January 26, 2015 - LAST CLASS 104 minutes
 FIRST AID PROJECT DIRECTIONS: 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) January22, 2015 12 minutes*  * Class time was shorter today due to the High School Arts Presentations rotation schedule January 20, 2015 91 minutes Internet Moment:  As a follow-up to the Online Collaboration Project that we started last class students were shown how to use Google Maps to learn more about Austria. The class was shown how to search for specific destinations, hotels, restaurants and activities. They were also reminded to research youth hostels and public transportation options.  Finish Online Collaboration Project:  Each group of students finished planning their travel itinerary today.  Students were reminded to use Google Earth to check out where they were going.  Using Google as a currency converter was also demonstrated and students were reminded to use the calculator on their computers to total their travel expenses.  Once finished all groups downloaded the itinerary they collaborated on as a Word Document and next class we will submit them using our network drives.  Click here to enlarge the project description.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.E, 15.3.8.M, 15.3.8.S, 15.3.8.U, 15.3.12.W, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.D) 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 back. Online Collaboration Demonstration: students were shown an example of an international online collaboration project which was organized by Stefan Nielsen, a teacher in Denmark, and involved 30 teachers around the world. The 121212-1212 Project can be viewed to the right. Students were reminded that tools like Google Docs and Microsoft 356 will be an important part of their future.  January 15, 2015 104 minutes Internet Moment:  Students were shown GeoGuessr.com today and we spent about 5 minutes playing the game at the beginning class today.  The highest score in our class today was 11,650 points. Finish Full Page Ad Project:  All students had a chance to finish and print their full page ad 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) 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 short video about tourism in Austria. January 13, 2015 44 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) 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:  After finishing the full page ad project we watched an whiteboard video about the universal principles of persuasion to introduce students to some basic marketing concepts. (PA-BCIT Standards:  15.9.8.A, 15.9.8.E) January 9, 2015 91 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   Work on 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.  Some students finished today but all students will have some time to finish and print next class.  Click here to enlarge the project description.  Almost 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) 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 with a short video from "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" about Constructing a Memory Palace. January 7, 2015 104 minutes  Finish Brochure Project:  All students had time to finish this project today.  Students were shown how to print on both sides of a sheet of paper and how to trifold a brochure.  Everyone had a chance to review a rough draft with the teacher before turning in a final draft.  Click here to enlarge the project description. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.1.5.B, 15.3.5.A, 15.3.8.B, 15.3.5.D, 15.3.8.D, 15.3.8.E, 15.4.8.G, 15.3.8.U, 15.6.8.L)  The Universal Arts of Graphic Design:  As a review of the projects our students have done in Publisher we watched a short video from PBSoffbook about what graphic arts is and what a graphic designer does. January 5, 2015 44 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.  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a follow-up activity to the financial literacy game we played at the beginning of class we watched a short video from Bank America about setting up a personal budget.  Students were also reminded that they can learn a lot more about money by taking the Personal Finance class at the high school. December 22, 2014 91 minutes  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a TED presentation by Margaret Stewart about how copyright laws are handled on YouTube. December 18, 2014 104 minutes    Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short video from How Stuff Works about Tim Berners-Lee and the invention of the World Wide Web. December 16, 2014 44 minutes Internet Moment: Today we looked at two online resources for fonts. DaFont.com offers over 26,000 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) 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.  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) December 12, 2014 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 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. We will finish this project next 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. For our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch. Online Collaboration Activity:  Our students finished the online collaboration project with the students at Winners Education English Language School in Athens Greece.  Our students completed their editing work and typed comments for the students in Greece. Font Conference Video:  As a follow-up to the Font Presentation we watched a short video from College Humor about a fictitious "Font Conference": December 10, 2014 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.  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.  Online Collaboration Activity:  Our students started an online collaboration project with some high school students at Winners Education English Language School in Athens Greece. The students in Greece wrote a persuasive essay (a letter to the mayor) concerning the construction of a new sports arena in their town.  The letters were created in a shared Google Doc.  Our students accessed the shared Google Doc and worked in groups of three to edit the letters that the Greek students had written.  Next class we will finish the editing process.  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today by watching a short speed design.  The video featured the work of an 18 year old graphic design student in Manchester, England.  In the video you can see how he designed the logo for his design student.  December 8, 2014 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 and covered basic computer concepts everyone should be familiar with such as:
After the presentation students were asked to use various online search engines to search for themselves to see what their "digital footprint" looks like. 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: 34.8 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 some free 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.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.   December 4, 2014 91 minutes Mr. McNulty is absent today.  Students will be doing the following activities: Seating Chart:  At the direction of the substitute teacher seats will be assigned. Log on and Explore:  All students will be logging on, going to the START menu and exploring what's new on our computers this year.  Take note that in the computer lab we now have Microsoft Office 2013 instead of 2010.  All students should be able to find the 2013 programs.  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 will 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. The survey will also be used as the outline for a presentation next class.  Biography of Bill Gates Video: Students will watch a video about Bill Gates.  The video talks about his parents, his childhood and his education as well as the development of the Microsoft Corporation.  During the video students will answer these questions. |
