Metacognition: Mindbook

            When I first heard about the Mindbook from some older students that had used it in past years I heard mixed reviews. Some people hated it because it was a bit time consuming and tedious, while others loved it because they got to show creativity that was always being pushed aside in other courses. I would have to agree with the latter. Now don't get me wrong, I've never really been the "artsy farty" type of person, but I have always been interested in finding ways to be creative and express myself. The Mindbook gave me the perfect place to do just that. 
            When we first began working on our Mindbooks I was looking over the prompts and began to worry when I saw that many of them had to do with writing, and there were only a few prompts that involved artistic creativity, like collages or mashups. I started to worry because I have never really been a very strong writer. I was always the kid in english classes that got consistent 85 percents on every paper because I could never figure out a way to improve my work. Seeing that a lot of the prompts involved writing I began to have flashbacks to my prior years in english and started panicking about being able to succeed in this class. 
            Luckily though, I soon found out that the Mindbook entries are meant to help spark creativity, even if it is through writing. These Mindbook entries have opened my eyes to all of the different ways it is possible to be creative. I used to think that creativity could only come when I was working on a collage or something like that, but I have now realized that I can have fun and be creative when writing an essay or something more along those lines. 
            The process of the Mindbook involves a lot of brainstorming and then executing thought out ideas, which I have always been pretty good at. So I found that part to be simple to do because that is how I do most of my projects. But I was very surprised when I found out the amount of creativity present in all different types of writing. I now realize that I can have fun writing any type of paper as long as I put my own creative twist on it. The Mindbook is my favorite project yet in high school, and I know it will continue to be as great as it has been this quarter. 

Blogging Around

            The first blog I read was by Chris and it was called, "What if; Kids taught other kids". This blog was about the concept of kids teaching other kids instead of teachers doing it. Since I want to be a teacher this post made me think about this technique and if it would work. It think that doing this every once in a while would possibly work in a classroom! I wrote: 
"I think this is one of my favorite posts that I have read! I really think that this way of teaching would allow kids to enjoy school more and possibly get more out of it! If I were in a class like this I feel like I would be much more willing to learn! Since I want to be a teacher eventually this post really got me thinking about how this would work in a classroom! Maybe I'll try it some day."

            The second blog I read was by Andrew and it was called "What if; Plagiarism". His blog covered the topic of plagiarism and also talked about the concept of turnitin.com. I agreed with his statement about how in the next few years teachers will not be able to monitor plagairism with something like turnitin.com becasue students will be able to find a way around it. I wrote: 
"I think your post was really interesting. I've never thought about plagiarism in depth, but your post got me thinking. I completely agree with your statement about a way around turnitin.com being inevitable. With the technology we have today and the growth there will be in the future, i feel it will be almost impossible to catch every kid that is plagiarizing a paper. I loved reading your post!"