6th grade tech is back to 2x a week for the rest of the school year! We kicked off our final term of 6th grade with a variety of activities and conversations.

First, we reviewed typing expectations for April-June: 5 minutes/4x per week. Everyone starts this term with a fresh start – an instant A+ in typing. The purpose of typing assignments is to improve typing ability so that our brains can focus on the content of what we type, not the mechanics. Everyone that typed regularly last term got an “A” in tech, and everyone that has typed regularly this school year has improved their typing speed and accuracy.

Next we turned our attention to SPAM. Many students are becoming frustrated with some their peers’ use of school email communication to send unwanted emails. We reviewed our agreed upon lab and internet guidelines (created back in 2007) and talked about possible consequences of future account abuse.

In preparation for our class on Boolean operators, we engaged in a little Googlewhacking. We had a few close calls, but Cillian eventually took the top prize of the day when he discovered exactly one search result for “gimp humuhumunukunukuapuaas.”

The final 10 minutes of class were left for open exploration of Phun. Phun (created by Emil Ernerfeldt) is “an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction” and is open-source and free!

Homework assignment: What are Boolean operators? What are the 3 most commonly used? Respond via email before Friday!