Independent Project Spotlight: Gray
Mar 10th
6th grader Gray recently finished an independent project using the Phun 2-D physics engine. His goal was to “make a magnetic accelerator cannon or a railgun sort of thing to fire very fast destructive projectiles,” and “it was achieved through balancing properties of mass and density.” Nice work, Gray!
Independent Project Spotlight: Rowan
Mar 5th
My name is Rowan, and I am a 6th grade student doing an independent tech project about important issues around the world. My website has links to other websites that are helping to solve these issues.
Check out my website to see how you can help too. You can leave comments right here on the tech blog. Thanks.
Computer Engineer Barbie
Mar 4th
Barbie has been around for 51 years and there are 126 different versions of the doll! While popular around the world, there are many people who don’t like this toy because they say her body is unrealistic, she perpetuates a stereotype and she doesn’t represent real women.
Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, is trying to improve her image by creating dolls that give girls a positive role model – mainly by creating versions that have jobs. There newest doll is the Computer Engineer Barbie, a coding woman with matching pink laptop, glasses and accessories.
Students – feel free to respond to this story and answer one of the questions below using the blog “comments” field.
Do you think that Barbie is a role model (good or bad) for young girls?
Do you think this Barbie is dressed for work? Why or why not?
Is this new doll inspiring, insulting, or something else entirely?
OK GO followup
Mar 2nd
On Monday, the 7th grade talked about the band OK GO and their inability to post embeddable videos due to the record contract they have in place. State Farm Insurance stepped in and gave the band money to make a new video that falls beyond the EMI agreement. Enjoy this massive Rube Goldberg machine:
OK GO coming to Washington state
Mar 1st
7th grade time in the lab is split between two lessons today – bridged by digital identity:
1. OK GO is a band that became popular through some awesome YouTube videos. Instead of signing a recording contract and spending millions on advertising, they made a couple of low-budget, hilarious films and posted them online. The videos were so popular that they got signed by EMI. You can see the famous “treadmill” video (more than 49 million views) at YouTube because embedding has been disabled at the request of the record label.
The band recently made a new video and posted it on their website for all their fans, but EMI (the record label) was not happy and made them remove it. This is bizarre because the internet made them famous but now their bosses asked them not to use this tool to connect with fans. To watch this video, you have to go to YouTube so that EMI can get paid by the advertisers.
OK GO has a great online presence, using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and their own website to promote their brand (band). We took a look at their Facebook page and found out that they are performing at the Sasquatch! music festival in Washington in May. That took us to the second part of our class…
2. We opened Google Earth and searched for the The Columbia Gorge, where the music festival takes place every year. From there, we prepped for the upcoming Washington State History quiz on notable locations around the state. We used Google Earth to locate the Coulee Dam (pictured below), Adams and other mountains, major freeways, lakes, tribes and more.
Apple iPad testing
Feb 26th
Students got their hands on an Apple iPad today – weeks before the product has officially been launched! We did some testing and compared the size of this new device with an iPod and a laptop. Overall impression was that the screen seems small for web surfing, but it is a fun gizmo.
If you are interested in trying out the iPad for free, follow this link for access 
2010 digital identity survey results – cell phones
Feb 20th
The 8th grade Community class has been analyzing the results of their 2010 Digital Identity Survey. 88 students (out of 103) completed the request for information. There is a lot of information to work through – from social networking accounts to gaming consoles to parent perceptions of tech use. Below is a small sample: student cell phone ownership and texting trends.
Applied Math Lab: Avalanche!
Feb 11th
8th grade students have been learning about the aspects of avalanches as well as safety and awareness (partly in preparation for the February snow camping trip). They simulated three different avalanche terrains on a flat board, and used flour, salt, sugar, and potato flakes to simulate varied snowpacks. As they increased the angle of the board, they measured the angle of incline as they observed what was happening to the different layers. They looked for slab and loose avalanches and reported at what angle they occurred as well as the distance of the slide. They used their data to derive generalizations about snowpack and incline in nature.
Applied Math Lab: Newspaper = Structure
Feb 4th
The engineering section of 8th grade Applied Math Lab (AML) has just finished a unit on structure building. Using a required number of newspaper sheets, students worked in groups to create a structure that could withhold the weight of one small book, two small books, a math book…?!, a dictionary…?!, two dictionaries…?!, all of this combined, and more! Students followed a design process that included building, testing, evaluating, and redesigning.
iPad deconstruction
Feb 1st
The 6th grade spent the period deconstructing the marketing around Apple’s new iPad announcement.
We started with the official video that greets visitors to the Apple website. What does Apple want us to believe about the new device? How do they use music, backgrounds, demonstrations and interviews to convince us?
Next we broke up into groups to figure out if the iPad is a technological evolution or revolution. Every group clearly agrees that this is merely an evolution – as Abe pointed out, “it’s just an iPod Touch that won’t fit in your pocket.”
Could the iPad be a replacement for your home computer?
