technology with intention
8th grade
Tech class happenings from the 8th grade, including AML (Applied Mathematics Lab) and IHS (Integrated Human Sciences).
Design Week 2011
305 days
6th and 8th grade students are busily engaged in the Billings tradition of “Design Week” in the days before Spring Break. How excited does everyone get about a week’s worth of exploration around this years topic of PLAY? 106.8 decibels worth of excited, according to our sound level meter! That is louder than a motorcycle or subway train.
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.
8th grade students’ art show open to public
311 days
Deividas and Isaac, two 8th grade students, have been playing with iPhone photography for almost a year now. Their first public art exhibit will open April 1st at Fremont Coffee. The show runs through April 30th and also features the work of students from John Hay, Coe and Lowell.
This opening coincides with the Fremont First Friday Art Walk. Congrats to all participants!
Cache in, trash out
336 days
Geocaching club this week had two amazing finds. Using global positioning satellites we hunted down a multi-step cache south of school and then searching out a decommissioned Seattle bomb shelter.
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.
Google Apps Script tutorials
354 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
8th grade students are working through self-paced tutorials to learn more about using advanced Spreadsheet functionality.
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.
Take control of your online you
359 days
8th grade students at Billings are always involved in helping younger students and each other keep digital identities protected. In the past they’ve conducted surveys, presented to our parent community, built a webpage and created video.
Staying up-to-date with Facebook’s changing privacy policies can be daunting. An 8th grade parent recently wrote in to let everyone know about the new https option for logging in. Mashable just published a new guide to staying in control with Facebook. Follow their advice to stay in tune with the latest Facebook settings, including the https change.
Digital communication and social media in Egypt
361 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
8th grade students took time during Tech class and also Integrated Human Sciences to dig deep into the latest news from Egypt and the unrest of the last weeks. In Tech class, we looked at the impact of social media on this event, and the Egyptian government’s attempts to block communication by reducing internet connectivity.
Students worked in small teams to read and analyze several news stories, and then presented to the rest of the class. Here are links to the headlines we used:
- How Journalists Are Using Social Media to Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations – Mashable.com
- Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard – Official Google Blog
- Old technology finds role in Egyptian protests – BBC News
- Egypt Forced Cell Phone Company to Send Pro-Government Text Messages During Protests – GeekOSystem.com
To many students this seemed like a story out of a movie – something that is hard to imagine from our location and upbringing in the US. We ended the class by learning about a news story that ties the chain of events in Egypt to our country:
- Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Back in Play – Wired.com
More information about Egypt’s media war can be found on Meedan.net. Thanks to 8th grade teacher Rebecca’s coordination and resources for this joint learning experience.
Unrest in Egypt - photo by James Buck
Mid-winter break animation opportunity
362 days
Billings students tend to get pretty excited about all the animation and video projects we do. In a couple of weeks a local Seattle non-profit is offering an Animation Camp that sounds like tons of fun! We have quite a few alum who have spent their summers empowered by the incredible teachers at ReelGrrls, here are the details:
Mon-Fri, February 21 – 25, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Reel Grrls New Media Lab in Seattle’s Central District, 1409 21st Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Ages: Open to young women ages 9 – 19. Beginning and advanced media-makers welcome!
Cost: $275, or pay what you can. No participants turned away due to lack of funds.
Registration: Register Online OR Download a printable registration form to send in via email, fax, or post (coming soon).
Open to beginning and advanced animators! Learn new animation skills and styles from professional women animators. Explore different styles of animation and complete a short animated film in an all-girl non-competitive environment. Get hands-on experience with state of the art technology and support from adult women mentors.
ReelGrrls is also offering a weekly class that meets Wednesday afternoons.
“Lights, Cameras…Reel Grrls”
Afterschool video production class for girls ages 11-19 starting February 19. Girls will use professional quality cameras, learn Final Cut Pro editing software and create basic stop motion animation. The program meets Wed. afternoons starting March 2 (plus a few Saturdays). Full scholarships available for any Billings student receiving full or partial financial aid. To register or for questions, check out the ReelGrrls website.
Details on dates and times are:
February 16–6 PM Family Orientation (recommended but not required). Saturdays: February 19, March 19, April 9 10 AM to 4 PM
Wednesdays: March 2 through May 4 4 PM – 6:30 PM (no class April 20)
Location: Reel Grrls New Media Lab in Seattle’s Central District, 1409 21st Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Marketing: audience, purpose, context
387 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
8th grade students spent December in the Tech Lab reinforcing concepts from other classes. When writing essays, History and Language Arts teachers ask students to focus on audience and purpose.
In tech, we used these same ideas to analyze our school’s radio commercials. These ads play on the local NPR affiliate and students often hear them when carpooling to school in the morning. Students commented that the ads are boring and clearly intended for parents in the Seattle area who might consider an independent school.
8th grade students then chose a specific audience, a purpose and a specific local radio station to target. We then used Audacity and Garageband to record our messages.
Abbey, Sophie and Nicole thought it would be useful to create an ad for NPR that speaks directly to the kids in the carpools. They decided that they would record a song to capture attention and deliver a message. Their final product also includes a clear call to action:
Tech in the News: CES and Apple
389 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
So much exciting tech in the news lately…8th grade students discussed a few of the stand-out stories of the last week:
Apple becomes a distribution channel for OSX applications – Apple has taken their iTunes model (sell other people’s music and take a bit of money from each sale) and successfully applied it to iPhone apps. Now they are moving ahead and allowing Apple computer owners to do the same thing.
Two stories from CES 2011
Microsoft announces Surface 2.0
Snowboarding goes high tech
Applied math: house of cards
421 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
Written by Nick S.
In AML we were inspired by the world record holder Brian Berg to build card houses. The project was to build 3 different kinds of card houses. The first was a cardhouse made out of triangle shapes. The second was built out of cubes. The last one was made out of whatever shape we wanted. The object of this project was to see how many coins the structure could hold on top of it. My second structure held about 200 coins on it.
