Jac de Haan
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Homepage: http://www.billingsmiddleschool.org/beta
Posts by Jac de Haan
Independent Project Spotlight: Rowan
March 5, 2010 - 10:18 am
Posted in 6th Grade, Projects | 5 comments
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 [...]
Computer Engineer Barbie
March 4, 2010 - 12:05 pm
Posted in Digital Identity | 2 comments
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 [...]
OK GO followup
March 2, 2010 - 4:11 pm
Posted in 7th Grade, Digital Identity, Projects | 1 comment
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
March 1, 2010 - 11:15 am
Tags: Google
Posted in 7th Grade, Digital Identity | No comments
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 [...]
Apple iPad testing
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 [...]
2010 digital identity survey results – cell phones
February 20, 2010 - 7:15 pm
Posted in 8th grade, Digital Identity | No comments
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 [...]
Applied Math Lab: Avalanche!
February 11, 2010 - 2:33 pm
Tags: AML
Posted in 8th grade | No comments
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 [...]
iPad deconstruction
February 1, 2010 - 2:01 pm
Tags: Apple, Tech in the News
Posted in 6th Grade | 2 comments
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 [...]
What’s behind that website?
January 25, 2010 - 6:09 pm
Tags: code
Posted in 6th Grade | No comments
We use websites every day to do all sorts of things: watch video, communicate with others, research and explore. How is it that computers know what a website should look like to the viewer?
6th graders got behind the scenes today as we learned about hyper text markup language (HTML), a way that computers speak so [...]
Billings Middle School iPhone app released
January 20, 2010 - 4:52 am
Posted in Projects | 3 comments
Billings Middle School has released an iPhone/iPod Touch app – available free from the iTunes store. This app contains news and information gathered from various parts of the School’s digital identity: the public news feed, the Head of School blog, the Tech Lab blog and our YouTube channel.
Special thanks to Annaliese (8th grade student), who [...]
