click this link to play the game. Once you're done, come back to the blog and type 2 complete sentences to tell us if you enjoyed the game and how you did!

Have fun!

Vocabulary - Computer Terms

The eLearning blog has focused a number of posts on vocabulary. Good writers & speakers have a broad, varied knowledge of different words. Today, let's focus on some basic computer terms, as all online students should understand these words.

Take a look at the list below. Read through the terms. Pick 1 or 2 terms that either don't know or don't know well. Post the term and the definition. Then try to use the term in a sentence.

A	B
Hardware	The physical components of the computer system.
Software	The programs or instructions that tell the computer what to do.
CPU	The brain of the computer or central processing unit.
ROM	The permanent memory that is built in your computer. This is read only.
RAM	The computer's working memory, sometimes called random-accessed memory.
Megabyte	Approximately a million bytes.
Gigabyte	Approximately a billion bytes (or 1,000 megabytes).
Input Device	The hardware that is used to pass information into the computer.
Output Device	The hardware that receives and dislplays information coming from the computer.
Modem	The device that allows your computer to talk to other computers over a telephone line.
Monitor	A video or computer display device.
Laser Printer	A printer that uses both laser and photographic technology to produce high quality output.
Printer	The hardware that provides printed output from the computer.
Hard Copy	A printed copy of computer output.
Compact Disc	A disc on which a laser has digitally recorded information such as audio, video, or computer data.
Hard Disk	A fixed, large-capacity magnetic storage medium for computer data.
Floppy Disk	A portable magnetic storage medium for computer data that allows users to randomly access information.
Graphical User Interface	The use of graphical symbols instead of text commands to control common computer functions such as copying programs and disks.
Icon	A small picture or symbol respresenting a computer hardware function or component.
Ink-jet Printer	A type of printer that forms letters on the page by shooting tiny electrically charged droplets of ink.

(Chart found at http://www.quia.com/jg/65620list.html)

Tell me a story - February's edition

It's time to have some fun with our writing! Let's put on those creative thinking caps and get ready to spin some tales of happiness, humor, romance, mystery, or misery. We're going to have the February edition of "tell me a story." (To see some past "tell me a story" topics, visit these links: December 1st, November 4th, October 4th, September 27th, August 7th, July 2nd, June 3rd, and May 21st. Feel free to participate in them too!)

For this particular one, let's use Valentine's Day as the theme. In 4-6 sentences, tell me a story that involves the following items: candles, chocolate, a single red rose, and a phone call from Mrs. Hernandez. Remember that your story can go in any direction. It doesn't have to have a traditional romantic Valentine's Day theme. Perhaps you're going to create a short mystery or a humorous tale. It's up to you! No matter what you choose, though, have fun with it, and write those sentences correctly!!!

Writing - Common Homonyms

The eLearning writing blog has had many topics that focused on homonyms. Recall that a homonym is a word that has the same pronunciation as another word, but is spelled differently and has a different meaning. The words "sent," "scent," and "cent" are examples of homonyms.

How well do you know some common homonyms? Are you ready to challenge yourself with a Quia activity? Test your skills with the words "to," "too," "two," "who's," "whose," "your," and "you're" (among others). Find someone who you can play this game with, as it's more fun to have a partner for the challenge board game.

Play this Quia game, come back here, tell us who you shared the activity with, how you did, and if you learned anything new!

Writing - Using Contractions (Part 2)

Back in November, there was a blog post that dealt with using some common contractions. Please review that post by clicking here. Recall that contractions are used to write two words as one word and they will always involve an apostrophe.

After you've reviewed the November post, please try this Quia challenge board activity. Find someone else who can play with you. (Ask a relative, friend, or neighbor to play. They'll have fun too!) The challenge board activities are similar to "Jeopardy" and can be played by 1 person or 2 people. Enter the names of the players and click the "Begin 2-player game" button.

Once you've completed that Quia activity, come back to the blog and write a few sentences to state who played the activity with you, who won, and which contractions (if any) you were not familiar with. Try writing your sentences and including 1 or 2 appropriately placed, correctly used contractions!

I'm sure you'll enjoy this!
:-)

Time Management

Imagine that you had a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400, and carries over no balance from day to day. Every night it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during that day. What would you do with such an account? Most likely you would make certain that you spent every cent every day.

Are you surprised that you had such a bank?

It is the time bank!

Every morning, the bank credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever you have failed to spend or invest wisely. It will not carry over a balance. It does not allow for an overdraft. Each day, it opens a new account in your name: each night it erases your balance. If you fail to use the day's deposits wisely, the loss is profound. If you can invest about 10 percent of this resource each day, for your online course you will receive major dividends in your teaching and learning stock.

There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". No matter how wonderful your time management skills are, you cannot get more than 86,400 seconds in a day. You must live each day on your daily deposit, and invest it wisely to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success from your personal and professional life! The clock is ticking. Make the most of each online day as well!

How do you make the most of each online day? Share some of the techniques you use to keep you focused and organized in your class.

Writing - Prefix Challenge Board

Back in December, there was a series of blog posts about common prefixes and their meanings. (To review those topics, click here.)

Let's bring back our prefix studies with this Quia "challenge board" activity. This is a fun way to test your prefix skills and to learn a few new things. The challenge board is similar to Jeopardy where you can select a category and a point value. It can be played with 1 or 2 players. Fill in your names and then click the appropriate start button (either "Begin 1-player game" or "Begin 2-player game").

After you play the prefix challenge board game, come back here & post how you did. If you learned a new prefix, post that too!

http://www.quia.com/cb/221179.html

Have fun!!!

Writing - Varied Word Choice

Could you imagine how boring a piece of writing would be if you used the same term or same phrase over and over? Let's take a look at an example of this so you can see just how bad repetition can be when it comes to your sentences.

My sister's name is Kris. Kris lives in New Jersey. Fort Monmouth is where Kris works. Kris drives a white car. Kris loves to go shopping. I talk to Kris at least three times each week. Either Kris calls me or I call her. Kris is getting married in May.

What word or phrase jumps out at you when you read that paragraph? Well, it isn't too hard to see that the name "Kris" is repeated over & over. (In fact, if this paragraph was read out loud to you, you'd certainly be sick of hearing the name "Kris.")

Grammatically, there's nothing wrong with those sentences. However, it's not too pleasant to read. How could I fix that paragraph so that the name "Kris" isn't used so much? Let's keep the first sentence the same, as it's important to know my sister's name. After that, however, we need to vary it for the reader. Pick a sentence and write it another way so I'm not using the name "Kris." (It wouldn't be bad to leave that name in the paragraph another time or two, but having that name repeated eight times is really too much!!!)

Don't worry about rewriting the whole paragraph. Instead, focus on just one sentence that you could modify.

Writing - Idioms (Part 7)

With today being "Superbowl Sunday," it's only fitting that we now focus on sports idioms. Check out this list of sports-related idioms (http://www.idiomconnection.com/sports.html#A) and find one that you've never heard before. Come back to the blog and post that idiom, as well as its meaning.

Can you use that idiom in a sentence? Give it a shot!

If you want to try something else, give the quiz a whirl! Let us know how you did!