100% Mutt

Jack Russell + Weiner Dog + Border Terrier + ???? = Mo!

I wanted to take some time to share some super exciting news here on my blog! I got a puppy! My whole adult life I have wanted a dog of my own, and my partner and I finally got one 💕. His name is Mo, and he is just the sweetest.

First Day with Mo (May 2023)

We adopted Mo from an organization on Vancouver Island called RainCoast Rescue. His momma, Sofie, had been adopted in March from California. Little did the rescue organization realize, and her new foster mom as well, Sophie was pregnant with 7 puppies! Mo and his 6 siblings were born on March 16, 2023. When I went to pick him up in May, there he was, the largest and scruffiest of them all. Upon asking the foster mom which of the puppies had the best disposition, without hesitation she pointed to the little wire haired one sitting on her lap.

We took him home on the ferry that day, and his personality already started to shine. From the very start, it was clear that he was loyal to his people. He always wanted to be sitting with me or Cam, and steered clear from strangers. It was obvious as well from the start though that he was smart. Eye contact, attentive ears, and quick responses were some of those first clues. Highly food motivated, I know Mo is on his way to greatness! Since getting Mo, I spent my whole summer training him. We graduated from puppy school at PetSmart, and I did several online dog training courses to learn more about supporting him as a little puppy. We’re currently enrolled in Teenage Manners at Bow Wow Academy too!

The more I learned about dog training, the more I became intrigued about what kind of dog he is. The energy of a terrier, the face of a schnauzer, the tail of a chihuahua, the list keeps going! Not to mention, every month he gets older, the more he changes! Check out these pictures below of Mo’s transformation!

  • 9 Weeks

So, what kind of dog is he?!

Okay, so enough about Mo and I’s love story, and how smart and amazing he is. Let’s get to the point! The more I learn about Mo, the more intrigued I am about what breed of dog he is! Ya, ya, I know I can get a dog DNA test OR even easier, I could just accept that he is a perfect little mutt. But there is actually a lot you can gain from understanding the breed of a dog. For example, knowing the breed of your dog can:

  • help you better understand the energy level and physical capabilities, as well as healthy outlets for your dog (chewing, licking, hiking, running)
  • recognize that some health concerns pertain to specific breeds, helping you prepare for the future
  • explain personality traits of your dog such as herding, shredding, digging, barking or tracing a scent!

So here are my guesses, based on looks and personality, and my amateur dog trainer eye! He is energetic, smart, cautious, likes to dig and shred, and always on the scent.

Okay. That’s it. I can’t wait any longer! Do these DNA tests really work? I’m ordering one right now! I just have to know!

Keep your eyes on my blog for an update in a few weeks, and for that matter, comment your guesses below!

P.S. tell your dog I say hi 👋🏼

This is a Test for Cool Website!

 

There are two options! This first one is called Flourish. The tricky thing is you have to make an account 😅
Once you upload your two images, choose whether you want to use the slider – fade – or spotlight.
When you are ready to publish go to the top right and click “Export & Publish”. Copy the “embed code that it provides you with.
We’ll go over the next step when you are ready to publish it!
This second one is called JuxtaposeJS! It’s free! But your images must come from a URL and it’s important that both your images are the same size.

An Emoji Story

Something that we are focusing on with Humanities 8 right now is the Story Mountain. The Story Mountain is something that allows all story tellers to tell an engaging and effective story. There must be a beginning, a middle, and an end! Just like a blog post actually.

For todays challenge, grade 8’s will be practicing their storytelling skills. This is a creative task, so I thought I’d try it myself! For my story I decided to use the Story Spine. The story spine is something that Pixar uses to tell their stories.

6 Rules of Great Story Telling

Source

In the story spine I have chosen, there are 6 prompts. I won’t be making up this story completely from scratch though. I’m going to use Byrdseed.com and it’s random emoji generator. Wish me luck!

👭 🐥💃🐩🎸🚉

Once upon a time…👭

There were two girls, Chloe and Zoe. They met in kindergarten and were absolutely inseparable. They went to school together, ate together, played together and did art together. They were SO similar. They also shared a passion for two things: music and animals, especially Emily’s pet chicken.

Every day.. 🐥

They would feed the little chick and make sure it had enough water. They named her Suzie. As Chloe and Zoe grew, so did the little chick. As they got older, they started to find different passions, but always stayed by each others sides. Chloe also loved playing guitar for the little chick. As the chick listened to the guitar chords, it was the only thing that made it feel safe.

One day… 💃

Zoe took a dance class. Not just any dance class, she took a tango class. She absolutely LOVED it. She wore her red dress and began dancing every day. Chloe loved to watch Zoe dance. Not only did she love it, but she was really good at it too. Years past, and one day Zoe registered in a competition and won the whole thing! Of course Chloe was there by her side, but as Zoe shined in her glory, Chloe got left behind in the crowd of fans.

because of that.. 🐩

Chloe left the theatre. She was feeling forgotten and knew that Zoe was going to make it big. She went home to her poodle Scruffy and sat alone. A few days passed, and there was no word from Zoe.

because of that.. 🎸

Chloe got very upset. She was sitting at home when all of the sudden she heard a knock on the door. It was Zoe and in her hands was a guitar case. She had an idea. She knew that Chloe loved guitar, and she loved dancing, but she did not want to do anything anymore without Chloe. She showed Chloe some sheet music of what she was dancing too, Chloe played it right away! As Chloe played, Zoe danced.

Until Finally… 🚉

Chloe and Zoe decided to become a dynamic duo! Chloe continued to practice her classical Spanish guitar skills and Zoe would dance to her guitar! They knew they made it big when they bought tickets to the big city! They hopped on the train, Zoe with her dancing shoes, and Chloe with her guitar. They continued to travel around the country performing for all sorts of audiences, finally winning the World Tango Championships!

THE END! 

The emoji generator was pretty fun! That is also the most random story I have ever written, and I may not have chosen those emojis, but it was interesting to see where my mind went!

I tried not to keep each part too short or too long, but I made sure to include a bit of a conflict in the story. The best stories always have to have some sort of struggle. Thank goodness Chloe and Zoe end up together again  !

 

 

Give it a try for yourself!

Music and Me

For this challenge for #SBC2021 – students will be creating posts about MUSIC! Luckily, this just happens to be one of my favourite topics. I think it’s important that music is included in the Student Blogging Challenge and made the top 10 list because it is protected by Copyright laws – just as we learned with images last week.

Continue reading →

Home is Where the Heart Is

I know it is a cheesy saying, but for whatever reason, for me “Home is where the heart is” has always rang true. For the Student Blogging Challenge today, we were asked to have some Fun with Photos! But not just any photos. When getting into Blogging, it’s important to remember Copyright Rules – so that was the underlying message of the task this week. The fun part though comes with the task – to create or take a photo and write a post about it!

The project we are currently working on is about worldview, so I figured I would use this opportunity to discuss one aspect of my worldview. Worldview is:

Worldview (noun): a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or group; the lens through which the world is viewed by an individual or group; the overall perspective from which the world is interpreted

Source

There are 7 aspects of Worldview: society, knowledge, economics, time, geography, beliefs and values. These 7 aspects are kind of the glasses that we see the world through. One lens that I feel really represents who I am as a person is geography – and that’s where my picture comes in!

Ocean View

For the Fun with Photos activity, I decided to create an ocean view of Deep Cove, which is where I grew up. These are the steps I took to create it:

  • I found an actual photo on Google when I searched up Deep Cove on my iPad
  • I imported the photo into Sketches Pro and added a layer to my sketch
  • I traced the image with a black pen, and then made the photo layer invisible
  • I chose colours next to fill the aspects of the photo. The colours I chose I feel represent who I am. I appreciate earth tones, love sunrises and sunsets, and feel most myself by the ocean
  • I added orca fins to the photo as well. There are not always orcas in the Cove, my love for orcas has made me love the ocean, so I had to include them!

Overall, this image represents an important part of my worldview. Because I grew up by the ocean and the mountains, I have a huge appreciation for the outdoors. My interest in the mystery and power of orcas has pushed me to also study traditional ways of knowing of  Coast Salish, which is a topic that I value greatly.

When I studied at university, I became fascinated by my home so I went into history – specifically First Nations studies and Canadian History. Although all the aspects of worldview make me who I am, I could almost say that the geography aspect of my worldview has shaped me into the person I am today.

P.S. – Student blogging challenge is going well! Last week students created their official Commenting Guidelines Posts! Check out Noah the “Cheese Man” who tell it to us straight! Hannah‘s wannabe Food Blog gives us instructions and an awesome poster as well! Or as Ben Y tell us – “Be Like Tutter“.

Student Blogging Challenge 2021

Another year, another Student Blogging Challenge! Of course, things look a little different this year, so we’re doing things a little different in PLP. In the past, students have participated in the SBC weekly. This year, PLP students are doing two challenges a week, and using the Top 10 Challenges to guide us!

It’s pretty incredible actually because we have 50 grade 8’s! Every single one of them has made a blog, and is sharing their journey to becoming BLOG BOSSES! Huge shout out to the Student Blogging Challenge for guiding us.

Thank you Creative Commons!

Last week students updated their About Me Pages. They took all sorts of different forms. Some kept it short and sweet like Ariane, while others like Fraser gave us lots of insight into his passions and interests! I enjoyed reading Dana‘s About Me list as well!

This week we are practicing Embedding Content into our blogs. We’re using tips from the Blogging Bootcamp to help us out.

The first thing learners will practice is embedding YouTube videos. Videos throughout blogs can split up your text and grab your readers’ attention! Check out this video below!

(easy peasy)

So that is a YouTube Video, what if I have the video that I want to upload. Let’s try that! If the video is your own, you can always link to like this!

If it’s your own video, you can always upload it like this too! Video Test! PLP 9

Links and videos aside, many students use images to amp up their blogs. It’s important to remember though when uploading images, that you cannot just upload any image that you want! It’s important to remember Copyright Rules. Let’s check out this important page by Kathleen Morris. You can upload images and place them throughout your text to split it up! Obviously all the image examples I will use will be of my amazing little cat.

Tillicum

Although photos can enhance posts, they do take up a lot of space. Be sure to manage the alignment and size of the image. I also prefer to allow the image to be wrapped in text to guide your reader down the page.

With a few simple clicks, I can make sure that my image is aligned to the left or the right.

Sometimes you also have to play around the size of an image. Edublog says “Remember it is best to resize your image to 150-300 pixels wide if you want to left or right align the image.” (Edublogs)

 

Something else I wanted to try in this post of content embedding was a slideshow. Slideshows are a bit more difficult because I had to enable a Plugin on my specific blog. I chose “Metaslider”. When I go to create a post now, at the top of my post creation site, I see “Add Slideshow”. Let’s try it!

By toggling on Metaslider, I can create a short slideshow in the Plugin. When I go to add it now, there it is waiting for me!

  • Tillicum on the Table

Alright team, thanks for reading my post about embedding content, as well as a little introduction into what we will be doing over the next few weeks! I’ll be continuing to keep up with this edition of the Student Blogging Challenge and using this space to become a blog boss.

Who knows.. maybe I’ll become a professional blogger after the SBC 2021! Here goes nothing!

P.S. Can anyone guess why I have a category called dog food?

 

Adding Your Comic

Hey y’all!

Today is the day you upload your final COMIC to your blogs! Let’s make sure they are published super nicely as ePUBS so that people can download them as books!

These are the steps I took to create the links that you see below. You want to make sure your Comic is super easy to find so your viewers can enjoy!

#1) Export Your Comic by clicking on the Share-O button!

#2 ) Export your Comic FIRST as an EPub. This means you are publishing your first BOOK! Congrats! I decided for my blog viewers to also export it as a PDF, for those people who don’t want to download my book.

#3) Name your Comic and maybe sure you give it an Author Name!

 #4) Save your Comic to Your FILES – Don’t forget where you saved it. This is how you will access it from your Blog.

 

#5) On your blog – Click ADD Media to your post! When you add any media, it will create a link for it. Check out some of my examples below! You can edit this link too. You can even make an IMAGE a link to your PDF.

 

 

 

CHANGING Text Helps too – and where you put it on your page! 

Crazy Old Lady Comic EPub

To show my comic off even more, and for people who don’t want to completely download my comic. I want to also put it here as a PDF. Maybe this is where I could include some Screenshots of my Comic.

If you click on this link – it will also take you to the PDF version of my COMIC! Which is kind of nice for people who just want to take browse through!

Crazy Old Lady Comic PDF

You can even turn your IMAGE into a link.

Click on this image to scroll through the PDF version of my Comic!

Having a picture to click on makes your viewers see it nice and clearly on your page!

How to Post an Essay

Many of the assignments we complete here in PLP, show off all the awesome recording, research, and final products through Pages. I would like to try to add an essay as an external link on this page.

Let’s see if I can do it!

Critique Form

Whahooo! I did it!

All you have to do is follow the steps below:

1) Save your Essay as a PDF in your files

2) Within your post, Add Media!

3) Through adding media – Add your essay PDF to your media library. Make sure to give it a title so that it shows up nicely like mine did above (Critique Form).

4) Shazam!!! Now your readers can click on the link to see your essay on another tab. Leaving you more room for pictures, videos, and reflection!

Hello Peeps!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog! I’ve set up this blog to try my best to keep up with all of my amazing students. At the end of all of the projects that we complete in the Performance Learning Program, students write reflective blog posts. The ins and outs of WordPress allow us to create some amazing things!

I’m here to check these things out, practice my own blogging skills, and give myself a platform to practice all the creative and innovative things I can do on WordPress.

Here goes!

For assistance, I might need to visit the comprehensive support site, check out our Edublogs User Guide guide or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.