Day Seven: Together At Last (2011-01-12)

Today was quite a productive day. Things are finally coming together. We have the edited If Statements lesson and posted up a Dropbox link; Zarin has finished the rough draft of the Case Statements lesson and has also posted up a Dropbox link.

The Glossary is coming along quite nicely as well. The definitions just need to be "spiced up" a little, and I think we're fine. Thank you, Shreya!

I will finish the Introduction by tomorrow, and I just submitted the test one. Test two will be completed shortly.

I also created a Screenshot Requests page, similar to our Flow Chart request page.

Ahh! There are only 8 days until the deadline!

Day Six: So It Continues (2011-01-11)

Today we, once again, got more class time. Progress continues in our group. I trust that by tomorrow or Thursday, we should be finishing the last 10% of our assignment. The plan is to finish this in advance so we can focus on exams and the aesthetics and final touches of the manual.

Day Five: Cinq Ados Qui Travaillent Fort (2011-01-10)

Today, We got more class time. Compared to day one, my culminating project group progressed at an incredible speed! We submitted our proposal and finished: the complete lesson for if statements, the cover, a teaser, a table of contents, introduction, About the Authors, Author's message, and part of the lesson for case statements.

In addition, we have a new member: Shreya. Since we are almost done, we will take care of all the trivial aspects of the manual. Well, I wouldn't say trivial, but she would work on the glossary with Pearl and hopefully the CD if we decide to make one.

Day Three & Four: Double Absence (2011-01-07)

I forgot to write a blog yesterday, so without further ado, here it goes:

Yesterday, I missed class, because I wasn't feeling well. I slept at 3:45am that night in addition to the volleyball game and night class. So, it was kind of expected. The good thing was that I had some time to revise my mosaic project. According to the daily log and my classmates, I missed a lesson on how to convert a file into PDF. Fortunately, my dad taught me how to do that a while ago when I was in Grade 5 and created a magazine, called Megazine, with a friend. So, I didn't have a problem with that. The only other thing I missed was class time to work on the group project.

Today, we had more class time to work on the project. Well, that was only according to my peers and the daily log. I missed class yet another time, because I had to attend a tournament in at Woburn CI. We lost in the semi-finals. If we didn't, we would've placed second place taking into account that the school in first place was an entire team of club players.

Before I left for the tournament, though. I sent the dropbox link to Naeem and Mr. Arkin. According to Naeem, I have to resend the link this time the message cannot contain any other text than the link.

I can finally take a breather this weekend and progress in the group culminating project. Horrah!

Day Three: Exhaustion (2011-01-05)

Today we had our final work period for the Mosaic Project. Proposals are starting to be posted, and work is progressing towards the group culminating project. The group agreed that we will be hitting the project hard after the deadline for the Mosaic project. Everyone is working hard.

I can't honestly say the same. I had a volleyball game at Earl Haig today after school. Then, I took the bus to Finch station and another to my night class. I didn't get home until 9:45pm. I am extremely exhausted right now. So, after I finish this post, I will finish up my writing. I am at 1750 words. AHH! It will be extremely painful to shorten afterwards. Then, I will work on the HTML/CSS. I already have a CSS file for my printer assignment, and a design in mind. Breath, breath Lisa.

Oh, right! I forgot to post a link to the Wikispace for my culminating project. As I mentioned previously, it is private, but you can request a membership to see the kind of work and discussion we have. www.vpcamanual.wikispaces.com.

That is all, goodbye, Blogger!

Day Two: A Wonderful Prospect (2011-01-04)

Today we received feedback from Mr. Arkin in regards to our Mosaic Project topics. Well, it was more approval and disapproval than feedback. According to Mr. Arkin, I had to provide clarification to my topic. At the end, I changed my topic to: The Evolution of Natural-Language Translators. This was in place of "Machine Translators." Apparently Machine Translators translate among programming and computing languages. This is quite strange, because according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_translation, Machine Translation is computer-aided translation.Well, it is not very crucial what the title of my article is as long as the information is valid.

We also had our introduction to our major culminating projects. I was initially in a group with Pearl and Zarin. Then, because Tasfia missed class that day, she spoke to me after school, and she is officially a member of our group. Since none of the group members had Skype, and only Pearl and I had MSN, there was a conflict in how we can discuss our plans. So, I thought of the idea of using Wikispaces. Pearl helped me create a private wikispace (it is a 30-day trial), and I updated the Wikispace with a schedule. The first task on the list is drafting the proposal for Mr. Arkin. Ownership was assigned, and our first draft was on the way!

I have a good feeling about the group culminating project! That is, after I complete my mosaic project...

Day One: A Mosaic of Work (2011-01-03)

School is back! As much as I enjoyed my winter break, we have to face reality. Sigh. So, right off the bat, we were assigned part one of our culminating project. It is the Mosaic Project. We have to research a certain topic and write an article on it. The article will be presented in the form of a web page. We then will have to convert it into a PDF file and give money to Mr. Arkin for him to print it at Staples. When all the projects are printed, they will be displayed in the hallway. Because there are different sizes of paper, they will create a very cool "mosaic" effect. Quite an innovative project, I would say.

I was quite surprised when I heard about the due date, but I suppose I just have to live with it. The project is due on Wed. Tomorrow, we will learn about the second part of our culminating activity. According to Mr. Arkin, it will require a lot more work.

I am beginning to fear culminating activities. Soon after, there will be exams. Yikes!

In class I picked the topic, Natural-Language Translators. When I got home, I did some more research and revised the title a bit. It is now: The Evolution of Machine Translators

I will continue my research right now. Some facts are quite fascinating, may I say. Goodbye!