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.

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!

7^th graders worked in groups to define technology terms in their own words. Definitions included “a network of information that most computers can access” and “the giant digital information superhighway” for Internet; and “a program that lets you connect to the Internet” with examples of Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox for Web Browser. Other terms we defined included WWW/Web, Cloud, Web Address/URL, Program, Search Engine and Address bar.

6^th grade has been spending time reviewing Internet use expectations and understanding passwords. In what has become a Billings tradition, 6^th grade heard the story of Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington and his experience when many of his online accounts were hacked as a result of poor password choice.  The class worked together to come up with different passwords based on everyday words. Kangaroo became k@N6aro0, computer became c0Mpu+3r and technology became T3cHn0\o6Y.  We decided that good passwords include lower and UPPER case letters, numbers and symbols.

8^th graders were introduced to the Hurt Square and were presented with various scenarios to rank on the square. We decided that sometimes actions online are less hurtful and more annoying, but they still have an impact in our lives.

Congratulations go out to all the schools that entered – it is heartening to think that there are so many students in the world that are taking responsibility for the future and present of our planet.

Learn more about the contest on the National Wildlife Federation’s blog.

Ronan, Peter and Rebecca took the time to organize our thoughts into a song, and they were joined by Eli, Abe, Mason, Tati, Kyri, Rowan, Isabelle M, Isabelle B, Ben C and Ben B to record.

Here is our result: Eco-Code

And the lyrics:

Hey it’s Billings,
School environmental,
Earth day all year round,
Now roll the instrumental…

Perfect lawn, our school don’t need it,
Catch roof run-off and reuse it,
In the lunchroom we compost,
reduce the waste, recycle the most.

Energy is what comes when you recycle
Don’t waste this world, it’s just a cycle.

Playing at the park,
Watering the rain garden,
Having some fun too,
These are all the things we do.

Take a ride, on the Spud,
a bio-diesel bus that we all love,
Takes us places we can’t walk,
Trucking graceful, like a hawk.

Get on a bike reinvent your life,
Save the world, fight the good fight,
Feeling good on your commute,
Do the math, it all computes.

Green hour, gain some power,
Play outside for one or two hours,
Get unplugged and have some fun,
Feel the rain, soak up the sun.

All our actions are connected,
The Earth is precious, help protect it.
Take a moment to reflect
On your life, please show respect.

Playing at the park,
Watering the rain garden,
Having some fun too,
These are all the things we do.

Story 1: Two tweens charged with cyberstalking in Facebook incident

An 11-year old and 12-year old are accused of using an ex-friend’s Facebook account to post mean and sexual images and messages. This is a clear instance of posing, which we’ve previously studied as a form of cyberbullying. The 12-year-old student went before a judge today and pled not guilty.

Story 2: A superstar teen loses chance to be featured by the Seattle Times because of distateful tweets

A Seattle journalist was writing an article about a teen who is heading to college after beating the odds and moving to the US from a refugee camp.  As part of his research, he took a look at the teen’s Twitter account, which contained lewd language and drug related posts. As a direct result of the tweets, the journalist has decided not to write the story.

8th graders spent time debating the conflict between the teen’s positive actions and negative digital identity. Which is a more accurate depiction of the teen? Do we all have negative aspects of our life that aren’t meant to be recorded forever? What are healthy ways to explore identity without putting everything online?

As a result of the hack, there is a class-action lawsuit filed against Sony and the U.S. government wants answers too.

Sony’s stock price has dropped as a result of the intrusion, and on Monday they announced that another 25 million older accounts have been hacked as well.

While some students felt this story didn’t pertain to them personally because they don’t have a Playstation Network account, we quickly realized that there are many online locations that have similar databases of customer information.

Here is a list of places that students shop online, places that keep records of our address, name, birthday, credit card numbers, phone numbers, etc:

• iTunes music store
• Amazon.com
• XBOX Live
• Facebook
• eBay
• anywhere online that we shop!

Every time we buy from an online location, we are trading the convenience of instant gratification for the risk of losing control of our personal information. Sony is an incredibly unfortunate example.

Since the database breach occurred, Sony had to switch off their Playstation Network until they can fix the security issues. This means that millions of people can’t play games online with friends or buy new games. This results in millions of lost revenue dollars for the company and many angry customers.

Will this problem cause Playstation to lose the console battle with Microsoft? Will people be able to trust Sony with their personal information after such a news story?

Facebook is way too addictive. I have it because I’m becoming more of a social person and I enjoy talking to my friends.

-8th grade student

Someone friended my girlfriend and said mean things about me so she broke up with me.

-8th grade student

Social networks are a big part of my social life and have helped me in a lot of ways.

-8th grade student

I’ve thought about deleting my Facebook account – depending on my mood and what’s happened both on my account and in my life.

-8th grade student

I’m a different person on the internet than I am in real life.

-8th grade student

Two years ago I spent over 30 hours a week on electronics, and now I only spend about 20.

-8th grade student

I use a fake identity and then reveal another fake Identity to my close online friends as an extra measure.

-8th grade student

People are way too obsessed with Facebook!!!!

-8th grade student

I don’t want stalkers to look at my photos an videos and other information I have.

-7th grade student

I do say things in chat that I wouldn’t say otherwise.

-7th grade student

I am very careful online, and check and edit settings.

-7th grade student

I did “delete” my facebook once. But when I wanted to access it again, everything was there. So you can’t really delete it.

-7th grade student

I don’t usually watch tv.

-7th grade student

Facebook is quite pointless, and I don’t see what is so interesting about it.

-7th grade student

I generally think games alter teens’ personalities, but not a excessive amount.

-7th grade student

I spend many hours on the tv and computer a week.

-6th grade student

I am in denial about video games and how they affect your brain.

-6th grade student

I don’t use online stuff and do no social networking.

-6th grade student

COMPUTERS RULE!!!!!!! COMPUTERS RULE!!!!! COMPUTERS RULE!!!

-6th grade student

To learn more about this year’s Design Week, check out the daily postings on our main website. If you are logged in as a school community member, you’ll have access to each day’s complete photo albums from the right sidebar.

This opening coincides with the Fremont First Friday Art Walk. Congrats to all participants!

As we get more comfortable with the guidelines of geocaching, we’ve decided to add another level to our experiences, in keeping with the EcoSchool’s Global Dimensions Pathway that we aspire towards.  Students picked up garbage while we hunted for caches: a concept referred to as Cache In, Trash Out.

A few students are opting for independent project work to support their 8th grade project. Toby just captured some footage of his baseball pitching form and will be using iMovie to analyze and compare his release with professional athletes.

Halley is interviewing a program director and is learning to convert and combine .wav files in Audacity after mounting a digital voice recorder and accessing it as a hard drive.