technology with intention
7th Grade
Tech class happenings from the 7th grade, including iCLAST (integrated class of Language Arts, Science and Technology).
The Battle of Fredericksburg
309 days
7th grade students are studying the Civil War in American History class. They decided to film recreations of some of the battles that occurred. Below is one example by Ben and Cooper with the rest of the class acting:
Teen digital identity – Rebecca Black follow-up
318 days
7th grade students continue to follow the story of Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old singer who has recently risen to fame via YouTube.
Since our first introduction last Wednesday (6M views, like/dislike buttons disabled) to today (39M views, 1:10 ratio of like to dislike) she has been:
- interviewed on national news programs, including Good Morning America
- appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
- been the topic of an interview with Lady Gaga
- is rumored to have made $25,000 in iTunes downloads.
Today students wrestled with the question is this fame worth the criticism she is receiving?
We spent most of the class looking at her production company, Ark Music Factory. This group of producers, choreographers and marketers seem to have a specific musical and visual idea of what might be successful online. They’ve drawn a lot of criticism in the last few weeks for charging families to make music videos for their children.
Finally, we watched another video from one of Ark Music Factory’s artists. Student debated the quality of the music in comparison to Rebecca Black, noted the guest appearance of one of the producers in the video again, and looked at ratings and viewing history for Alana Lee:
Teen digital identity – case studies
320 days
7th grade students spend mid-year focused on the theme of identity. In Science they study genetics and evolution, in American History they look at the formation of the US through the Revolutionary War, and in Language Arts they read and write stories of personal growth and awareness.
In technology we take a deeper look at the idea of digital identity - who we are based on electronic information that exists in the cloud. One person’s DI can look quite different depending on what type of information a viewer finds: text messages, social networking profiles, search engine queries, gaming stats, etc.
We spent class looking at 2 young people who are intentionally shaping their digital identity with the help of adults. We also looked at the consequences of this process.
MattyB
Matty B is an 8-year-old rapper. He has a large YouTube presence (over 46 million channel views), a schwag store (do-it-yourself t-shirt print-on-demand storefront), and a Twitter handle. Matty B raps to popular songs and takes opportunities to interact with music and dance stars to gain attention and promote himself.
Students can’t find any proof that Matty B is making money off the project so far, but they theorize that as he grows up, his digital identity might turn into a recording contract.
Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black was a regular 13 year old until about 10 days ago when her music video was uploaded to YouTube. The next day a couple of comedians sent out links to the video along with disparaging remarks, and she is now up to over 30 million views!
Rebecca’s video has spurned tens of tributes/copycats, most of them mean-spirited. Is fame worth the price of people asking you to end your life? Students doubted the ability of themselves to stay strong under such overwhelming criticism. We also discussed her ability to turn this experience into a positive one – she has already been interviewed by Good Morning America and been labeled the “next Justin Bieber.”
Facebook streams video & iPad 2
332 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
7th grade today analyzed a couple of big tech stories:
Facebook begins streaming video – we discussed how brick-and-mortar stores compete with mail or instant download/streaming video services, the death of the DVD, and how many BluRay DVD player owners don’t actually own BluRay DVDs. General consensus was that impulse purchases are most likely to occur when streaming video. Facebook’s approach to streaming video is a little different than Netflix because you can use US currency or Facebook currency. Students point out that once you invest in Facebook currency you are bound to their service – a clever and scary proposition. Also, watching movies in Facebook will drastically increase some people’s Facebook time…this provides more time for Facebook to advertise to the viewer, thus increasing their profits.
Apple announces iPad 2 – we compared the features of Apple’s new offering to the iPad 1 and the iPhone. Students decided this is clearly an evolution, not a revolution. Even though the technology might not be ground breaking, students think that the tablet in general is fairly revolutionary because it is increasing the amount of screen time a person engages in. Tangential conversations turned to the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Google’s Android OS.
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.
GoogleFinance function
337 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
6th and 7th grade students have kicked off their 12-week stock market exchange competition, sponsored by math teacher Pam.
This project ties in nicely with our advanced spreadsheet functions. We’ll use spreadsheets to pull in information and analyze trends. Today we played with historical stock data using a new formula:
=GoogleFinance(“TICKER”, “ATTRIBUTE”)
Available attributes are:
- price: market price of the stock – delayed by up to 20 minutes.
- priceopen: the opening price of the stock for the current day.
- high: the highest price the stock traded for the current day.
- low: the lowest price the stock traded for the current day.
- volume: number of shares traded of this stock for the current day.
- marketcap: the market cap of the stock.
- tradetime: the last time the stock traded.
- datadelay: the delay in the data presented for this stock using the googleFinance() function.
- volumeavg: the average volume for this stock.
- pe: the Price-to-Earnings ratio for this stock.
- eps: the earnings-per-share for this stock.
- high52: the 52-week high for this stock.
- low52: the 52-week low for this stock.
- change: the change in the price of this stock since yesterday’s market close.
- beta: the beta value of this stock.
- changepct: the percentage change in the price of this stock since yesterday’s close.
- closeyest: yesterday’s closing price of this stock.
- shares: the number of shares outstanding of this stock.
- currency: the currency in which this stock is traded.
A few students also pulled in weekly or daily data for a stock using:
=GoogleFinance(“symbol”, “attribute”, “start_date”, “num_days|end_date”, “interval”)
- “symbol” – stock symbol
- “attribute” – high, low, open, close, vol, or all (quote also works, and defaults to close).
- “start_date” – the date for the historical data. When only the start_date is specified, the historical data is just for that day.
source: http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54198
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
Info graphics out in the world
366 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
Ever since the 7th grade began learning about information graphics, they seem to be everywhere! A few days ago during break, students in the tech lab were surfing YouTube to find responses to the recent State of the Union Address from our President, and they came across this cool enhanced version of the speech:
Independent Projects: Spreadsheets
367 days
7th grade has studied Spreadsheet functionality for a couple of months now. Finally we get a chance for some free exploration and to follow our personal interests. For 4 classes, students choose one path and try to bring an idea from concept to completion. The choices for these independent projects are:
- find a data set and use formulas and graphs to make the data interesting and easy to understand
- example – figure out how many basketball courts there are in each zip code in Seattle
- write some custom javascript to make the spreadsheet do something it doesn’t already do.
- example – a prime number tester that asks for a number and then tells you if it is prime or not
- create a game in a spreadsheet that uses formulas and/or scripts to make it cool.
- example – battleship that is automatically set up when you click a button.
- example – battleship that keeps score and tells you when you win.
- build a survey that dumps results into a spreadsheet and then analyze the results
- example – find out what the most popular cell phone service is and what kind of texting plan most students have.
And here is a breakdown of what students actually chose. It seems like option #1 didn’t enough creativity to capture attention. The majority of students chose to create surveys – what a great way to use technology to interact with other people and learn more about your world.
Samples of work will be posted on the blog as projects are completed.
Spreadsheets: essential skills with BATTLESHIP!
369 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
7th grade spreadsheet mastery continues with some essential skills that allow students to effectively manage data and control the way it looks. We took some time to learn how to:
- resize rows & columns
- delete rows & columns
- merge cells
- control the color & size of text
- change the background color
- change colors with rules
- reference cells with coordinates
What’s a fun way to learn this stuff? BATTLESHIP! Students used the above skills to build spreadsheet-based BATTLESHIP boards and then paired up to play. There were plenty of ideas for improvements, some of which will be attempted by students during independent projects. Abe mentioned an auto-scoring system that uses formulas to figure out who is winning. Mason is attempting a BATTLESHIP board that is one-player and allows the spreadsheet to counter-attack.
Below are Kallie and Enzo’s finished boards:
