Crossword puzzle 1-6; Create a blog

I will be handing out crossword puzzle 1-6 - it is a review of all words on lists 1 through 6 and is due Friday.  As usual, if you get it done before Friday you are welcome to turn it in early.

Today we are going to begin creating your blog.  We will need to go to Blogger's website - www.blogger.com.  This is going to allow you to be creative to a certain degree, and we will also have some assignments that will be required to be posted to your blog.  Since we are doing this at school you will have a few rules you will have to follow:

• Your blog will need to be school appropriate at all times
• There will be no games on your blog
• You will open your blog (or be on your blog) ONLY when you are told to.  You will not be on your blog during class changing designs or posting information (or for any other reason) without permission
• You are responsible for EVERYTHING that is on your blog, so be careful with what you do
• Once the semester is over you can do with your blog what you want.  You are the owner/creator, so you have full power to use it as you wish (continue to use it for whatever purpose or completely delete the blog)

Citizenship grade; New symbols

I forgot to remind everyone yesterday that the Citizenship grade started yesterday.  Remember, this means that you should be a good Citizen in class at all times - be where you are supposed to be on the computer, treat others with respect, do what you are supposed to do, etc.!  I told you at the beginning of the year that you can plan on going to the class blog everyday - that is still true.  Do not do anything else or go anywhere else until you are told to do so - whether that is going to Word, somewhere else on the Internet, etc.  You should be where I ask you to be and that is it.

Today we are going to continue with learning new symbols.  But, first we are going to review from yesterday.  So, turn to page 40 and type lines 1-9 on 17B once.

After this warmup we'll be learning the % (right shift + L1), the "less than" sign - < (left shift + R2), and the "greater than" sign - > (left shift + R3).

Today you need to have your movie on your blog and an email sent to me with the URL to your blog.

If you have this completed you need to go to the following website and practice your timed writings (if you get done with one choose another until you have completed all of them):

WPM typing test

Missing assignments; vocab; Creating your blog

I have now posted a new set of missing assignment lists.  I am also handing out a slip of paper to all of those who have missing assignments.  Remember, this Friday is the last day of the 3rd Quarter and any missing assignments after Friday will stay as a 0 in the grade book on Skyward.

The vocab quiz will still be this Friday even though we missed yesterday.  However, I am going to bump back the deadline for entering definitions on Wikispaces to tonight.  Therefore, if you have definitions for this week they will need to be posted on your Wikispaces page by tonight.

Blogging:
First, check to see if your blog got created.  If not, you will need to go through the steps that I led you through on Monday - let me know if you need help.  If your blog did get created then now is the time to see you how you can change your themes to make your blog look more like you want it to.  I will be showing you this so you can manipulate your blog to look how you want it to, but remember that you are not allowed class time to do this.  If you want to make changes you will have to do that on your own time (after today).

If everyone's blog is created today we are going to use your blog to embed your Internet Safety project - this will then make your Xtranormal video available on the web for everyone to view.  Once you have your video embedded on your blog you need to send me an email with a link to your blog (both partners will do this so I know that both partners have embedded the video on their blog).  Once I have received your email I will be able to watch your video and grade it.

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!

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.

Blogging; new keys (M & X)

On Friday you created a new page on your blog.  Many of you, once you published your page, were unable to access your newly created page on your blog.  One of the settings of the blog is to "hide" the blog pages so they are not visible.  If you want to make your blog pages visible, follow these steps:

1. Click on "Design" in the top right corner
2. Click on "Pages"
3. In the middle it says "Show pages as:" - you will want to choose either "Top Tabs" or "Side Links" so that your pages are able to be seen from your home page.
4. Once you have changed this setting, click on "Save Arrangement" in the top right corner of the page

Towards the bottom left-hand side of this same page you can see several different choices that will help you to modify your blog so that you can make it look like you want.  For example, "Layout" allows you to add, remove, and edit gadgets on your blog so that your blog appeals to your audience.  Again, click on "Save Arrangement" when you have your blog as you want it.

Additionally, if you click on "Template" you can change how your blog looks.  I'm not going to spend a ton of time going through all the possibilities here because there are too many.  But, this is where you will want to go if you want to change the look of your blog.  Background image, color, theme, font size, font style and many other options are available here to personalize your blog.  I would highly recommend you stay away from the "Dynamic Views" templates - these are not as easy to edit, so the frustration level with using these is usually very high.

One note - this is not "Change your blog look" class, so you will not be spending every minute in this class working on doing something to your blog.  You have access to your blog at home, so if you need to make changes plan on making them there.

After we get done with our blogs, open up Microsoft Word.  We will be learning the M (R1) and the X (L3).  These are challenging letters - keeping your fingers curved and upright will greatly help in learning these two bottom-row keys.

Vocab posted to Wikispaces; Internet Safety

If you are responsible for posting vocab definitions to the Wikispaces webpage you must have that done by tonight!  I will be grading those tomorrow morning so make sure that you get this done if this applies to you.

If you are the vocabulary leader for Week 3 you should be passing out the vocabulary words to your group members sometime today.  This gives your group members an entire week to find a working definition for the word(s) that you give them.

Today you will be working on your Internet Safety movie.  These will need to be completed by the end of class tomorrow.  At this point just save your movie - DON'T PUBLISH YET!  Once we create a blog I will show you how you can post your movie on your blog.

Below is a video that will help you create your blog.  DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOU ARE DONE WITH YOUR XTRANORMAL MOVIE!!  Once that has been completed you need to create a blog - the video below will help you to get that objective done.  If you have questions, or have problems setting up your blog please let me know so I can help.

In addition, here are 2 links that may also help you get your blog up and running:
Blogger instructions
About.com instructions to create a blog

3-day weekend

Welcome to the weekend (well, almost anyway)!

Today we are going to finish (for those that did not get their blog created) creating blogs in class.  Mostly this applies to 6th, 7th, and 8th hours as you were not able to get your blog completed.

For 3rd and 4th hours you will be creating a new page on your blog titled "Journal".  This will be used weekly to post a reflection of what you have accomplished during the week.  A reflection should explain what you've learned in this class for the past week.  It might include successes, failures (things that you found difficult to do), what you liked, what you didn't like, how you are going to use what you've learned, and/or why you think it is important or not important.  You can include images (we haven't learned how to do this yet, but will eventually) to help describe your reflection.

In addition we will also be reviewing the keyboard and all of the keys that we have learned so far.

We also have shortened hours due to the Teacher's Institute for the last hour of school - and don't forget you also have Connections today.

Get caught up today

Today you will be allowed to get any missing work completed and handed in.  Therefore, if your name is on the board with a missing assignment you will need to be working on whatever you are missing in an attempt to get it done and handed in.  Realize that not all of what we have done has been entered in Skyward.  Today's crossword puzzle, for example, is obviously not listed on Skyward because it hasn't been graded.  Same goes for Activity 6 and 7 - neither of those Formatting activities have been graded and won't show up on the list on the wall.  Therefore, if you haven't completed them, get them done today!

If you are done with everything the first thing I'd like you to do is add a widget to your blog.  The steps to do so are listed below.  After adding the widget, you have several choices:  you can work in Logo (I'll give you a handout), you can work in Alice using this tutorial , or you can work on the practice websites (your speedskin must be on your keyboard!).

Here are the steps to adding a widget to your blog:

1. Click on the "Design" button in the top right hand corner of your blog.
2. You should have several areas where you can click on "Add a Gadget" (see picture below).  You'll want to click on the "Add a Gadget" link where you want your Gadget to be added on your blog :




3. After clicking on the Gadget (many people usually call these Widgets, but we'll stick with Blogger's name), you'll get a window that pops up that looks like the following picture:


4. Choose the Gadget you want to include on your blog by doing a simple search.  Click on one of the four choices on the left - Basics, Featured, Most Popular, or More Gadgets - then click on the blue plus sign to add it.  Or, in the top right-hand corner of the window there is a search box - search for something that you want to add.  REMEMBER!!!! - everything added to your blog must be school appropriate!

Vocab quiz 7

I'll give you a few minutes to review for the vocab quiz, and then we will take the quiz in class over Internet #3.

After the quiz, go back to yesterday's blog post and read the instructions for FA6.  FA6 is due today at the end of the hour!  While working on this assignment you should have your speedskin on your keyboard!  Also, this assignment needs to be printed out and handed in, so make sure that your filename and path is in the right-hand side of the header (this is in the directions).  


After completing FA6 you need to create a new post on your blog.  As you did last week, you need to explain in your post what you have learned from this week.  What successes did you have in Computer Applications?  What failures?  What did you learn?  What questions did you have that were not answered in class?  Include anything else you feel is important about what happened in class this week.  This is called a reflective post, and we will be utilizing this in class regularly throughout the rest of the semester.  It is a great way for you to reflect on and synthesize (that means bring together, or remember) what we have learned in class over the last week.  


Once you complete your blog post, publish it, then send me an email with a link to your blog so I can read what you have written.  If you are unable to get this done in class today this should be completed at home over the weekend.  Several of you forgot to do this last week - make sure that you get this done.

More blogging techniques

For those who are responsible for defining words this week on the Wikispaces website you should be working to get your words defined ASAP.  Remember, there can only be one person at a time editing the website.  You should have decided who was defining in what order when you met yesterday in your small groups.  All words should be defined by the end of class tomorrow!

To start off today open Microsoft Word and turn to page 42.  Type lines 1-3 on 18A, at the top of the page, once.  Then, in 18B, type lines 1-6 twice.

Vocab help for this week:
HTML - "View source" in Safari or "Page Source" in Firefox
IP Address - What is my ip address

We will continue to discuss how you can further design and create using your blog.  As a reminder, this is a school associated activity so you must keep everything on the blog school appropriate.

Blogging

This week we have another vocab list.  This is the 3rd list that deals with the Internet.  Here is the list of students responsible for this week's vocab words:

3rd hour:  ElizabethB, EthanK, EmmaL, AlexisP, ElizabethP

4th hour:  MaddieA, BenettE, CaysonF, DestinyL, GraceM, PaigeO

6th hour:  RossC, HaleeG, BrileyK, DevonM, CamarieM, ReneeT

7th hour:  ElliottM, AdamN, TravisR, CassandraT, JacobV, AlexW

8th hour:  BritnyB, NikolasF, LucasH, DwightM, PaigeS, RyanW

To start with this week we will be learning the at sign - @ (right shift + left ring/3rd finger); the left parenthesis - ( (left shift + right ring/3rd finger); the right parenthesis - ) (left shift + right little/4th finger); and the asterisk - * (left shift + right middle/2nd finger).

Next we will begin learning how to manipulate and design your blog.  Creating a blog can very much be a creative experience for the blogger.  There are several things that you need to keep in mind as you create your blog:

1. Remember your audience.  If you are trying to reach adults, then you don't want to design a blog that would look like something you find in a Kindergarten classroom.  Your audience is who you are trying to attract to the website - make it appropriate to your audience.
2. Use colors and backgrounds that make what you have on your website easy to see.  
3. Use Fonts that are easy to read.  Sometimes the coolest font is a terrible web font because it's hard to read.  You want your audience to be able to easily read what you write on your blog - not become confused because the information was read incorrectly.

Here are some of the things that we will cover in designing your blog:

New posts

HTML vs. Compose

Modifying text entries

Edit posts

Labels/tags

Publishing/Saving/Preview

Creating Pages
Changing your Settings

Designing your blog

Vocab Quiz; Creating a blog

First thing's first - take a few minutes at the beginning of the hour to review for the vocab quiz.

After completing the quiz, you can watch the video below (turn off the volume).  As you are watching it, follow along and complete the creation of your blog.  You should have no problems following along without the narration - watch and do as the narrator does.  The website that we used to create the blog was Blogger.

Once you are done with watching the video you need to complete your first post to your blog.  Title the blog post "Oct. 28th weekly summary".   In this blog post you will write a reflective summary in which you will share what you have learned this week and write any questions you may have about what was covered in Computer Applications (KEEP YOUR SPEEDSKIN ON YOUR KEYBOARD!).  Write the "A-Ha" moments you had, and write about what was frustrating.  You may need to go back and look at the other posts that I have made this week on the blog to help remind you of what we covered this week.

Once you have completed this assignment, send me an email from Google with a link to your blog so I can read your Weekly Summary post.  Remember - when you send an email you should have a subject line, an introduction ("Dear Jimmy" is just one example), a message to tell the person you're writing to why you're sending the email, and you need to include your name at the end of the email.



Here are a couple of reminders about the blog:

1. Everything posted on the blog must be school appropriate.
2. No adding games of any kind as widgets to your blog - this is not an arcade!
3. Use what we have learned about Internet Safety while being creative on your blog!  You can be safe and create a fantastic blog at the same time!

Vocab videos

Here is today's first video we will be watching.  It is on RSS feeds.  Basically an RSS feed (RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication) is a free online subscription to a website that frequently posts new articles; or in the case of blogs new blogposts.

The second video for today will discuss what a blog is.  You have been accessing my blog for most of the semester, so you should have a basic, beginning understanding of what a blog looks like and what you can do with a blog.  The video below explains blogs:

We will continue our learning of new symbols on the keyboard in an effort to try and get all of the symbols done.  Today we will cover the % (right shift + left index/1st finger), < (left shift + right middle/2nd finger), > (left shift + right ring/3rd finger), # (right shift + left middle/2nd finger), & (left shift + right middle/2nd finger).

After completing those symbols we will be working on creating your own blog using Blogger.  Creating a blog is relatively easy to do.  It also requires the use of an email address (you have a Google account so that will work perfectly).  We will use the blogs we create for several different purposes in class, but I want you to remember that since this is used for school everything must be school appropriate that is posted on your blog.  There will be no games on your blog while you are in this class - after this semester is over you can add whatever you want to your blog.

HAVE YOU CHECKED THE BOARD FOR MISSING ASSIGNMENTS??!!! If your name is on the board then you need to get the assignments that are missing completed and handed in.  Before school, Homeroom, lunch recess, REAL time, and after school are all available for you to use to complete work.