Day: January 9, 2018

Commentary PowerPoint on Machines and Technology

Hello Everyone!

Today I have passed out a handout and rubric for your end-of-unit assignment to create a PowerPoint slideshow about the machine or technology you believe has been the most influential on humanity and the world.

During this project you will:

  • Create a minimum of 10 separate slides (not including your title or citations page at the end) to answer the questions provided below.
  • You need to discuss the positive and negative impacts of your machine or technology on humans and the world. Be specific.
  • Each slide should have a subtitle at the top, a picture, and a one sentence comment at the bottom that will give us an idea of your commentary about the machine or technology. It is a good idea to make the subtitles match the questions I have asked you to answer.
  • On separate paper, or in the notes section of the PowerPoint, create commentary for each slide that you can use to make a presentation during the slideshow.
  • Write commentary that answers the questions.
  • Provide copies of your notes, your PowerPoint, and your commentary to the teacher in Google Drive.
  • Practice saying the commentary out loud so you can present it to the class.

Questions you need to answer. Use these to guide your notes.:

  • What is the machine or technology you plan to discuss?
  • How is this machine or technology used? 
  • How does the machine or technology work?
  • When was the machine or technology invented? What is its history?
  • Why is this machine or technology the MOST influential on humanity and the world?
  • What are the positive impacts of this machine or technology?
  • What are the negative impacts of this machine or technology?
  • What is a summary of your key points on why this machine or technology is the most influential?
  • What is your bibliography of resources?

Do use:

  • Persuasive language to convince us this machine or technology is the MOST influential
  • Pictures that show you did some research
  • Captions under pictures to tell me what the picture is
  • Specific facts about where the machine or technology comes from that show some effort and research
  • Proper C.O.P.S. throughout the presentation
  • Basic transitions
  • One sentence of text

Please do not use:

  • Emoticons. At all.
  • Cartoon pictures.
  • Lots of text. Follow instructions. Only one sentence please.
  • Fancy transitions that increase the overall time of the slideshow, as they are not needed
  • Pictures from Google that have nothing to do with your topic
  • Pictures that have any copyright symbols or writing on them
  • Goodbye slides. If you want a slide at the end, simply say “Thank you and Questions?”
  • Black, red, neon colours that are hard to look at
  • Tiny fonts no one can read
  • Jokes in the middle of your PowerPoint. You are trying to prove a case. Convince me. Be professional.

Thank you!

Bibliographies! Useful info for your research

Hello Everyone!

Here are websites to help you with making bibliographies, which ensure all the information you are using during your research process is cited and acknowledged. Someone did all the great research before you, so we have to give them credit! This also applies to photographs you have used from the Internet.

Easy Bib — is a great resource for helping you to build your bibliography, but make sure you understand how to put a final bibliography together yourself without using this tool.

Sample Bibliography Style Sheet — Using the MLA format, here is a sample bibliography for you to follow. Notice that bibliography entries change for each type of resource.

MLA Tutorial — Here is another tutorial for young students on the MLA format of bibliographies.

Science Buddies — This website provides great tips for making MLA and APA format bibliographies. We are using MLA for now.

Sample Bibliography — Here is an entire bibliography. Notice the different resources are put in alphabetical order by the first letter of the entry. Notice the first line of each entry is not indented, but the lines afterwards are. Notice there is a space between each entry. This helps with making your resources clear to the reader and super organized!

MLA Citations Video — This is the quick video we will watch in class, if you would like to review again.

There are many more resources online about bibliographies if you need them. For example, if you forget how to cite a magazine, just put into Google “how to MLA cite a magazine” and you will find examples.

Ms. D