June 9, 2016 - LAST CLASS 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)
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. 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) June 7, 2016 91 minutes Internet Moment: Today we explored Google Earth and discussed how a three 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)  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 sides.  FIRST AID PROJECT DIRECTIONS: Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short news video from NTDTV about the use of 3D printing technology to create living body parts at Wake Forest University on North Carolina.  (PA-BCIT Standard: 15.4.8.A) June 3, 2016 104 minutes  Internet Moment: Today we discussed what a wiki is and visited the largest wiki in the internet: Wikipedia. Students were shown how easily a wikipedia article can be edited and we discussed some of the reason it can't be used in academic work. However, students were shown what parts of a wikipedia article they could use to help them when they are doing research for school projects. We also looked at an edited version of Wikipedia that is intended to be used by students. The Wikipedia Selection for Schools which was created by the SOS Children's Villages which is a not for profit group in the United Kingdom.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.  Technology Current Event Video: At the end of class students should watch this 4 minute long video of a professional designer using Adobe Photoshop CS6 to create a concert poster. June 1, 2016 94 minutes    Tourism Video: While students worked on their travel itinerary we watched a short video about tourism in Kerala. Students then finished up their travel itineraries in class today. Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short video that highlights some of the features that are available to our students in Google Drive. Everyone was reminded that because the Google Drive apps are available for mobile devices we could have done today's project on our personal smart phones. May 25, 2016 72 minutes* Internet Moment: Students had an opportunity to experiment with VirtualPiano.nettoday. Online instruments like this give anyone an opportunity to learn to play some music.  Finish Basic HTML: Last class we started a computer coding activity by creating a website in basic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). We finished typing the HTML into Notepad to create a simple webpage. All students also had some time to experiment with adding JavaScript from DynamicDrive.  Click here to enlarge the project description.(PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.S, 15.4.8.H) Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short Ted Presentation by Keller Rinaudo about a simple robot that's powered by your phone. * Class time was shorter today due to the Keystone Exams May 23, 2016 44 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. May 19, 2016 91 minutes Internet Moment: Today we explored NewsMap.jp which is a graphical interpretation of the top news stories on Google News. It 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. As part of this activity we discussed the important relationship between internet technology and design. (PA BCIT Standards: 15.2.8.B, 15.2.8.C, 15.2.8.D, 15.2.8.E) 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 Star Wars 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. As part of our break today we practiced a simple office yoga stretch for your thigh. Scratch Games: Students had some time to explore some games that Richboro Middle School Computer Class students had created using Scratch from MIT: Tennis, Maze Flapper, Supernatural Game, Cat Jump & Bird-Catching Basket-Cat.   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 updated so that students can accessed their grades using their regular district log in and password. All students should be able to log in and check their grades routinely. Students were also reminded to check out the free eSchoolPLUS Family app that's available from Google Play and the iTunes Store. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video from WSJ Video about using free resources such as KhanAcademy.org to learn how to code. (PA BCIT Standards: 15.2.8.B, 15.2.8.C, 15.2.8.D, 15.2.8.E, 15.2.8.Q) May 17, 2016 104 minutes   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 back and then everyone had a chance to get up and move around the room some.  In this activity our students are demonstrating appropriate internet communication skills and paragraph writing skills. Students were reminded to use the spelling and grammar checking features their Microsoft Office 365 accounts. Students were also reminded that whenever they post anything online they should make an effort to make sure it will reflect positively on them.  This activity also gave us an opportunity to talk about the differences and similarities between cultures and schools around the world. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.G, 15.3.8.M, 15.4.5.A, 15.4.8.B) 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. May 13, 2016 54 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 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 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) May 11, 2016 91 minutes Internet Moment: Today we looked at two online resources for fonts. DaFont.com offers over 30,000 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)   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 back and then everyone had a chance to get up and move around the room some. Font Conference Video:  As a follow-up to the Font Presentation we watched a short video from College Humor about a fictitious "Font Conference": May 9, 2016 104 minutes Internet Moment: Students explored PhotoSynth.net today which is an online service from Microsoft that used their Silverlight technology. It allows you to "knit" digital photos together to make large 360 degree images that you can pan and zoom into. We also looked at examples of 360 degree streaming video on Youtube like this one of surfing in Tahiti. (PA BCIT Standards: 15.6.8.M)    Office Yoga Break:  Students are always reminded to not spend too much time sitting in front of computers.  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. Typing Test: All students took a typing test using TypingTest.com.  Each student had have 10 minutes to take the 1 minute test multiple times. The average adjusted speed for this class was 36.1 WPM.   Click here for more information about typing speeds at Newtown Middle School.  Students should also review the graph below:   Online Typing Activities: As a follow up to the typing test students were given some time to find at least 3 online typing activities (tutorials or games) that they enjoyed. They were shown how to add these typing activities to their favorites or bookmarks list so they can go back and practice their typing skills in class when they finished their projects.Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short video from Google about using free video conferencing software such as Hangouts in a work environment.  (PA-BCIT Standard: 15.4.8.A) May 5, 2016 44 minutes Mr. McNulty was absent.  Students did the following activities: Internet Moment:  All students should went to http://geoguessr.com/ and tried getting the highest score on this online geography game that uses Google Street View pictures. MLA Format Quiz:  As a follow-up to the MLA Paragraph project last class all students will be taking an online quiz about the MLA Format.  Click here to take the quiz.  (PA BCIT Standard:  15.3.8.A, 15.3.8.B) Flyer Project:  Each student picked an event from the school website and made a unique flyer for that event using a built in Flyer template in MS Publisher.  Students refered to these directions for additional assistance.  DIRECTIONS:
May 3, 2016 91 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) 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.  Assigned Seats: All students have an assigned seat/computer in the lab. Students have a responsibility to report any problems with the machine they have been assigned. In this way we all participate in maintaining our school computers. Everyone should use the same computer every time they come to the lab. Students were also reminded to adjust the keyboard, mouse, chair and monitor to meet their ergonomic needs when they come to class. We then visited the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) website and searched for their recommendations concerning computer use. We also discussed employment laws in the workplace. (PA-BCIT Standard: 15.2.8.I, 15.4.5.D, 15.4.2.B, 15.4.8.F)  Office 365 Mobile Apps: Students were reminded that they could download mobile versions of the Microsoft Office 365 Apps for their phones and tablet computers.        Finish MLA Paragraph Project:  All students had some time to finish.  We also practiced uploading this project to our OneDrives and using Word Online to edit it.  We discussed some of the differences between Word Online and the full version of Word on our computers. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video about email etiquette tips for college students from Dr. Tracy Brown at California State University in San Marcos.  (PA-BCIT Standards 15.3.8.E, 15.3.8.M, 15.3.8.O, 15.3.8.Q, 15.3.8.R, 15.3.8.S, 15.3.8.U, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.D, 15.3.8.M, 15.4.8.F) April 29, 2016 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 important to also get used to helping each other.  Pixlr.com Project: Students were shown how to use the online photo editor pixlr.com to edit a photograph. We also discussed professional digital photo editing with Adobe PhotoShop.  All students had time to create a unique image and we used various network resources to share their modifies photos. Basic skills such as drag & drop were demonstrated and the best use of the H:, S: & X: drives was also explained.  (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 conducted a probability experiment about matching birthdays.  You can read about it here.  Everyone was asked to get up and find the other person in the room who shares their birthday. Network and Internet Access Problems:  Unfortunately we experienced an internet outage today as well as a network issue that caused us to loose access to Office 365.  |
