We started by using emoticons to share our feelings about our tech journey coming to an end.  Some students felt and others or

Students shared their favorite technology experiences this year:

• writing and executing programs with post-it notes
• independent projects
• visiting technologists
• revolution vs. evolution

They also offered suggestions for improvements next year, ranging from school-provided laptops to more time in the lab.

Finally, our conversation turned to summer plans.  We talked about healthy screen time, concerns over cell phone over-usage and non-tech related summer activities.  The 6th grade is planning on an amazing summer outdoors – some activities they’ll be engaged in include:

• parkour summer camp
• dog walking
• swimming
• playing checkers and other board games
• tennis
• ultimate frisbee camp
• writing letters
• learning a new language
• basketball
• cooking

Thanks everyone for a great year, 7th grade will be even more amazing!

Our final guest speaker visited Friday and we had a presentation about how video games have shifted from text-based stories all the way to photo-realistic interactive movies. As always, students asked relevant questions and offered ideas for future products.

Towards the end of the class period our speaker showed off some amazing footage of their current video games.  Part of these clips were graphically violent and may be on students’ minds.  Some t-shirts and other give-aways were handed out, some of which depict these ads.  Here are a few questions you might consider engaging your student with:

What makes video games so much fun to play?

Do you think video games can affect your mood?

How do you know if you’ve been looking at a computer or tv screen too long?

Our speaker also talked about the need for families to have clear rules about how much game-play is appropriate.  His teen has a “1 hour per day” policy, but duration might be dependent on age, personality, exercise, school performance, chore completion, etc.

Does your family have guidelines about gaming systems?

Do you understand the video game rating system ( http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp)?

Are you familiar with signs of video game addiction ( http://www.video-game-addiction.org/symptoms-computer-addiction-teens.html)?

Do your gaming systems use the internet to connect players to others around the world?

Do you have a clear plan for this summer (camps, sleepovers, trips) that creates a balanced environment beyond gaming and/or computing?

Gabe Newell sat down with technology students today to speak about his rise from self-identified nerd to founder and CEO of Valve Software, a gaming and entertainment company with many successful titles including Left for Dead and Half Life.

Gabe showed us the first games he used to play with computers, punchcards and text-based strategy games.  He talked about working at a tiny company while in college many years ago (by the name of Microsoft) before starting his own.  We got to take a virtual tour of the Valve offices and watched some previews for some of the company games.

We learned about all that goes into making a video game – artwork, sound, a gaming engine, the actual code, and distribution channels.  Companies need people with these skills in order to make successful products.

Gabe also talked about the need for families to have rules around how much time is healthy for adolescents to spend gaming per day/week.  He likened Valve’s single-player game experiences to an interactive movie – you might watch a movie on the weekend but certainly wouldn’t think to watch movies non-stop from the time you wake up to when you go to bed.

Thank you Gabe for spending so much time with us and sharing your life!

Class 6B were lucky enough to spend a class period with Michael, an engineer from Google who works on the Gmail team.  Michael used Google Maps to show a street-view of his middle school in Alabama, and talked about how his life choices resulted in East and West Coast employment through his interest in technology.  He shared screenshots of the code he creates everyday and explained how he spends his hours at work communicating with machines and people.

Thank you, Michael!

Lego Robotics @ Billings: Billings Middle School has our very own Seattle Lego Robotics camp, presented in conjunction with the amazing educators at EdLab.  2 sessions – August 2-6 and 9-13.

iD Gaming Academy: Held at the University of Washington, this 2-week overnight game development camp is a great opportunity to learn about video game creation.  6th grade student Gray says “you get to make your own unique game and play it as well as play other peoples games.”

911 Media Arts: Classes in making movies, digital storytelling, website design, and more.

Reel Grrls: Get hands on with animation and video production day camps – girls only!

TechReach: SeaBots – Dive into science. This girls only one-week camp is a great intro to programming and Lego robotics.

Youth in Focus: Intro to digital photography classes are offered 2x a week. Applications are due end of May.

Emily shared stories of her days as a middle school students, her interests in reading and music, and her decision to study sociology in college.  She told us about day-to-day life at Cheezburger headquarters in Belltown and how the company focuses on trying to make people laugh.  Much of the content on the site comes from people who send in funny photos or videos.  The company makes money by selling merchandise (t-shirts, stickers, etc) and by advertising space.

Emily also outlined the types of jobs at her company.  The Cheezburger Network needs people to manage blogs, handle user photo submissions and more.  Employees may have a background as an artist, musician, mathematician, sales person, or any number of interests and work histories.  Thank you Emily!

We’ve got in depth with the history of Seattle native Bill Gates and learned about how he hacked his way from middle-school mischief maker to Harvard and then beyond.  We followed his empire as it moved from the early days in New Mexico back to Washington state, and how Microsoft has weathered competition to become a worldwide brand with significant market shares in gaming, search, software and hardware.

Today we talked about 2 Stanford guys who changed the way search engines rank websites to help us find what we are looking for.  Their project (called BackRub) became more than just a company…Google is a verb and a website that millions of people use everyday.  We spoke of how Google has tried to compete in various web endeavors that have failed (Google Video, Google Pages, Orkut), and how they’ve bought other companies that do things well (YouTube, KeyHole, JotSpot).

When asked who the people and companies that will make it huge in the next few years will be, students responded with an enthusiastic “we are!”

As part of these conversations, we’ve been using online maps and stock charts to illustrate concepts and we’ve been practicing our listening and participation skills in preparation for the guest speakers that will start sharing their technology experiences next week.

• communication – cell phone companies, email
• entertainment -content producers, cable & satellite services
• identity – social networking, photo storage sites
• energy – fuel cells, alternate sources
• transportation – airlines, car companies
• productivity – software companies, hardware companies

In the next few weeks we’ll have visitors from a variety of industries come to the tech lab and talk about how they use technology in their every day work.  We’ll post photos and thoughts as we get underway.

Check out my website to see how you can help too. You can leave comments right here on the tech blog.  Thanks.

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?

“No way,” said Pearl and a few others.  ”There is no way to connect your digital camera or a printer.” Students also pointed out that you need another computer to efficiently upload contacts, calendars and mail.  Without USB, your limited in the devices you can plug in.

“There is no DVD player” pointed out Rowan. Mason thinks this is because Apple wants you to spend money at their stores to get content.