What the heck are we doing?

I wanted to say hello and to give a brief overview of some things we will be learning this semester. It is odd for me to write this today. I have looked at my class and know only a handful of you. I do not know what type of work you have created in the past. However, I am certain that I will push you to create, analyze, and innovate. I will ask you to do your best every day.

What will we cover?

Internet Literacy: This is a new introductory level course. In this course you will learn the basics of web page design, coding, video, and audio production. You will learn how to navigate the internet appropriately, how to create content, and how to absorb information effectively and efficiently. This class will be a little fun and wild as we have never done it before!

Web 2 (Dreamweaver): This is the 2nd level class. In this class you will learn more advanced techniques using the Dreamweaver program. We hope to incorporate work in animation and image manipulation as well. There will be a significant emphasis and collaborating with classmates and with people around the world.

Web 3/4 (Flash): This the 3rd leavel class for students who completed Web 1 and Web 2. Your focus will largely be on creation and design. What makes an effective, usable website? We will enter the ThinkQuest competition as our 2nd semester project. This class is entirely project/studio based.

Wow

I can't believe that the moment is here. I have to make decisions on what we will cover, especially with the new course. I am eager to see who will be in the class when we meet on Wednesday.

I will push hard this year for all of the students to be creators first, responders second. Too often students simply sit and consume content, especially off the web. Its time we work on creating, publishing, and maybe changing the world just a little bit.

Ideas? Post them here.

Bumping

Bumping the blog with some summer thoughts:

1. Back to school in less than three weeks.
2. New class this year; Internet Literacy. Still working out the details.
3. I am trying to decide if I should go the ning route for the class and drop blogmeister. Not sure yet. I dont want to drop this blog as the address is established now.

Suggestions welcome.

Final Exams

Web 4 Exam concludes today.

Web 1 Exam

Web 2 Exam:

You are the editor of the Missouri Times. It is November 7, 1860. Your state is the only state that the Northern Democrats won. Your state has played a strong role in the slavery debate through the Missouri compromise and that information is important to your readers (and is perhaps why they voted for Douglas).
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects the results of the election.

You are the editor of the Capulet Times. You have just heard that Tybalt may have died in a big fight and Romeo is missing. Where is Juliet? Your newspaper is owned by the Capulet family.
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects this news.

You are the webmaster for the Madrid Times. It is July 2, 1898. You have to be as objective as possible, but you know the King of Spain reads your paper and has huge influence.
Prepare a breaking news website that reflects the events of July 1.

You are the editor for the Chicago Tribune. It is August 27, 1968 and the Democratic Convention is experiencing more and more protests. Many of your reporters sympathize with the protesters and you support the free speech of the protesters. However, many of your readers think the police are correct to “restore order”.
Prepare a breaking news website that reports the growing protests at the convention.

Exams

Web 1 exam is released. Your vocabulary section will be posted during the exam period.

Web 2 exam has begun. I will post your "Breaking News" during the exam period.

Web 4 exam will finish today for many of you. Be sure it is saved to the Udrive.

Students may attend a different class period (except Per1) for their exam as long as I have an available computer.

Finishing Up

Web 1 should be closing grades and studying for their vocabulary part of the exam. I will release the exam on Tuesday. The vocabulary part of the exam must be taken during the exam period.

Web 2 will be closing grades this week. I will release the exam on Monday.

Web 4 will begin their exam today.

Students may attend a different class period (except Per1) for their exam as long as I have an available computer.

Wednesday

Today I expect to leave after 6th period for the track state championship, rain permitting.

Today will be a grade catch-up day for everyone.

1. Finish current project (blog evaluations or counting assignment).
2. Check grades.
3. Finish work.
4. Clean up WDrive. Keep assignments. Delete junk or duplicate files. Organize folders.

If you have extra time watch a TED talk or read the NYTimes about yesterday's historic events.

Technology Fair Winners

The winners are:

Memorial Day Graphics Contest:
1st: Clariza Saldi
2nd: Maryann MacFadden
3rd: Henry Tse
Honorable Mention: Karren Saldi
Honorable Mention: Krysta Molfese

Zero Impact House Design Contest:
“Can you build me a zero-impact house?”
1st: Dustin Zrelak
2nd: Danielle Deluca
3rd: Austen Roman

Breast Cancer Awareness Design Contest:
“How can young women fight breast cancer?”
1st: Laura Pisano
2nd: Brittany Brassell
3rd: Lauren Almonte
Honorable Mention: Dustin Ingalls

Lincoln Re-election Design Contest:
“Design Lincoln’s 1864 campaign website using 2008 technology”
1st: Maryann MacFadden
2nd: Brian Colwell
3rd: CJ Ringenback
Honorable Mention: Devin Zawadski

Tech Fair

The Technology Fair is tonight at SHS from 5-7pm. I would love it if some of you came to demonstrate what we do (extra credit). Let me know if you can do it (please do!).

I will post the winners of the three contests tonight.

I will be working today on grading projects and preparing for the fair tonight. Please give me a chance to do that (shh!).

Web4: The thinkquest winners have been posted. They are very impressive. I received the feedback from the judges and will return that to you today.

Today in class:

Web 2 and Web 4:
Work on the evaluation of the project. We spent four weeks on this project so be sure to take time to reflect properly on your work. If you do this right it should take you two days.

Web 1:
Prepare a website that would teach a toddler how to count to ten. This will be challenging. How will you approach this problem? What tools will you use (Flash, Fireworks, Voki, Scratch, Audacity, Moviemaker)?

• How do toddlers learn best? Can they use the mouse?
• What colors do they like?
• How will you recognize different learners and diversity?
• How will you incorporate sound (hint: you have to have sound!)?

Have some fun with this. This is your final assignment before we start our final exam. I am looking for clean code that works!!

Deadline

The tech fair project deadline is today at 2pm. Be certain your pages work in the Udrive by using another log-in (switch seats).

Web 1: Please complete one of the following:

1. Create a HTML website that contains two Scratch games that you create. Use a table layout to set up your page.

2. Create a 28 second news broadcast about the top news story of the day. Include a voiceover.

3. Complete a project in the textbook (Chapter 7, 8, or 9). Files you need are in the Udrive.

Problems to Solve

We have several problems to solve today. Any field (medicine, music, government, web design) is about finding creative ways to solve problems but still making your deadline. Yes, things can be challenging.

So, if you have solutions post a comment on this blog!!

1. For Web 2 and Web 4 the Flash movies have been killing us. They are not converting from MovieMaker to Flash to Dreamweaver very consistently. We knew this was a klunky process to begin with. My idea this morning is to skip the process all together. Keep the movie in .wmv format and code an HTML page in notepad. Using EMBED SRC code as you did in Web 1 the movie should play fine. Other ideas are welcome. (OK: Possible solution. #1--work off of your desktop. Have the files there when you try to convert them--not on the WDRive. #2--when you convert--convert at a lower resolution. When it gets into Flash change your canvas size to fit. This should cut the time down to around 2 minutes)

2. I've been trying to figure out how to embed a Scratch file on an HTML page without uploading it to the Scratch website. There has to be a way to do this. I tried embedding it as a Java applet but I can't get it to work. If you get it to work let us know! (I figured it out!! I will put the samle files in "Scratch Folder" in WebSchneider. You need the "ScratchApplet" and the "Soundbank" files in your folder for it to work)

Other notes:
1. Judging has been completed for the Memorial Day contest. Results will be announced Monday night at the Tech Fair. The judges were very impressed by your entries.
2. Web 2 and Web 4 HAVE to be sure that they have inserted all the components and that all of the links work.
3. Remember, extra credit if you attend and write about the tech fair. Monday 5-7pm.
4. I have a judge whose specific job is to check citations. Be sure your page is complete. Remember you can cite clipart images as "Various images from ClipArt" but you must cite Flickr images individually. This may be a reminder for some of you to use your favorites button or google notepad.
5. Web 2 and Web 4 must complete their fourth blog post today.

OK. Get it done!

Technology Fair

The SHS Technology Fair will be Monday June 2 from 5-7pm here at the high school. Winners of our contests will be displayed at that time. So if you are curious who won--show up!! We will have students demonstrating how we do things and there are displays from all the technical and arts areas of the school.

And--I'll give you extra credit if you come and write an evaluation in your blog.

Web 2 and Web 4 deadline is Friday. Judges receive the files at 2pm. Make sure your citations are correct and all your links and pages work!

Scratch

Today Web 1 students will explore Scratch, the programming language from the people at M.I.T. This program is designed to teach some basic programming functions. With this program you can do some basic behavior and game functions and produce some cool things. This past year students at Seymour Middle School have been using the program.

The program is on your desktop.

I have a series of activities and videos I would like you to check out:

• Check out the introduction videos.
• Interact with some of the featured items.
• Read the getting started guide (or just jump in!) or check the Help Screens.
• Try some of the project ideas.

Can you make your own game?

Web 2 and Web 4 students should be sure to complete their 3rd blog question which is due today. Remember, blog questions are 30% of your exam grade. Deadline for all projects is this Friday. Make sure your initial page is named "index".

Zero impact people should check out the story from this weekend's NY Times about another project at Oberlin.

Memorial Day

Can you believe that it is Memorial Day weekend already? This year, like all of them it seems, has gone very fast.

The judging for the Memorial Day Fireworks contest will start today at 2pm. You must have your submission in the correct spot in the UDrive by then (please check!). Be sure it is a .jpg file and that it is named correctly.

Today Web 2 and Web 4 should make sure they have completed the blog questions that are due. Each topic has interview material at this point. If you feel you need more material then get it done.

Web 1 will be a catch-up day. I will pass out progress reports and we can fix grades. While I do that your options are:

• Finish or improve Memorial Day contest.
• Continue practice with CSS or Java.
• Complete the TED assignment from yesterday or watch more talks.
• Play serious game.

TED Talks

Web 1 Assignment:


One thing you want to do in life is get around smart people. I was lucky to go to a school that had really, really smart people around. Listening to them makes life interesting.

Many of you have seen some of the TED talks before. TED is a place where smart people get together and kind of do a show and tell.

I would like you to watch at least two videos today from start to finish. Everyone must watch the Theo Jansen video. I give you some prompts to start a discussion on your blog. Each of these videos is about 10-20 minutes long. They say teenagers can't pay attention to anything. Prove them wrong.

Hans Rosling: How data is cool. Think of your little Excel charts. Will you be ready to use data like this. This guy is fun to listen to.
Jeff Han: How displays will change. This would profoundly change how we use computers.
John Maeda: A smart, funny guy talks about simplicity. Think about how simplicity is the driving force in design (hint: iPods).
Nicholas Negroponte: Would you spend your life on a project that helps others? Does listening to the originator of the idea change your vision of this program?
Theo Jansen: Freaky. Mind-blowing. But pay attention. What is life? Can you make something that lives out of PVC pipe? He does. Cyborg alert!
Blaise Aguero y Arcos: Demonstrates Photosynth. Wow. The Notre Dame cathedral thing is amazing. Can you think of ways you could use this software?
Anand Agarawala: The BumpTop desktop. Certainly a different set-up! Would this help you search your photographs?

What did you learn? Share what you learned. Start a conversation. Can you add something to a discussion?

Be sure to have links to the talk on your blog.

Technorati Tags: TED innovation k12 education

Tuesday

I will leave at lunch for the NVL Track meet.

Web 1 Assignments:
1. Continue your work from yesterday. Practice with the tutorials.
2. Create a new web page about your class schedule (as we have done before). Let the tutorials help you use CSS to create the following:

• A different color for H1 and H2.
• For H1 write at top of page "Class Schedule"
• For H2 write below that "Your Name"
• A yellow background for H2.
• An ordered list using roman numerals

3. When done please save to your WDrive. I will look at it there. Work together! Then be sure to finish your Memorial Day poster.

Web 2:

Tomorrow is the interview with Mrs. Deming. Thursday is the interview with Mr. Sirowich. Be sure to have your questions ready. Leave them on the blogmeister. Please save new drafts of your website to the UDrive-Web2 folder today.

Web 4:

Mr Pawluk answered some questions on David's blog. Remember, your expert interview is an important part of this process. Please save new drafts to the UDrive-Web4 folder today.

Finishing Up

For the next eight school days we will be in project mode before we turn to our final exams prep.

The Tech Fair is in two weeks. Fireworks contest due May 23. Web 2 and Web 4 projects due May 30.

Web 1:

• Review vocabulary. Here is a sample from last years exam. If these questions are unclear you have some studying to do. All important vocabulary should be in your chapter summaries.
• Read and practice the exercises in the "extended book" (that's the eleven chapter HTML book). My expectation is that you have a basic understanding of these chapters. You can find the files in the UDrive. Share the books (or use the PowerPoint files for instructions--in Udrive). Complete the practice tutorials for CSS and JavaScripts. These are very good little tutorials and will really help you with your coding.
• Continue to practice Flash and Fireworks by using the tutorials.

Web 2 and Web 4: Project work. Please check the due dates on your blog questions.

Serious Games

Today we will work on some fun online tasks as we move towards vacation. Web 2 and Web 4 students may have seen these games and simulations before.

Typing Test: Go head-to-head with your neighbor. How fast can you type?
Another cool Google Earth app. Dig here!
Check out the Ayiti game.

3D Farming: Can you succeed as a farmer?
3D Architecture: Can you build a successful house.
Tall Buildings: Super-cool site about tall buildings
Power Play: Can you build a better mousetrap?
The Redistricting Game Can you rig your district?

And finally we will review the game Darfur is Dying.

Everyone should review ONE game in their blog today. Please be sure to provide a link to the game.

Web 1: How could you use this game to learn in school? Could serious games help you learn?
Web 2: Would a serious game improve your current website project? Why or why not?
Web 4: Choose one game and analyze the construction of the game. What tools are used? Are they used effectively?

Technorati Tags: serious_games webdesign k12 education

Fireworks Contest

Today, and probably tomorrow, I will be substituting for Mr. Freund who will be out of the building. I will probably pop into class a few times if I am able.

Web 1 should finish their exams today. Remember to rename your folder in the WDrive (bschneider-done) and copy that folder to the UDrive. You will end up with two folders in the Udrive, your rough draft and your final draft.

Web 2 and Web 4 will be working on their exams.



Here is the Fireworks contest. All classes are eligible for this contest which will be awarded at the Technology Fair on June 2.

Your assignment is to make a poster about Memorial Day.

More information on Memorial Day can be found here: Wikipedia entry Be sure you understand the purpose of Memorial Day before tackling this assignment.

Your assignment is to design an image that could be posted in schools. You will use Fireworks and choose the appropriate tool or tools for your image.

Assignment parameters:

1. You set up the image size when you create a new document: Height=300 pixels, Width =600 pixels.

2. Your images MUST be non-copyrighted. I will publish this!!

3. You must be able to defend your choice of a tool in your blog post.

4. You must include "Memorial Day" somewhere in your image. You might decide to include additional text (date, slogan, etc..).

5. You must finish by the end of the period on Friday May 23. I will submit the posters to the judges at that time.

6. Save in Udrive when done (bschneider) as a .jpg file. All students will save in the same folder so be sure you name it correctly in the WDrive BEFORE you copy it to the UDrive. Be sure to test your work in the UDrive.

Good luck!

Tech Fair

I have been working on getting judges for the tech fair and I have been very successful so far. These judges are certainly experts on the topics you will be covering. I will be working on the judges sheets this weekend so you know what to expect. One warning--citation pages better be good!

We have three contests:
1. Lincoln websites (Web4)
2. Breast Cancer or Energy websites (Web2)
3. Fireworks contest. (All)

On another note, take the time to read this article from the NY Times about girls and sports injuries. Its long, but worth your time if you compete in a sport.