May 1, 2015 - LAST CLASS 104 minutes
 Finish First Aid Posters: All students had time today to finish this project and print a rough draft in black and white. Each student had a chance to review their rough draft with the teacher before printing their final draft in full color. Click here to enlarge the project description. Everyone finished today. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.A, 15.3.8.B, 15.3.8.E, 15.3.8.H, 15.3.8.S, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.B) Make-up Time & Checking Grades: Since this is our last full class all students had time to make up any work they may have missed. All projects were handed back and students could submit anything they missed or re-submit a project that they hadn't finished for full credit. All students were asked to log into the HAC and check their grades for this class. The few students who could not log in to check their grades were reminded, one more time, that they have to talk to their parents about getting their email address registered in the system. Quiz Experiment:  As a class we experimented with a free quiz service called Plicker which enables a teacher to use a free app and their phone to collect quiz answers from students using cards with QR codes printed on them.  A video demonstration of Plickers can be viewed here. Office Yoga Break:  Students are always reminded to not spend too much time sitting in front of computers.  Breaks should be taken at least every 30-40 minutes.  For our break today we practiced a simple yoga stretch for your ankles and then everyone had a chance to get up and move around the room some.  Closure to Computer Class: Students were reminded that computers are constantly changing and that they have to learn to adjust to new programs, new hardware and new ways of using technology all the time. We are all constantly learning to adapt to new technology. Students were also reminded that this was their only required computer class here at Council Rock and that should they wish to learn more about computer technology they should look carefully at the High School Program Planning Guide for the many elective classes that incorporate computer skills. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.6.8.M, 15.2.8.E) Technology Current Event Video:  For our last current event this year we watched a TED Presentation by Gary Kovacs, the CEO of Mozilla, about how internet users are tracked.  He demonstrated how many companies were following him and his daughter when they were online during a typical day.  During the presentation he demonstrated how a free download for Firefox called Collusion (now called Lightbeam) can be used to find out who is tracking you online.  (PA-BCIT Standards:  15.4.8.A, 15.5.8.J, 15.9.8.L, 15.9.8.M) April 29, 2015 104 minutes Mr. McNulty is absent today.  The class will be doing the following activities: Internet Moment:  All students should go to Earthcam.com and check out the wide variety of online streaming webcams that are available all day, every day.  Students should consider what the increased use of webcams in public places means for their privacy rights and they can research when they have a reasonable expectation of privacy here. Finish First Aid Posters:  All students will have time today to finish this project and print a final draft in full color using the color printer in the back of the room. Click here to enlarge the project description.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.A, 15.3.8.B, 15.3.8.E, 15.3.8.H, 15.3.8.S, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.B) Make-up Time & Checking Grades: Since this is our second to the last class all students will have some time to make up any work they may have missed. All projects will be handed back and students could submit anything they missed or re-submit a project that they hadn't finished for full credit.  All students should log into the HAC and check their grades for this class. Technology Current Event Video:  At the end of class students should watch this 2013 TED presentation by Raffaello D'Andrea about the quadcopters. April 27, 2015 91 minutes Internet Moment:  Today our students were introduced to the "joy of statistics" by viewing GapMinder.org which is a free online resource where statistics from all around the world are presented in an easy to understand visual format. We looked at the "Wealth & Health of Nations" chart. As a demonstration of how the website works we tracked the life expectancy and income changes in the USA and Japan over the last 200 years.  We also looked at how 8th grade math scores had changing in Japan, Canada and the   United States.  Students then had time to explore the website on their own. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.4.8.A, 15.6.8.M, 15.7.8.A, 15.7.8.F, 15.7.8.H, 15.7.8.L)  FIRST AID PROJECT DIRECTIONS: Office Yoga Break:  During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break.  As part of our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch for your thigh. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a video from the BBC in which Hans Rosling describes how Gapminder.org can be used to identify trends and misconceptions by looking at the data. April 23, 2015 101 minutes* Google Earth Tour Quiz:  As a follow-up to our previous tour on Google Earth students were challenged to list everywhere they had gone and what they had seen on their tour of the 3 dimensional visual imagery in Google Earth last class. This activity helped to demonstrate the effectiveness of using 3D spatial references, such as the virtual environment of Google Earth, to augment memory.    QUIZ:  Where I went on Google Earth  (PA-BCIT Standards:  15.4.8.A, 15.6.8.M)  Office Yoga Break:  During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break. For our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch for your arm. Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today by watching a TED presentation by Mitch Resnick from the MIT Media Lab.  In the presentation he talked about the development for Scratch and the importance of teaching computer coding to kids. April 21, 2015 30 minutes* Internet Moment: Today we explored Google Earth and discussed how a 3 dimensional virtual environment can be used to augment human memory. We started by discussing what spatial memory is and how it is used to make modern video games so engaging. Students were then introduced to the memory palace or method of loci as an effective way to use 3 dimensional visual imagery to help a person remember large amounts of information. We then went to Google Earth and began a tour of  the earth, the sky, Mars and the moon. The whole class followed a specific list of locations.  Next class all students will take a quiz to see how much of the Google Earth tour they can recall.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.4.8.A, 15.6.8.M) Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video from "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" about Constructing a Memory Palace. April 17, 2015 61 minutes* Internet Moment:  Today we explored NewsMap.jp which is a graphical interpretation of the top news stories on Google News that was created by Marcos Weskamp, a self described software architect.  He was also part of the team that founded Flipboard which seeks to bring the design experience of magazines to web and tablet technology. (PA BCIT Standards:  15.2.8.B, 15.2.8.C, 15.2.8.D, 15.2.8.E) Scratch: As a follow-up to our Hour of Code activity last class (Blockly Maze Tutorial) students were shown Scratch which is a free coding tutorial activity that is available from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.    Started Basic HTML: Students learned about computer coding by creating a website in basic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Students typed the HTML into Wordpad to create a simple webpage. We then made adjustments to this page that included adding a background color. Students were also shown how to change the font color, font style, insert images and add a hyperlink. All students also had some time to experiment with adding JavaScript. Click here to enlarge the project description.(PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.S, 15.4.8.H) Office Yoga Break: During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break. For our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video from KhanAcademy.org about HTML which reviewed the activity we just did. April 15, 2015 101 minutes*  Log on and Check Grades:  All students were asked to log into the Home Access Center and check their grades.  Since January 1st, 2015 all HAC accounts have been  Finish Full Page Ads:  All students had time today to work on this project and print a rough draft in black and white.  Each student had a chance to review their rough draft with the teacher before printing their final draft in full color.  Everyone had time to finish and print this project today.  Click here to enlarge the project description.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.A, 15.3.8.B, 15.3.8.E, 15.3.8.H, 15.3.8.S, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.B) Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a British video about the development of graphene.  (PA-BCIT Standard: 15.4.8.A, 15.5.8.J)  (ISTE Standard 1d) * Class time was shorter today due to PSSA testing April 13, 2015 10 minutes* * Class time was shortened today due to a fire drill and an assembly. April 9, 2015 91 minutes  Technology Use Survey: All students in this class participated in the annual NMS Student Technology Use Survey. After the survey students had time to review the results from previous years. All results going back to 2006 can be viewed here. Hour of Code:  Today our class participated in the Hour of Code. We started by viewing the source code for this webpage.  Students were told that this code, a mixture of HTML and JavaScript, was the list of specific instructions that tell your web browser how to display the webpage.  We then watched the tutorial video below to introduce the online coding activity.  Students then went to the online Blockly Maze Tutorial to write JavaScript.  Office Yoga Break:  During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break. For our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch for your arms. Technology Current Event Video:  To finish class today we watch an example of how a logo is designed using Abobe Photoshop.  In the video about 4 hours of work are compressed into 4 minutes.  This video was posted by King-Sora Designs in the Czech Republic. April 7, 2015 101 minutes*   Office Yoga Break: Students are always reminded to not spend too much time in front of computers and to take breaks every 30-40 minutes. Today we practiced a simple yoga stretch that helps prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.  Before the stretch the causes and symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome were explained to the class.  After the stretch all students had an opportunity to take a short break and move around.  (PA-BCIT Standard:  15.4.5.D,) Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a TED presentation by Margaret Stewart about how copyright laws are handled on YouTube. * Class time was shorter today due to the March of Dimes Assembly March 27, 2015 44 minutes Internet Moment: Today we looked at two online resources for fonts. DaFont.com offers over 27,000 fonts that are either freeware, shareware, demo versions or in the public domain. These fonts can be downloaded and installed but students were also shown how they can use the Snipping Tool to get images of the fonts they might like. Students were also shown how they could make their own font using a website like YourFonts.com. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.E, 15.6.5.M, 15.4.5.A) Technology Current Event Video:   We watched part of a TED Presentation by John Maeda, the President of the Rhode Island School of Design.  In the video he talked about how he became a graphic designer and how he used technology.  He also did a presentation about content & form that demonstrated the use different of different fonts to convey meaning. Students were encouraged to watched the rest of the video on their own.  (PA BCIT Standard: 15.4.8.A, 15.8.8.K, 15.9.8.A) March 25, 2015 91 minutes Internet Moment: We looked at a Microsoft Web Application for creating zoomable high resolution photos.   Students were also shown two other examples of zoomable photos that were created using the web application:  the NMS Mosaic  Project and the Deep Zoom image of Yosemite National Park. Students had time to explore these websites.  Font Presentation:  In this presentation the development of the two basic font families (serif & sans serif) as well as the best uses for each was discussed. Students were also shown how they read primarily through identifying sight words and why it's so hard to spell check and grammar check your own work.  (serif & san serif) and the best uses for each category students proceeded to make a Font Guide in MS Publisher. The final student project should look just like the original. We also discussed the concept of WYSIWYG in graphic design on computers. Click here to enlarge the project description. Everyone finished this project in class.  (PA-BCIT Standards:  15.3.8.E, 15.4.8.G, 15.4.2.K, 15.3.8.X) Office Yoga Break:  During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break.  As part of our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch for your shoulders and back.  After the break everyone had a chance to get up and walk around. Font Conference Video:  As a follow-up to the Font Presentation we watched a short video from College Humor about a fictitious "Font Conference": March 23, 2015 104 minutes Class Blog: Students were shown TodayInComputerClass.com and told that they can check here anytime to review what work was done in class. We also discussed what a web log or blog was, how blogs developed into microblogs like Twitter and now mobile phone based apps like Instagram. This website is the blog or web log for our class. Students were also told that their parents will be sent an email with a link to this website so they can also review what we are doing in computer class each day. CRSD Acceptable Use Policy: All students demonstrated that they could search for and access the CRSD Acceptable Use Policy online.  They were reminded that they are in a network environment where their actions on the computer can be easily tracked. Typing Test: All students took a typing test using TypingTest.com. Each student had 10 minutes to take the 1 minute test multiple times. Their best adjusted speed was recorded and graphed in an Excel spreadsheet. The average typing speed for this class was: 35.1 WPM Click here for more information about typing speeds at Newtown Middle School. We also reviewed the graph below:   Online Typing Activities: As a follow up to the typing test we looked at the typing speeds for the whole 8th grade in Excel and looked at graphs of past speeds for NMS students. Students were then given some time to find at least 3 online typing activities (tutorials or games) that they enjoyed. They were to then add these typing activities to their favorites or bookmarks list so they could go back and practice their typing skills in class when they finished their projects.Office Yoga Break:  During long classes like this one students are always reminded to take breaks and get exercise. Students shouldn't spend more than 30-40 minutes in front of a computer without taking a break. For our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch. Student Passwords: All students were given some suggestions to help them develop good passwords.  Some suggested good password practices were:  Come  
 Business Classes at the High School, WebQuest Project:  All students researched the computer class opportunities at our high school by completing an online webquest activity.  Follow this link to view the questions.  They used the Council Rock High School - North web site to find the answers. Technology Current Event Video:  Today's current event video was about a recent incident at Bloomsburg University involving an inappropriate tweet sent by a student who was on the baseball team and the resulting consequences.  The video came from Fox News 8 in Cleveland, Ohio. March 19, 2015 94 minutes Internet Moment:  Students were asked to compare three popular news aggregator websites:  Google News, Bing News and Yahoo.  We looked at their home pages, their features and their overall appearance.  Though the results were split, a plurality of our students said they preferred Google News when looking for current events online.  (PA BCIT Standards:  15.3.8.E, 15.6.5.L)   Introduction to Computer Class Presentation: This presentation was a follow up to the survey we reviewed basic computer concepts everyone should be familiar with such as:
March 17, 2015 91 minutes Introduction to Basic Computer Skills Class: Basic rules and classroom procedures were explained. Students were specifically reminded that because technology is constantly changing they should get into the habit of helping each other out and demonstrating the ability to learn new computer skills through experimentation.  All students reported that they had helped an adult with computer skills but they were reminded that it's also important to help their peers.  Pixlr.com Project: Students were shown how to use the online photo editor pixlr.com to edit a photograph.  Students then shared their modified photos using various district network resources and demonstrated basic skills such as drag & drop. The best use of the H:, S: & X: drives was also explained.  We also discussed professional digital photo editing with Adobe PhotoShop. (PA BCIT Standards: 15.4.8.F, 15.4.5.G)  Break: Students are always reminded to not spend too much time working on computers and to take breaks every 30-40 minutes.  For our break today we will be conducting a probability experiment about matching birthdays that you can read about here.  Everyone will be asked to get up and find the other person in the room who shares their birthday.  Computer Class Survey: All students take a computer class survey. The results of this survey are used to guide the instruction for the class. You can view the survey to the right.  Click to enlarge. Next class we will use the survey as the outline for a presentation about basic computer knowledge. Technology Current Event Video:  At then end of most computer classes we watch a current event video about emerging trends in technology.  Today's video was inspired by a presentation that was created by a high school teacher in Colorado, Mr. Karl Fisch. This 2014 revision of the presentation was created by Jose Esteves, a professor of Information Systems at the IE Business School in Spain.   |
