What would you change about the final product (the wiki you created) if you were to do the assignment again?

After working on our wikispace, for around 5 lessons, I, to be very honest, was quite pleased with our wikispace. However, if given the chance, I would change a few things. For one, I feel that on a few of our kingdom’s pages, we could have added much more information. I got a bit carried away with pictures, and added a lot them. This caused my focus to drift away from the “writing” part of the wikispace! I also feel that for this project I mainly focused on my part of the wikispace. For example, while exploring the wikispace for errors, I would only add pictures to the text that I typed. Lastly, I think that we could have improved the “Bibliography” page on our wikispace a lot. My group could have added more pictures, for the page to look more attractive. Also, I feel that instead of simply adding all the citations, we could have written what the citation was for, above that particular citation. Besides these mistakes, I thought that we (my group), did quite a good job on our wikispace.

Look at some of the other wikispaces from any class and find a few that you think are done exceptionally well. Tell me the name of the empire and the block, and then explain what you like about their wiki.

Ghana Empire-Block E 

The Ghana Empire wikipages created by Block E are truly amazing. After taking a look, and observing all their pages, I found out why this group had such wonderful wikipages. Balance. This group had a perfect balance between the written and pictorial information they had on their wikipages. This made their kingdom’s pages look very attractive, as well as informative.

Ancient Zimbabwe-Block H

This Ancient Zimbabwe page was a quintessential example of a good and informative wikipages, for beginners who are studying Ancient Zimbabwe! I noticed that the authors of these particular wikipages organized their data in a way, which is easy to understand, and at the same time interesting to look at! Because of this group’s wonderful formatting and organization skills, the information they have provided, can help many people, as information that is easy to read and understand, is information that most preferred.

Kongo Kingdom-Block E 

The authors of theKongo Kingdom pages have done a very professional job in presenting their information. Their pages, unlike those of Ancient Zimbabwe (Block H), are for people at extremely professional levels.

Homework Assignment: Homework for Block D (Wednesday 7 February). 

Finding information on ancient Africa, and then putting the information on the wikispace, was a great learning experience, as well as a lot of fun. Answering these questions, will help me reflect on my work, over the course of the month:

What did you learn from this task?

I learnt a lot of things from this task. During the start of the project, I learned a great deal about ancient Ghana. From the region, to the trade, I learnt everything. I learnt that Ghana was a very powerful empire, and that it had a great abundance in gold. Ghana used to be the main trading point for most black Africans in Western Africa. As Ghana did not have great quantities of salt, they used to trade their gold for salt with southern kingdoms. Not only did I gain knowledge about my own kingdom, I also learned a few things about other ancient empires such as the Mali Empire, and the Kongo Kingdom. As far as technology is concerned, I learnt many new skills about wikispaces. This helped me in making better wikispace pages, and working faster. In addition, I got familiar with the “iMovie making”, skill. I worked on an iMovie on ancient Africa, and that made me improve tremendously in iMovie. To visit our excellent wikispace on ancient Africa, click here.

Did you find this difficult or easy? Why?

At first finding enough information for our wikispace was slightly tough, as I was not looking at the correct sites for information. After receiving a few website evaluation hand-outs, which were extremely helpful, I finally was able to find relevant information on my topic. Besides that, I thought, that the project was a lot of fun, and reasonably easy.

What would you change about the process you went through to complete the wiki if you were to do the assignment again?

If we were to do the assignment again, then I would not change anything, as far as the research was concerned. For the technological part, however, I would give a lesson on the wikispace html, as some people may not have “Firefox” or “Internet Explorer”, at their houses, and therefore the information they add to the wikispace, does not look attractive.

Mahera

Link to the assignment: Homework for Block D (Wednesday 29 November)

Today in class I heard four different presentations, from four different groups. Each of them shared with us informative and interesting facts, about various topics, about Western Africa.

As far as the information is concerned, I learned A LOT about Western Africa. I never knew that there was a law that the Songhai Empire wasn’t allowed to trade salt and gold with Morocco. I also wasn’t aware of the fact, that around 800-900 AD, West Africa had one of the strongest trade in Africa. I learned that before iron was discovered in West Africa, stone and bones were used to make weapons etc., and that after this amazing discovery, farming and hunting became very poplar, as the people now had the advantage of tools such as axes etc.

As far as the presentations were concerned I thought most of the groups knew what they were talking about, and were very confident of what they were teaching us.

Western Africa has amazing history, and I am really looking forward to learn more about it.

Mahera

Link to the assignment:  Homework for Block D (Monday 9 October)

The presentations I heard in class were very interesting, and they gave the entire class, an opportunity to learn about interesting things about various countries around the world. Here are some things I found very interesting.

I had never imagined that in a small country like Luxembourg, three different languages were spoken, and for different purposes. German was spoken for educational purposes, French was spoken for official purposes and Luxembourgish was spoken for personal purposes (at home).  For more information on Luxembourg visit: http://annika.learnerblogs.org/ 

I had never thought, that the % of internet users and the % of cell phone owners is so less in Lithuania. The % of cell phone owners is 1% and the % of internet users is 4%. For more information on Lithuania visit: http://sekheena.learnerblogs.org/ 

I also learnt that the Fertility rate in Cambodia is very high. Their Fertility rate is 3.37 children born/woman. For more information on Cambodia visit: http://matilda.learnerblogs.org/ 

I heard many interesting facts about various countries, and I thought that each and everyone of my classmates had put in a lot of effort on this project.

Mahera

Link to the assignment: Homework for Block D (Thursday 5 october)

PART I: SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INDICATORS

NATION

Country Name:Canada

Type of Government: Constitutional monarchy that is also a parliamentary democracy and federation.

Political Leader: Stephen Harper (Prime Minister)

                         Michaelle Jean (Governor-General)

PEOPLE

Population: 33,098,932

Age Structure: 0-14 years: 17.6% (male 2,992,811/female 2,848,388)

                      15-64 years: 69% (male 11,482,452/female 11,368,286)

                     65 years and over: 13.3% (male 1,883,008/female 2,523,987)

Ethnic Group(s): British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%.

Religion(s): Roman Catholic 42.6%, Protestant 23.3% (including United Church 9.5%, Anglican 6.8%, Baptist 2.4%, Lutheran 2%), other Christian 4.4%, Muslim 1.9%, other and unspecified 11.8%, none 16%.

Language(s): English (official) 59.3%, French (official) 23.2%, other 17.5%

Literacy rates: definition: age 15 and over can read and write

                     total population: 99%

                    male: 99%

                   female: 99%

Fertility rates: 1.61 children born/woman.

Life Expectancy: total population: 80.22 years

                         male: 76.86 years

                        female: 83.74 years

Infant mortality rates: total: 4.69 deaths/1,000 live births

                                male: 5.15 deaths/1,000 live births

                              female: 4.22 deaths/1,000 live births

ECONOMY

GDP per capita: $ 34,000

% Living under poverty: 15.9%

% of Internet Users: 63.1%

% of cell phone owners: 45.2%

PART II: GOOGLE EARTH MAP

 This is a small picture of my Google Earth Map.

PART III: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES.

Canada faces several areas of challenge. Here are some of the main areas of challenge Canada faces. First, Canada faces several environmental issues such as air pollution and resulting acid rain, which immensely damage the forests, because if most of the precipitation is highly acidic, then all the acid-destroying chemicals will eventually finish and the acid rain will be left to destroy the Canadian forests. In addition Canada is under the external debt of $ 439.8 billion, and the public debt of 69.9%. This could result in Canada getting into a massive debt trap (not being able to pay your debt), because if Canada remains under debt for a very long time, eventually they will not be able to pay their debt. Equally important, Canada faces the challenge of the production and export of illegal drugs. The use of the hydroponics technology allows illegal growers to plant large quantities of high quality marijuana (deadly drug), indoors. This is harming Canada, because people are breaking the law and this could also result in Canada’s productivity rate (amount of work a person can do) dropping, which is not very good for a country like Canada, which anyways has such a less population. In conclusion, these are the weak areas and areas of challenge Canada faces.

PART IV: REFLECTIONS

What Did I Find Difficult Or Easy? Why?

I found this project very easy. The CIA World Fact book was a very quick and up-to-date source to get information from. The only thing which I found slightly difficult was the html codes. I found it very confusing, because I often forgot to undo the bold, and it was only when I viewed it on the map, that I realized my mistake. Tough, at the end it was a great learning experience.

What Else Would I Like To Learn About Creating Google Earth Maps?

I would like to know how to add a picture to our information. If we aren’t doing the Google Earth Maps very professionally, I would also like to know how to add links to our Country’s information.

What I Am Thinking About In Relation To This Project

I was thinking that if we wanted to give some information, about two country’s joint history, along with other important information, would it be possible?

Example: After the partition between India and Pakistan, how has the government, economy etc. of both the countries been affected?

SOURCES:

http://www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/SOER/Nut_hight.cfm

http://dictionary.reference.com/

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ca.html

Mahera.