technology with intention
Projects
Tech-related projects from integrated subjects, digital arts and independent study.
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:
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!
Tech Tuesday kicks off
354 days
by Jac de Haan
in Projects
Declan and Ben C. Have been looking for extra time to engage in independent programming. Their solution was to start a Tech Tuesday lunch club – and today was the first meeting!
11 students showed up and worked on projects that ranged from HTML, JavaScript, Alice, FLStudio and Scratch. Next meeting is scheduled for March 1st.
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.
Independent project spotlight: Rory
390 days
Over break, 6th grade student Rory spent some time creating some absolutely amazing Scratch projects at home. He created some games and some stories as well. Rory offers some advice to others interested in learning more about Scratch:
I think the most useful functions I used were if/then/else statements and variables…as far as advice goes I would say to use simple controls, variables, lots of show/hides for different levels and broadcasting (though I didn’t use broadcasting for this one).
The Scuba Game took about 25 hours since I got a lot better at Scratch over the course of making the game. At the moment in Scratch I’m working on a game/simulation of a chemistry lab and various smaller projects (like seasonal animations and simulations).
IHS: When life hands you lemons
423 days
Make batteries! That’s what 8th grade students did in their class of Integrated Human Sciences. Students were supplied with copper rods, zinc coated nails, LED lights, alligator clips and a lesson in the parts of a battery. In these lemon batteries, the copper rod acted as an anode, the zinc coated nail acted as a cathode, and the lemon juice acted as the acid.
iPhone photography
426 days
8th grade student Deividas has been spending some time creating art with an iPhone. He writes:
I used two programs, called Toy camera and Photo-show. With them, you can add effects to photos. I chose this technology because the iPhone had these and I wanted to see what they could do, which turned out really awesomely. I like doing photography because it is really fun to go places and mess around with colors and stuff with those apps. Also, you get to take cool pictures of awesome sculptures and stuff to awe other people with your pro-fulness.
Stickfigure animations
446 days
6th grade students have spent the last couple of weeks exploring our new Windows 7 computer build. One of the most popular applications has become Pivot Stickfigure Animator, a freeware application that introduces the animation concept of frames.
Declan has installed the software at home, and has some finished work to share:
Shrink - Pivot Stickfigure Animation by Declan
Seattle Slink slinks around Seattle!
488 days
7th grade students had their scientific understanding of evolutionary adaptation put to the test in a scary simulation. News reports from around North Seattle were coming in about mysterious happenings surrounding Billings Middle School. We used a Google Map to document the stories, some include newspaper clippings. It seems as though a pattern is emerging…
What type of creature could do such a thing? Biped or quadruped? Herbivore, carnivore or omnivore? Can it swim? Students used facts from the stories to support conclusions about dietary needs, description and origins of the mythical monster. Click on the pushpins below to read more about the incidents.
Just when things couldn’t get any scarier, we found a mystery jawbone in the rain garden while on break! How does this jawline and the teeth present affect our hypotheses already established?
Teachers love robots
514 days
by Jac de Haan
in Projects
In preparation for the school year, Billings STEM teachers were lucky enough to spend an afternoon with Jenn from the Technology Access Foundation in Seattle. We had an introduction to programming robotics and got familiar with the Lego Mindstorms kits that will be used in 6th grade STEM, 7th grade science and math, and 8th grade Applied Math Lab.
