October 17, 2019 - LAST CLASS 91 minutes
Finish Basic HTML Project:  All students had some time to finish the website that we were working on in HTML.  Students were shown how to embed a YouTube video into their page.   Everyone also had some time to experiment with adding free Java-Script from Dynamic Drive.com. Click here to enlarge the project description.(PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.S, 15.4.8.H) 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. Students were also reminded to check out the eSchoolPLUS app that's available from Google Play and the iTunes Store. Technology Current Event Video: We watched a short video about how Florida's Orange County Public Schools and local police using a service called SnapTrends to monitor student's social media accounts. October 15, 2019 104 minutes  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 Moana Tutorial to write JavaScript.  Introduction to Scratch: As a follow-up to the Blockly Maze Tutorial the class was shown Scratch which is a free online code editor that was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Students who enjoyed using Blockly, were told that Scratch would be the next step for them to try. All students had about 10 minutes to experiment with Scratch and to view some featured student projects. Students were also encouraged to check out the Scratch Tutorial Videos page on their own and consider joining Scratch. We also watched a short video by the MIT Scratch Team about some of their latest developments.   Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short video from BlueHost about how websites work. October 11, 2019 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)  Full Page Ad Project: All students had time to finish on the Full Page Ad project using MS Publisher that we started last class. Next class everyone have a chance to print a black & white rough draft and review it with the teacher before printing their final draft in color.  Click here to enlarge the project description.(PA-BCIT Standards: 15.3.8.A, 15.3.8.B, 15.3.8.E, 15.4.8.D, 15.4.8.G, 15.9.8.A) Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a speed art video from Design Creators. The video featured a poster design. October 8, 2019 41 minutes* 
Video: We watched a short CNN video about Salman Khan and his creation of Khan Academy.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.6.8.M, 15.4.8.A, 15.8.8.K)  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video about various project initiatives by DARPA, which stands for Defense Advance Research Projects Administration. * Class time was shorter today due to a scheduled drill and an afternoon assembly. October 4, 2018 104 minutes Internet Moment: Today we explored the online version of  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 whole class followed a specific list of locations. Next week 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)  Break: Students are always reminded to not spend too much time working on computers and to take breaks routinely. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video from PBS OffBook about careers in graphic design.  October 2, 2019 44 minutes  Travel Video:  We started class today with a short video about tourism & vacations in Capetown, South Africa. Kahoot Game: At the end of class today we played a Kahoot game with Mrs. Gershman's computer class at Newtown Middle School. Today's game was about U.S. geography. Cam from our class came in third place, Rachel from Newtown Middle School came in second and Hayden from  Newtown Middle School came in first place. Below you can see images from the game.  Technology Current Event Video: We ran out of time for a video today. September 26, 2019 91 minutes European Day of Languages:  As our class started the European Day of Languages was just ending. During the event students from Germany, England and Greece shared activities and presentations about their languages. Our 8th grade German language class also participated in the event.    Online Collaboration Project: Each group worked on planning their travel itinerary today. Click here for the project directions and here for the project rubric. Once finished all groups turned in their finished slide shows using Google Classroom.  For this project our students are planning a 7 day trip to Cape Town, South Africa where they will participate in some tourism activities of their choice.  Click here for the project directions and here for the project rubric. Using Google as a currency converter was also demonstrated.  Click here for the project rubric. (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)(ISTE Standards: 1c, 2a, 2b, 2d, 3b, 3c, 3d, 4a, 4b, 4c, 6a, 6b, 6d) Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a Channel 4 News interview of Hans Rosling in the U.K. He is the creator of GapMinder.org and in the interview he discusses how the world is actually much better off than you think. September 24, 2019 104 minutes  Finish and Print the Brochure Project: All students had time to finish typing this project today.  Students were shown how to print on both sides of a sheet of paper and how to trifold a brochure. Everyone then printed and turned in their finished brochure.   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) 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 everyone had a chance to get up and move around.  Online Collaboration Project: Today we started a group project in which students will use online collaboration tools to plan a travel itinerary. Students will work in groups of 4-5 and they will use a shared Google Slide Show to create a travel itinerary. For this project our students will be planning a 7 day trip to Cape Town, South Africa where they will participate in some tourism activities of their choice. Click here for the project directions and here for the project rubric. 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. 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)Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a short video about tourism & vacations in Capetown, South Africa. September 20, 2019 44 minutes  Internet Moment: To help our students understand cultural diversity on the internet we investigated what our own accents sound like by taking the NY Times Dialect Quiz. Students then had an opportunity to compare the dialect heat maps from all the students in our class using a shared Google Slideshow. (PA-BCIT Standard: 15.3.8.J, 15.3.8.K, 15.3.8.X, 15.4.8.D)Language Differences Video: As a follow-up to the dialect activity we watched a short video from The Atlantic about the various dialects in the United States.  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a TED presentation by Margaret Stewart about how copyright issues are handled by YouTube.  September 18, 2019 91 minutes  Internet Moment: Today we looked at three online resources for free ebooks and audio books. We started with the Gutenberg Project (Gutenberg.org) which offers free access to 54,000 ebooks and over 100,000 additional free ebooks from other resources. We then looked at Lit2Go which is a free online collection of audio books in MP3 format that is available from the University of South Florida. Finally we visited Google Books (books.google.com) and discussed how to access and search the text of the free ebooks available there. We also discussed copyright laws and how these books came to be available online or in the public domain. Students were also reminded to search for free ebook reader apps for their phone and tablet devices. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.1.5.B, 15.2.5.L, 15.3.8.E, 15.4.8.B)Students were given an original brochure about copyright laws and students. Working with a partner students practiced online collaboration skills by typing the text of the brochure into a shared Google Doc. Working individually students then copy and pasted the text into a Publisher 2016 brochure template.  Students were shown how to use Bing Images to find public domain images that they could even use for commercial purposes. Everyone will have time to finish and print this project next class. Click here to enlarge the project description. (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.9.5.L, 15.3.8.E, 15.3.5.H, 15.4.5.K, 15.4.8.B, 15.3.8.U) 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 everyone had a chance to get up and move around. Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a 2011 TED presentation by Eric Whitacre about his virtual choir project.  This was an example of asynchronous online collaboration.  (PA-BCIT Standards: 15.4.8.A, 15.3.12.W, 15.6.8.M) September 16, 2019 104 minutes    TED Video: We watched part of a TED Presentation by John Maeda, the President of the Rhode Island School of Design. We only watched a few minutes of his presentation in which he talked about the relationships between content & form and 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)
Basic Computer Knowledge Presentation:
Font Conference Video:  As a follow-up to the Font Presentation we watched a short video from College Humor about a fictitious "Font Conference". September 12, 2019 Internet Moment: Students were shown Weather.gov (the National Weather Service) as an example of a huge online database that's full of real-time and archived information. We checked our local weather and spent a few minutes checking the satellite images and Doppler radar for the whole United States. Students were also shown how to access the hourly weather graphs for our area to get precipitation predictions. We also discussed how federal government publications, such as the NWS website, can not be copyrighted and are therefore in the public domain. (PA BCIT Standards: 15.3.5.V, 15.4.8.A, 15.6.5.L) Online Typing Activities: As a follow up to the typing test students were given some time to find some 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 finish projects.  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.   Technology Current Event Video: We finished class by watching a speed art video of a graphic artist designing a vintage logo using Adobe Illustrator. September 10, 2019 91 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.  Internet Moment: To start our class today Mr. McNulty demonstrated how Google and other companies use GPS data from cell phones to track the locations of individuals. In the demonstration Mr. McNulty showed the class a detailed map prepared by Google of exactly where he and his family were in August of 2014. Using location history (now known as timeline) students could see that he was riding Dumbo the Flying Elephant at precisely 1:08 on August 10, 2014. We also discussed how Google continues to track a mobile devices location even when the settings are turned off by using WiFi and cell towers. Everyone then had a chance to open their own Google Accounts and check their location history. Students were also shown how to access location history on an iPhone.  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 workstations. 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)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:  32.7 WPM.  We also reviewed the typing speed graph below and discussed what a bell curve is.  Technology Current Event Video:  Unfortunately we ran out of time for a video today. September 6, 2019 104 minutes    Profile Pictures: Students opened up their school Google Accounts and we talked about how their profile picture works and that it is public. They were then shown Cartoonify.de and students had time to make a custom profile picture. Students were also shown a collection of generic profile pictures that they could use. We discussed the difference between your professional and personal persona and what online "personal branding" was all about. Students were reminded of the importance of learning of manage what they looked like online. Students then shared their images using network drives.   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) The finished pictures can be viewed below.  Technology Current Event Video:  We finished class today with a video from Google that takes a look inside one of their data centers. In the video our students could see one of the possible locations of their Google Drives. September 4, 2019 56 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 important to also get used to helping each other. Log On & Explore:  All students were given time to explore the start menu, Cortana and the various programs available to them at school. We also talked about the importance of time management and the many distractions that students face because of technology. All students are encouraged to avoid online distractions and games while in class.   Students were also reminded to not use their school email for anything inappropriate. Technology Current Event Video: We finished class today with a short video about some of the newest drones at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. *Class time was shorter today due to the extended homeroom schedule |
