Tim's learning journal word-wrap feature has become corrupted, so this is an experiment to see if he could make an entry here and then transfer it to his own journal with the carriage returns in the correct place. It also serves as an example of a learning journal entry here in my blog for the electronic notebooking moms to use.
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Date: September 12, 2005 - Rocks and Minerals Co-op. Jesse is joining us as we study Rocks and Minerals
OUR COLLECTION AND USING A FIELD GUIDE:
We began the day by exploring our collection of rock and minerals. Our collection is housed in 5 flat cardboard boxes with smaller paper containers holding the samples inside. We also have the K12 commercial specimen kit and several plastic buckets of collected rocks. Here is a picture:
After we explored for a while, Mom gave us Barron's Mineral Field Guide and asked us to select any samples from the collection, that were not already labeled to try our hand at identifying. She said that is was more for fun that an assignment at this point. Jesse and I selected several samples and sat down to become familiar with the field guide. It is organized by the color that the rocks make when they are scratched across a ceramic tile. This is called a streak test.
It was often surprising to see the color that that resulted. Sometimes the minerals were harder than the ceramic tile and would not leave any identifying color to work with.
LEARNING JOURNAL:
After we finished exploring the rock collection and becoming familiar with the field guide, Mom briefly introduced the idea of creating a learning journal to Jesse.
RESEARCHING: HOW TO CITE RESOURCES & ORGANIZING MY NOTES
Plagarizing: Next, we used the computer to access the online course, Rocks and Minerals E-Notebook, for the co-op at www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com. There was a section specifically highlighted for 'Research'. There, mom showed Jesse a page for how to cite resources. Mom explained that to copy material directly from a resource without saying that it is not my own work that that is called plagarizing. It is a form of stealing. She wants us to learn how to know when we should use another person's exact words and how to give the original author credit for their work and when what we read is common knowledge and we may use the information without worring that we are plagarizing.
How to Cite a Resource: On the same page in the online part of the course, Mom also explained that there were standard ways that were acceptable to cite resources. Actually, there were many standard ways: MLA, APA, and others. Citing resources has two parts. One part is where you cite the author of the statement within the text of your writing. The other part was where you list more information about the resource at the very end of your composition in a bibliography. There were two links given near the bottom of the page that we could take to explore the different standards and how each type of resource was to be recorded and listed in a bibliography. Mom said that we were all to choose one standard to use for each of our writing. She said that MLA or APA would probably be the best choice. I decided to use MLA.
How to Take Notes: Again, on that page on the online course website there was information about how we needed to take notes. Mom said that there were many ways to do this too. The traditional way was to use a 3X5 index card. There was an example of a completed on on the webpage. Another method involved using a software tool called Inspiration. It is designed to be a concept mapping tool. She showed us an example of a concept map for the course notebook we will be making. She demonstrated how each of the concept map blocks had the ability to attach notes. The note box can collapse out of site or be opened for adding to it or viewing. By using the note feature, I can keep my research information organized.
Here is a picture of the concept map:
RESOURCE 1: A VIDEO CALLED "JOURNEY INTO AMAZING CAVES":
The next thing that we did was watch a video called Journey Into Amazing Caves. Mom said that we would be visiting Blanchard Springs Cavern as the co-op fieldtrip, so caves would be a subject of study under the heading of state geology in the e-notebook. We were to take notes as we watched. Then everyone would pool those notes together next week since taking notes from a video is very diffficult.
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