Friday, November 30

Vocab quiz 8; reflection with image; ALICE

Take a few minutes at the beginning of class to review for the vocab quiz (list #8).  We will take the quiz in a few minutes.

After completing the vocab quiz you need to create another reflection on your journal page on your blog.  However, we need to make sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing when writing a reflection.  Here are some guidelines:

  1. What you write should be in complete sentences with correct grammar and spelling.  
  2. The reflection should explain what you learned in Computer Applications this week, what you liked about what you learned, and/or what you didn't like about what you learned, and then why you either did or did not like it.  
  3. You should only discuss Computer Applications - you are not reflecting on Geography, Math, or any other class.  
  4. You need to insert an image that is related to something we did in class - this also should be discussed in your reflection (for example you may want to include the same image you used for your movie summary, and then explain in your reflection that you learned to insert an image to a blog and that this is an image of your favorite movie). 
  5. Write your reflection in the following manner; 
WEEK OF NOV. 26
A;SLDKFJ;LJ
AS'DLKJAS;DLFKJASDF
AS;DLFKJASDFL
ASD;FLKJASDF;LJ
QWERPU
QWEPROIU

IMAGE


If you get done with all of this, you will start working with ALICE.  In order to open ALICE, go to your Finder, click on Applications, and then look for the ALICE program.  When you find it, open it and complete the 2 tutorials below in order

BEGINNING ALICE TUTORIAL

ALICE TUTORIAL 2

Thursday, November 29

Bytes vs. GB; Finish FA8; new symbol keys

To begin with we are going to discuss the difference between a byte and a gigabyte (abbreviated GB).  Let's go to this website to understand the differences between the amounts of computer memory and to help ourselves understand a little more about the power of computer memory as well.

If you still have not finished FA8 you need to get it done today!  Remember that once you complete it you are to email it to me as an attached document; also remember to include a link to your blog so that I can see that you have posted your summary to your blog with an inserted image.

After completing FA8 you are to turn to page 43 and type lines 1-7 on 18D.  After completing these 7 lines, turn to page 44 and learn to type the = (left shift + R4) by typing lines 1-3 on 19C once.  Then learn the * (left shift + R2) by typing lines 1-3 in 19D once.

If you complete all of the above you may use whatever time you have left to complete any missing work.  If you are done with everything you can go to the practice websites on the blog.

KEEP YOUR SPEED SKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD THE ENTIRE HOUR!

Wednesday, November 28

Finish FA8; Cache




Using the formatting instructions that are embedded on yesterday's blogpost, you need to finish FA8.  There are several things you need to make sure you have accomplished in order to do this assignment correctly.  First, you need to make sure your summary is between 175 and 300 words; second, you need to copy your summary and paste it into a new blog post; third, you need to add an image that is related to your movie in that same blogpost; and last, you need to send me an email that has your document attached to it and that also has a link to your blog.

Before you get started, I want to show you the Word count summary feature in Word.

When you complete FA8, check the missing assignments list - do you have any missing assignments?  If so you should be working on them now (the lists on the wall were printed out this morning so this is an up-to-date list).

If you are responsible for defining words for this week's vocabulary list have you posted your definition(s)?  If not, now is the time to get that done.

If you are in 6th, 7th, or 8th hour many of you will need to complete FA7 - if you remember the Friday before Thanksgiving break we were working on FA7 and then the Internet wouldn't work so many of you were unable to finish.  You can use this time to complete FA7 - here are the instructions:

Activity 7 -

Tuesday, November 27

New Keys; Firewall video; Formatting Activity 8

**REMINDER!!**  If you haven't defined your words on the wikispaces page you need to get that done today.  Remember - this is an out-of-class activity that you need to complete.  If you need to come in during lunch recess or after school that will be fine.


1.  We will begin today by watching the above video.  The guy in the video talks pretty fast so you will want to pay close attention.  As always, if you need to review you can watch the video at home.

2.  Warmup - p. 42 18B all lines once.

The new symbols we will be learning today are the @ symbol (right shift + L3); left parentheses (left shift + R3); and right parentheses (left shift + R4).

3.  After completing the warmup, turn to page 43.  We will be typing lines 1-9 on 18D to practice these keys.  Remember to keep your speed skin on your keyboard.

4.  The following formatting activity will have you working with Microsoft Word's word count feature.  Additionally, as I showed you yesterday in class, you will be uploading an image onto your blog.  This image will need to be related to the movie that you are going to write about for your formatting activity.  

FA 8 -


Monday, November 26

Welcome back!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break, ate lots of food, and are re-energized for 4 weeks of school!

With that in mind, we only have 4 weeks of school to accomplish quite a bit.  We will be learning a new program (called Alice) that will help you to understand what a computer programmer goes through (this program is more modern than Logo and I think you will find it more interesting to use), we have 3 vocab quizzes in the next 4 weeks (Vocab quiz #8 is this Friday), we will learn to key using the keypad, you are going to create a podcast and embed it on your blog, and we still have several formatting activities to complete.

The first thing I want to get done this week is the learning of the symbol keys, so we will start today in Microsoft Word.  Turn to page 41 and type the paragraph on 17E once to get warmed up.  

Then we will be moving over to page 42 to learn the # (right shift + L2), the & (left shift + R1), and the + (left shift + R4).

After learning these keys we are going to watch the video below that will help you understand one of the vocab words for this week - embed.





After learning these keys I am going to show you how you can embed an image into your blog.   This will be important for 2 reasons - 1) because you are going to have to include an image with your journal reflections from now on; and 2) because you are going to complete a formatting activity that will require you to embed an image on your blog.

Before you can embed an image you first must have an image on your computer that you are going to use.  So, the first step will be to correctly save an image to your computer so we can then embed it on your blog.

Friday, November 16

FA7 and Crossword #3 due

Please hand in your crossword puzzle with your name on it as soon as you arrive.

You will have the entire hour today to complete FA7 and get it emailed to me (the instructions are on still on yesterday's blogpost).  You will be given class time today to get that done.

Once you complete FA7, if you have any missing assignments then you need to work on those and get those turned in for credit.

If you have no missing assignments then you have 2 choices - you can either:

1) work on the last handout from Logo in which you write logo procedures to create designs; or

2) go to the practice websites (you can choose which ones you want to work on) and practice.

If you are working on a practice website or on a formatting activity you will have your speed skin on your keyboard!



Thursday, November 15

Bullets & numbered lists; FA7

**REMINDER** - Crossword puzzle due tomorrow!

Today we are going to cover how to insert bulleted and numbered lists into Word.  These are useful if you have a list of items that you need in Word.  There are various ways to format both bulleted and numbered lists as well.  In fact, you can use the symbols in the last formatting activity that we did as your bullet when creating a list - and I'll show you how that can be done.  

After explaining and showing you how to do this you will have time to work on this in class.

YOU WILL WORK WITH YOUR SPEED SKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD!


Activity 7 -

Wednesday, November 14

Logo procedures

Today you are going to be receiving a handout that we will use to help us learn how to create procedures in Logo.  A procedure in Logo is what I call a "mini-program" - if you were an actual programmer you would use these "mini-programs" to help you design the software that you are creating, and they most likely would be something that you use frequently (or at least more than once).

The purpose of creating the procedure is again to be more efficient.  That's really what this whole process in Logo has been - we started by creating a long list of instructions to create a square.  Next, we  eliminated the long list of instructions and reduced what we entered to a repeat statement; now we are going to reduce that down even further to a procedure so that we can do the same thing over and over and only type in one word (that one word becomes the "mini-program").

I also will be showing you how you can create a variable (hopefully you have already covered these in math) in a procedure so that you can manipulate the size of the shape you are creating without having to write a different procedure for each different sized shape.

Tuesday, November 13

New keys; Logo

We are going to start with a little review of keys already learned.  Open Microsoft Word and turn to page 40.  Types lines 1-9 once to get warmed up.

After the warm up, we will be learning the % (Right shift + L1); the < (Left shift + R2); and the > (Left shift + R3).

After learning these keys we will be continuing our work in Logo.  Today we are going to learn how to create a procedure.  A procedure, in simplest terms, is like a mini program that you create in Logo.  You will also learn how to create perfect shapes using a procedure.

Friday, November 9

Vocab quiz; SLC

We will start by reviewing for the quiz.  Once we get done with the vocab quiz you will be working on completing the Computer Applications sheet for your SLC folder.

I will be handing back several graded papers that you can choose from to include in your SLC folder.  In addition to what I hand back, you could also choose to print out a previous vocab quiz from Classmarker, or you could also choose to print out any of the Formatting activities that you have saved.

Once you get done with your SLC folder put the folder in the gray tray on the corner of my desk.

Then you can go to any of the practice websites on the website resources page on the blog.

Thursday, November 8

SLC cover

Today we are going to work on creating our SLC cover in Word.  You will learn to use WordArt and to insert images into a document.

Wednesday, November 7

Finish FA6; New symbol keys

**SPEED SKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD**

Today you need to finish the Formatting Activity 6 that we started yesterday in class.  When you are done it should be printed and handed in - it is due today.

When you complete the formatting activity you need to open your book to page 40.  On page 40 you need to type 17B, lines 1-9 once (this is a review from yesterday).  Once you have completed that, turn to page 41 and do the following:

17C, lines 1-3 twice (% = right shift/L1)
17C, lines 4-5 twice (< = left shift/R2)
17C, lines 6-7 twice (> = left shift/R3)

17D, lines 1-6 once

If you complete all of this you may go to any of the practice websites listed on the Website Resources page and practice from there - WITH YOUR SPEED SKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD!

Tuesday, November 6

Learning symbols; FA6

**REMINDER**
If you are responsible for defining words for this week's vocab list you need to get this done outside of class at some point today!  We still have some definitions that have not yet been posted on the wikispaces pages!

We are going to start with learning 3 symbols on the keyboard.  Many of these (but not all) require the use of the shift keys in conjunction with the number keys across the top of the keyboard.

The first symbol we are going to learn is the diagonal or slash (sometimes also referred to as the forward slash).  This symbol is on the key to the right of the period and does NOT require the use of the shift keys to type it.  Use your R4 finger to type this key.

The other 2 symbols are the $/dollar sign (L1) and the !/exclamation point (L4).

Here is what you need to type out of the book today:

P. 40, 17A, lines 1-3 (twice)
P. 40, 17B, lines 1-9 (once)

After completing the work out of the book, you are going to work on FA6.  This formatting activity is a handout, and you are going to be adding symbols into your document.  This should be a fairly easy and straight forward assignment.  To help you accomplish completing the document, all of the symbols that you are going to be inserting into your document can be found in the INSERT > SYMBOL drop down menu.  Once you open the symbol window, you will find all of the symbols that are needed either in the "normal text" category or the "symbol" category.

Monday, November 5

HTML & IP address; journal page on your blog;

I want to cover 2 different words that are on the vocab list for this week.  First, let's look at HTML.    Did you know you can actually see the HTML that is used to create each and every webpage on the Internet?  If you are using Safari, you can go to VIEW > VIEW SOURCE and you will see the HTML that is used to write the webpage you are on.  In Firefox, you will need to go to TOOLS > WEB DEVELOPER > PAGE SOURCE.  Everything you see when you do this is what is written (usually using a program like Adobe Dreamweaver) to create webpages.  You can see that the amount of HTML used is pretty extensive and would probably take someone quite a bit of time to create it.

The other vocab word for this week that I want to cover is IP address.  IP stands for Internet Protocol (remember the word Protocol - it means "rules").  Let's go to this web site:  What is my IP address?
This will explain in better detail what your IP address is.


The next thing you need to do today is send me a link to the journal page on your blog.  You will need to open your Gmail and send me an email that contains the URL to your journal page on your blog.  The address to your journal page will be as follows:

*yourblogname*.blogspot.com/p/journal.html

In the above URL, "*yourblogname*" refers to whatever web address you decided to use for your blog.  Send this URL to me as the body of your message in your email.  Make sure that you include everything in the email that you need to include - if you don't you will lose points.  You should have journals from the following weeks:

Week of Sept 17
Week of Sept 24
Week of Oct. 1
Week of Oct. 15
Week of Oct. 22
Week of Oct. 29

If you do not have one (or more) of these weeks on your Journal page on your blog you can go back to the class blog and find out what we did that week, then post your reflection on your journal page.


After completing these things you will be given the rest of the hour to work on finishing FA5 if you did not get that done on Friday.  Remember, when you get this done it needs to be printed out, signed, and then handed in.  The instructions can be found on Thursday's (Nov. 1st) blogpost.

If you are all done and you are not missing any assignments (see the board), then you can post your definitions to the wiki if you are responsible for defining a word or words this week.

If you have all of the above done, I would like you to go to Type Racer.  I would like you to compete against others to see how you do.  After doing at least 3 races against other people, you can compete against others in the class by going back to the beginning page and clicking on "Race Your Friends" and then sending them the link via email.

There will be people in many different places today on the computer - you will be expected to stay on task and be where you are supposed to be without goofing around.

YOU NEED TO WORK WITH YOUR SPEED SKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD!



Friday, November 2

Crossword puzzle due; Reflection on blog; Finish FA5

**REMINDER** If you are responsible for defining words for the vocabulary list for next week you need to get that done by next Tuesday.  The words have already been posted on the wikispaces page - you just need to provide the definition.  This is homework and should NOT be completed during class time!

Please hand in your crossword puzzle as soon as you get in class - it is due!  Make sure to put your name at the top of your paper.

You also need to finish FA5 - it is due today.  Don't forget to sign the letter when you are done!

You need to enter your reflection on your blog.  After this week I will be reading the weekly posts that you have entered on your blog.  Again, they should be on your journal page, not as posts on the homepage of your blog.  To check to see if your journal has been entered on the journal page as you were instructed to do, enter the following in the URL bar:

nameofyourblog.blogspot.com/p/journal.html

(where nameofyourblog is whatever you named your blog and shows up in the URL bar when you go to your blog)

If you finish everything I have another Logo handout for you to work on.  When completing this handout you need to write the instructions for the design using a repeat statement.  You will need to use Logo when working on this handout.

Thursday, November 1

Logo Practice #2 answers; FA5

DON'T FORGET!!! - Your crossword puzzle is due tomorrow!  If you are done now you can hand it in.  


Below are the Repeat statements that you could have used in Logo to recreate each of the designs on the handout from yesterday.  Remember, there may be more than one correct way to do each of the designs, and where you start on the design (where you put your dot) makes a difference in how you write your instructions.


1.  REPEAT 7 [FD 100 BK 100 RT 90 PU FD 10 LT 90 PD] PU HOME


2.  REPEAT 4 [FD 100 BK 100 RT 90]


3.  REPEAT 4 [FD25 PU FD 25 PD FD 25 RT 90]


4.  REPEAT 2 [FD 100 RT 90 FD 25 RT 90 FD 100 LT 90 FD 10 LT 90] PU HOME


5.  RT 45 REPEAT 2 [FD 50 RT 45 FD 100 RT 135] LT 45


6.  REPEAT 5 [FD 25 RT 90 FD 100 RT 90 FD 25 RT 90 FD 100 RT 90 FD 25] PU HOME


FA5 -