More Excel; Photoshop

Today we are going to go back to Excel and add to our knowledge base.  We will cover how to insert the date, insert new rows and columns, format numbers, learn about functions and how to insert and use them in a worksheet, write a formula using the keyboard, drag and copy, and learn what the formula bar is for.   This should not take the entire hour, therefore when we get done we will start working on FA12 (embedded below).

Don't forget tomorrow is the last vocab quiz of the semester.

The Alice project that was on the blog (from earlier this week) will probably be due towards the beginning of next week (Tuesday?).
Activity 12 -

Catch-up day

This is a video that should help you to understand what Java (a programming language) is:

This video explains Flash - an animation software.



After watching this video you should have a much better idea of what Flash animation software can do.



Reminder:  your podcast is due today!  

Please make sure to post it on your blog then send me an email with a link to your blog.  You may want to listen to the podcast first before you copy the HTML code and paste it into your blog to make sure that it sounds ok.

Also, if you are responsible for defining words on Wikispaces that has to be completed before you go to bed tonight.

For today, complete FA11 if you have not yet completed it and handed it in.

Otherwise, you will have time to work on the Alice project - the instructions are below.  Click here to get to the website that houses the rubric for this assignment.  Also, I think I originally said this project would be worth 24 points - that was incorrect; it will be worth 16 points.



Alice project #1 -

Finish FA11; Alice

Today you will need to finish FA11 - the instructions on how to finish it can be found on yesterday's blog post.  Once you have completed FA11 you will need to start on the following Alice assignment (this will be graded but will not be due right away, but I will let you know well in advance when it is due).

Alice project #1



Here are a couple of videos for today that will help you to understand the vocabulary for this week:

This first video will help you to understand bitmap images



This video will help to explain what pixels are


Don't forget to get your vocab words posted on Wikispaces if it is your responsibility to do that this week - this should be done by tomorrow.

Also, your podcast is due tomorrow!  Please remember that you need to embed this on your blog, then you need to email me with a link to your blog.

.jpg vs. .gif; Excel

Vocab for this week:

3rd hour:  ChaseB, JacobG, BrookeL, AlexisP, RyannT
4th hour:  SavannaA, MaddieA, AnthonyB, GracieM, KelseyO, AlexS
6th hour:  RossC, LindyC, KelseyM, CamarieM, AndrewP, ReneeT
7th hour:  KayseyB, SethN, TravisR, CassieT, JacobV
8th hour:  NikF, LucasH, DwightM, DestinyO, PaigeS


Don't forget, your podcast (using Vocaroo) is due Wednesday!

I can't stress enough the fact that many of you have missing assignments.  There are only 2 1/2 weeks of the semester left, and the last week is going to be crazy busy.  Please complete as much work as you can.  Turning in your work is the easiest way to help your grade; zeroes absolutely destroy your grade.  If you need help, please let me know so we can figure out a way to get your stuff done.

cropped with SnipSnip


After watching the video we are going to start working in Excel. Today we are going to learn some of the basic formatting capabilities of Excel.  In many ways what you have already learned in Word will apply to Excel, so that part should be easy.  However, there are some other capabilities that you have access to in Excel that are much different from Word.

Formatting Activity 11is embedded here:

FA11

Vocab Quiz #9 (Multimedia); FA10

As usual, today at the beginning of the hour you will have a couple of minutes to review for the vocab quiz.  We will then go to Classmarker to take Vocab Quiz #9 on Multimedia and Graphics.

Once you have completed the vocab quiz you will want to start working on FA10.  This formatting activity requires you to insert Clipart into a Word document and resize it.  You will only be working with Clipart, but remember actual images (those you could take with a screenshot or with a digital camera) can be formatted and manipulated in the same manner as the Clipart images.  Please remember from yesterday that in order to move your Clipart image freely throughout your document you must go through the following series of steps while formatting your picture:

1. Click on the Layout tab
2. Choose your Wrapping style (usually either Square or Tight)
3. Click on the Advanced button at the bottom of the window
4. In the Advanced Layout window deselect the box under Options next to "Move object with text"
5. Click OK twice to exit

Formatting Activity 10 is due at the end of the hour today!!  This is a simple assignment and should not take you long to complete.

Activity 10 -

I am going to encourage each of you to check your Gmail - I have sent many of you emails regarding FA8, which was the Movie Plot Summary activity that you turned in on Monday of this week.  Many of you still have not yet handed this in, and several of you who did turn this in did not send me the correct information in your email.  You were supposed to send me a link to your blog AND the Word document you used to type in your movie summary.  

Next, check the Late Board in the classroom.  If you have missing work please get it handed in as soon as possible!  We only have 2.5 weeks left in the semester, and many of you have poor grades because you are not turning in assignments.  Having missing assignments is by far and away the biggest reason students do not do well in any class - if you turn your assignments in, even if they are late, your chances for good grades dramatically increases!

If you are done with everything, I'd like you to start working on this Alice tutorial:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice/aliceInSchools/workshop08/tutorialTopics/tutorial1/methodsSlides.pdf

This will be in preparation for next week's graded Alice assignment.

As a reminder, your podcast is due next Wednesday.  The website to use is Vocaroo.  You need to plan accordingly - if you don't have a microphone on your computer at home you need to figure out the best time to come in to one of the computer labs (my room, 7th Grade Computer lab, or Library) to complete this assignment.  Your speech must obviously be school appropriate.

When you complete the assignment state your name first, then state the speech that you are giving.  You do not have to read the entire speech!  Reading about 1 minute of the speech will work great.  Here are a couple of websites that you can use to find the text to a speech, but you can use any website that has the text to a speech (if you find a different website on your own that is fine).
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/index.htmhttp://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.htmlhttp://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.htmhttp://www.famous-speeches-and-speech-topics.info/famous-short-speeches/

Have a great weekend!!

Creating a screenshot; Podcasting

For some reason we have too many people who are not doing their jobs when it comes to posting the definitions for the vocab words on the Wikispaces webpage.  This is an important part of the class, and when you don't do what you are asked to do it doesn't just affect you it affects everyone else in the class.  If you are responsible for defining 2-3 words you MUST get them done by Wednesday so everyone can use these to study.  This is what being part of a team is all about - you need to pull your weight and do your job so the team can be a success.  Screenshots -  this is the taking of a picture of what you have on your screen.  You can either take a screenshot (or what is sometimes also called a screen capture) of the entire screen (Command/Shift/3) or of what you select (Command/Shift/4). Inserting Clipart will be covered today in class - this is very similar to inserting objects so you should have no problems figuring this out.Today we are also going to cover how to create a podcast using Vocaroo.  Once you get to the website you are going to click on the button that says "Click to Record".  

Next, you're going to see a window that pops up and asks to have permission to your microphone - choose "Allow".  You will then immediately be able to record your podcast - when you are done, click on "Click to Stop".

Once you have clicked on that you will see some information that comes up below (shown here):

You need to copy the HTML code by first clicking in the bar where you see "<object width=...."so that it is highlighted.  Once you have it copied, you can now go to your blog to "embed" this html code into a new post.Next, open your blog and start a new post.  Click on "Edit HTML" in the top, right corner, as shown here:

Then paste your copied code into the message area of your new post.  Publish your post.  You should now have a Vocaroo icon on your blog that you can click on to start listening to your podcast!Once you have your podcast up and running, send me an email with a link to your blog so I can hear your podcast.  Here are a few websites you can use to help you decide on a speech that you can do for your podcast: http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/index.htmhttp://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.htmlhttp://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.htm
Your podcast will be due by next Wednesday, December 7.  It can be sent after school on that day, but it is due that day.  If you need time to come in here at school to complete it then please make arrangements to do so!

FA9; streaming video

Today we are going to start by watching another video - this one explains streaming video.





After watching the video I want to quickly cover a couple of other items on inserting objects and formatting them.  After that you will have the rest of class to work on FA9, which is embedded below.


Activity 9 -
When I grade this formatting activity you will be graded based on 2 factors - inserting the correct shape, and then following the formatting instructions for each shape.  For each correct shape you include you'll earn .5 pts (10 shapes X .5 = 5 pts); you'll earn 8 points for the correct formatting of the shapes (each shape has 4 formatting instructions for you to follow, if you get all them correct you'll earn 1 pt - I'll give you .5 points for every 2 instructions you follow); you'll also earn 1 point for including the filename and path in the header, and the filename should be Activity 9 (that will also count as another point).  Total amount of points possible for this formatting activity = 15 points.

When you get done with this in class (it is due today), then you can work on one of the tutorials in Alice.

Also, please remember that if you are scheduled to do vocab words this week that you need to have your words posted by today. If you do this tonight at home that is fine.

Multimedia/graphics

The theme for most of the rest of the semester will involve multimedia and graphics.  In many ways, we've already incorporated much of multimedia and graphics into the class in a variety of ways.  However, over the course of the last couple of weeks we are going to dig even deeper and look at various other ways that we can use and incorporate multimedia and graphics.

To begin on that front we are going to watch a video today covering podcasting.  Here it is:


Podcasting in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo

Today we are going to learn how to insert autoshapes, text boxes, and WordArt into Word, and then learn how to format those objects.  We are going to cover in class today the following aspects of formatting objects:

1. Changing the size of objects
1. using the mouse
2. using the format menu and popup window
2. Changing the color of objects
3. Adding border to objects
4. Inserting WordArt into Word
5. Formatting WordArt
6. Moving objects freely within Word

If you are responsible for completing the vocab list on Wikispaces this week this must be done by tomorrow - please get this done quickly!

Welcome Back!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It may seem hard to believe, but we only have 18 days of school left before we leave for Christmas break (that's assuming we don't have any snow days).  It will go by fast!  My hope for each one of you is that you end the semester on a good note - work hard to improve your grade in the last 3 and a half weeks!

We are jumping right back into our routine - this week we have vocab list #9 (Multimedia/Graphics) - the quiz over these words will be this Friday (Dec. 2nd).  Remember, you created your account on Wikispaces and should have your username and password saved in Google Docs.  If not, I can find out what your username is, but I don't have any clue on what your password is.  Here is this week's list of students who are responsible for defining the 11 vocab words on Wikispaces:

3rd hour:  KatieB, AustinG, TristanJ, AlexaM, ElizabethP
4th hour:  BenettE, AllyssaF, LillyH, AndrewL, TateN, PiageO
6th hour:  DaltonC, SethC, BenC, DevonM, MarshallR, ReneeT
7th hour:  ScottF, FrejaH, AJM, AutumnS, AlexW
8th hour:  SydneyH, LukeJ, DavyenM, KeeganM, ReneeR


For today, if you did not complete FA8 (check back to Thursday's blogpost for the directions on completing this assignment), you need to get it done first.  It should be emailed to me.  Once you have completed this, check the board to see if you have any missing assignments.  If so, get them done in the remaining time.

If you are all caught up on your work, then I have several things I want you to work on.  I will give you a handout that you can type.  You'll need to type the entire handout in Word - this will give you some review practice in keying.  Then, I want you to grab the green, keypad practice sheet and key it in Excel (there is no need to save either one of these - you are doing this for practice).

Once you complete these I will allow you to work in Alice.  What I would like for you to do in Alice is try to include the "Do in order" or "Do together" or one of the other methods that are located at the bottom of the Editor area.  These allow you to make some very interesting actions for your characters.

Vocab Quiz #8 (Technical); FA8

At the beginning of the class you will have opportunity to review for just a couple of minutes before we take the vocab quiz.  

Once you are done with the vocab quiz you will need to finish FA8 (the instructions are on yesterday's blog post).  

When you complete FA8, if you haven't made your entry on Edmodo you can do that today during class.  Please remember that you should post your original response to the questions, then you also need to reply to at least 2 of your classmates.  Here is the writing prompt:

What does FREEDOM mean to you? In what way do you thank a veteran to let them know that you appreciate their willingness to make the supreme sacrifice for you? If you don't do anything, explain why.

If you have completed all of the above work, you should work on any missing assignments that you have.  You can look at the board to find out what you are missing - it is up to date.

If you are done with everything, you can finish the Alice tutorial we started earlier this week (click here to get to the website), or if you have finished that tutorial you are free to experiment in Alice.  If you are experimenting in Alice try some of the things that we have not yet worked on to see if you can figure out how they help you create a world - then incorporate them into your world.