TECHNOLOGY ENRICHMENT CLASS - November 3 '08 - January 23 '09
Jan 23
Our last day of class. We spent some time reflecting on what we learned this quarter and what we still would like to learn. We posted these thoughts on our wiki pages. Then we discussed what to do with the class wiki. Students wanted to keep their own pages, so Mrs. Wathen agreed to keep them up for the rest of the school year. Mrs. Wathen said she would re-do the front page of the wiki and put all the interesting links on the sidebar. Other enrichment classes can use the wiki spaces if they want to. Mrs. Wathen said that the final HTML webpages would be posted on our school website here.
Jan 21 & 22
Here is what Mrs. Wathen had us do:
Finish your Typing Test Charts (speed over time and accuracy over time). Save the data as a MS Excel Workbook file on the Student Drive.
When you are finished with your HTML assignment, work on any of the following:
1) Take a quiz, then tell me about your results and how hard/easy it was on your wiki page:
Joe Cool or Joe Fool Quiz
Computer quizzes from QUIA:
Computer Basics (matching)
Computer and Internet Terminology (fill in the blank)
Basic Computer Tems I (matching)
Introduction to the Computer (Who Wants to Be A Millionaire format)
Hardware-Software (multiple choice)
I know the Internet (multiple choice)
Internet Safety (multiple choice)
2) Scratch programming - review a scratch program someone else has made on your wiki page. Or, create your own scratch program and describe it on your wiki.
3) Create a poster using Publisher or Paint that illustrates an Internet Safety tip or Computer Skill for students in grades 1-4. Upload your poster to your Wiki page (with a link) and write about it.
4) Create a new HTML file that showcases your favorite music group, sport, or activity. Provide a link or two and an appropriate image.
5) Try a crossword puzzle with computer terms!
6) Read about computers and how they work
7) Make art like Jackson Pollock then take a screen shot and save your art. Post it on your wiki!
8) Try an on-line WhiteBoard you can share with others!
Jan 20
Today we continue to work on our typing test charts using Excel. We also will finish our HTML website reviews and make sure they and our screenshot are saved on the Z:student drive under our computer number folder.
Jan 19
No School
Jan 16
No School
Jan 15
Today we talked about how to make a graph/chart in Excel. We used our Typing Test data to make two graphs. The first was a line graph showing both gross speed and net speed (WPM) over time. The second was a line graph showing accuracy (percent correct) over time. For this second chart we talked about how you can change the scale to make your accuracy look as good as it can. Hopefully, both our speed and accuracy improved over time.
Jan 14
Today we practiced typing and exported our latest typing data to a file. We then sent the file to Mrs. Wathen using YouSendIt.com. We continued work on our HTML web reviews.
Jan 12-13
We worked on turning our website reviews into an HTML document. Mrs. Wathen gave us an assignment sheet explaining exactly what elements we should use to create our HTML document. This HTML webpage will be put on our school website. We received corrected copies of our website reviews to use as an aid. We are to correct all punctuation and spelling and grammar errors on the HTML version.
Jan 9
Today we reviewed links and then learned how to use the image tag. We also talked about how to make tables in HTML. There are three parts to a table. The first is the general table tag, that can have a border or not. The second part is the row tag. The third part is the data tag.
Jan 8
Today we learned how to make a link in HTML. There are two parts to a link. One is the http address that appears in quotation marks with the href attribute. The other is the text that appears on the webpage in blue with an underline that you can click on. The text goes between the <a> tags.
Jan 7
We learned more HTML today. We used tags to make text BOLD and ITALICS. We learned how most HTML tags have an opening or starting tag and then a closing or ending tag. Only a couple tags stand alone by themselves (the break tag, the horizontal rule tag, and the image tag).
Jan 6
We started working on HTML programming language today. Mrs. Wathen showed us an HTMLsheet she copied to all our computer number folders on the Student drive. It showed different parts of an HTML page including the head vs. body. We got a short assignment on how to create a page on the CSE HTML editor. We created a heading and some text in a paragraph. We also learned how to change the background color and text color.
Jan 5
Today we worked on our typing skills and took another test.
Dec 15-18
We continued to work on the Website Reviews and had free time.
Dec 12
Today we worked on our typing skills and took another test.
Dec 11
Today we learned more about HTML. We learned about heading tags and color tags. We were able to make text a certain color by using the <font color=" "> tag. We were able to make the background of our pages be a different color by using the <body bgcolor=" "> tag. We learning that we can get better color choices by using hexidecimal codes. We also worked on our website reviews.
Dec 10
We received an introduction to HTML today. Mrs. Wathen explained that HTML is a programming language that uses "tags" to tell the computer how to display text and images on a website. The tags have to be typed exactly right or the computer will not display things the way you want it to. Today we also worked on our website reviews. They will be due next Monday 12/15. We will be turning them into websites.
Dec 9
Today we worked on our webiste reviews for half the class. We had to list on our wiki page what the website address is for the site we want to review. The second half of the class we used publisher to create a collage of the pictures we created in Picnik.com. We were to send the Publisher file to Mrs. Wathen using the YouSendIt.com program.
Dec 8
Today we talked about what makes for a good website review. We covered several pieces of information that should be mentioned in a website review, including the URL, info about the author and possible bias, the purpose of the website, the audience of the website, how the website is organized and designed (is it clear? Easy to navigate? etc.), does the website do a good job of fulfilling its purpose.
Dec 5
Today we learned how to export our typing data to a file. We worked on the typingweb.com site doing two lessons and a typing test. Making sure we have taken at least 2 tests, we then exported our test data to a file and made sure the file name had our first names in it. We then used the YouSendIt.com website to send the data to Mrs. Wathen.
Dec 4
We continued to work with the Picnik site by first taking pictures of ourselves. We then uploaded the pictures to Picnik.com and played with them. We used the Picnik "create" tab to get all kinds of effects. We had to save three versions of our photos, each with different effects. It was lots of fun!
Dec 3
Today we learned about a really cool photo editing website called Picnik.com. Some of the lab computers didn't want to load the website properly, but Mrs. Wathen showed us some of what the site can do. You can crop, fix exposure, change brightness and contrast, adjust the color, etc. You can get some really cool effects!
Dec 2
We continued working with tables. Today we put a table in our wiki pages and used it to place images and text where we want. You have more control over space on a web page if you use tables. Mrs. Wathen said to start thinking of tables when we view web pages, as most complicated designs can be copied using a table. We also learned how to take clip art in Publisher and turn it into an image file we can post on our wiki page.
Dec 1
Today we learned about using tables. We created a maze by making a table with 14 rows and 14 columns and then making some of the cell borders disappear. We also learned about selecting cells and merging them.
Nov 25
We continued making our Avatars and then saved them. We were able to post them on our wiki page. We found out that we could not upload our avatars to our profile. Today our essays are due.
Nov 24
We are still working on our essays for our Greeting Card Assignment. Today we had to proofread other student's essays and give meaningful comments. Since there is no spell check in the wiki, Mrs. Wathen said to watch out for spelling errors. We also got to create avatars at some different avater-making sites.
Nov 21
Today we watched an internet slideshow called Joe Fool or Joe Cool, put out by the Canadian Media Awareness Network. We discussed what information that different types of website collected and why, and when it is and isn't safe to use features of websites. For the second half of class we worked on our typing skills with the TypingWeb.com accounts. We are not to look at our hands and so we used keyboard covers today.
Nov 20
Continued with part 3 of our Greeting Card Assignment.
Nov 19
We continued to work on our Publisher greeting cards. Mrs. Wathen showed us how to send her our Publisher cards using a website called YouSendIt.com. Today we also got part 3 of the assignment: an essay comparing and contrasting the two methods of creating cards. We will be working on this for the next class as well. If we finish early we have several things to do (see part 3 assignment sheet).
Nov 18
Today we learned about part 2 of the Greeting Card Assignment. We are re-creating our cards using a Publisher Template. We renamed the template "Card-Name" where Name is our own name. We are to make the computer version of our card as close to our hand-made version as possible. We use Paint to create our logo and our pictures, remembering to save it as a JPG or GIF file and inserting it into Publisher like the instructions say.
Nov 17
Today we turned in our Greeting Card Assignment (part 1). Then as a class we watched the 2nd adventure of the Cyberpigs. We learned about flaming and that flaming others online is a bad idea--you can lose your computer privileges. We also learned not to believe everything you see/read on the internet. You HAVE to check out facts and make sure the information is true and reliable. We then checked out some websites listed by Mrs. Wathen and filled out a checklist. The checklist contained things to think about when you are using a website to gather information--things like "Is it clear who has written the information?" and "Can the information be checked?". We found out that all 5 of the website listed by Mrs Wathen were bogus or "spoof" sites and contained made-up or misleading information. Finally, we used the checklist to examine some of the websites we are interested in reviewing.
Nov 14
No School
Nov 13
No class, half day of school
Nov 12
No class, half day of school
Nov 11
Today we used Paint to make a drawing. We saved the file as a bitmap. Then we saved our file in other formats such as jpg, tiff, gif, monochrome, etc., and compared the size of the different files. Some file formats changed the look of the picture and others didn't. They differed greatly in size. For the last half of the class we worked on our typing skills at typingweb.com
Nov 10
Today we did a computer terms worksheet that covered many vocabulary words on hardware. These included input, output, CPU, input devices, port, etc. Then we went through a powerpoint presentation on different file sizes such as kilobyte and megabyte. On our wiki pages we ordered size prefixes from smallest to largest. Mrs. Wathen then gave us a greeting card homework assignment due Monday, November 17th.
Nov 7
Students registered for accounts on the TypingWeb.com website. They followed a sheet of instructions the teacher prepared. Once they were logged in, they were able to change the "skin" of their site to their liking. They immediately took a pretest in typing, and then began a lesson. Once done with two or more lessons, they could play typing games. Mrs. Wathen then went over proper typing posture and some exercises to relax shoulders and wrists. She also said the goal for this quarter was to be able to type faster with fewer errors.
Nov 6
Students copied and pasted their computer programs/categories lists into their wiki pages. We talked about cyber safety and viewed the first adventure with the Cyberpigs. Students began making list of websites to critique and review using either Word or their Wiki page.
Nov 5
Discussed Terms and Conditions for wiki use. Comments should not be made until we do them as a class assignment, and all comments need to be respectful and useful. We then talked about different types of computer programs and put them into specific categories (word processing, browsers, games, etc.). Students made lists of programs and categories using Word.
Nov 4
No Class - Rake-a-Difference
Nov 3
First Class. Introduced the school wiki and talked about what wikis are. Gave instructions for how to post on individual wiki pages.
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