Wow, sorry it’s been so long between posts. Between the Winter program, snow days, and Christmas break, we’ve been extremely busy!

The 6th graders have been working hard on learning the program Scratch, developed by MIT Media Lab. This is their first classroom experience with programming, and many of them are taking off and really enjoying it! So far, they have completed two of the four sets of challenges, and by the end of the unit, they will be able to use the program to create video games, animations and more!

7th grade has been working to develop their skills with spreadsheets, and are currently making their own “battleship” game with Microsoft Excel. This week we worked on using the “if” function with numbers and text. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to match up and play our games.

8th Grade has taken a little bit of a hiatus from the tech lab since they snowshoe on their day of tech class, but pretty soon we will be working to develop a survey for the entire school on uses of different technologies both in and out of the classroom. They started by thinking about how they effectively use technology at school and the different ways teachers at Billings use tech in the classroom to enhance learning.

Last week the 8th grade spent some time reading, thinking and writing about Facebook. We started off by taking a quick poll of who does and does not have a Facebook account. Roughly half the 8th grade class has a Facebook account. Opinions varied in terms of usage of Facebook. Some students said they use it to connect with friends who live in other cities and states, some said they use it to keep up with local and long distance friends and family, and others said they did not see the point in Facebook when it was easier just to pick up the phone and call. It was a fascinating discussion, especially when a common assumption by adults (and often other teens) is that everyone has a Facebook account.

The Tech world was struck last week by the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Both the 6th grade and the 8th grade took the opportunity to reflect on the development of the company, what the company is known for, and how products have changed over time.

Members of the classes included these products in a list of what Apple is known for:

• iPad
• iPod Classic/Touch/Nano/Mini/Shuffle
• iPhone
• Macbook Pro/Air
• iMac
• Pixar
• iTunes
• App Store

We researched different Apple products, including the original Macintosh from 1984, the first iMac, the Apple II series, and discovered a lesser known Apple product the Bandai Pippin. We also played around on the way back machine and looked at what apple.com looked like in 1998!