Billings Beta
technology with intention
STEM: Ramping up the year!
496 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade students spent Friday deepening their understanding of inclined planes, one of the simple machines introduced last class. We jumped into two experiments that illustrated an inclined plane’s effect on speed, distance, time and effort.
Experiment #1: Wall v. Ramp!
Students had two backpacks loaded with books and were asked to raise them 8 feet and 3 inches. The first attempt required lifting the bag straight up a wall from the roof of the school! Though the bag didn’t have far to travel, it was really difficult to lift and required 3-4 students to manage the job. The second attempt involved using the ramp from the teacher lounge to the art studio. Students calculated the ramp to be 33 ft long, raising the bag 8’3″ vertically. Students computed the angle of the ramp to be approximately 13 degrees using a giant protractor. The ramp was much easier to pull books up, but there was more distance required.
Experiment #2: Race Cars!
Students used a lunch table, stop watch and protractor to capture the amount of time required for a matchbox car to travel from one end of a ramp to the other. They recorded 3 trials each for angles of 10 degrees, 20, degrees, 30 degrees, etc all the way up to 90 degrees. After isolating the median speed for each angle, we noted a correlation that was consistent with our initial hypothesis: the steeper the angle, the faster the car went and the less time it took for the car to reach the bottom.
Input Output
505 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade chatted about computers today. We figured out that computers are great at math but that is about it! Computers by themselves are interesting to some people, but it is what we can do with computers that gets most people excited. To interact, computers receive INPUT and send OUTPUT. We talked about different ways of going about this. Here is the list we made:
INPUT – mouse, keyboard, scanner, camera, microphone, sensor, touchscreen, drives (flash, external, disk), other computers
OUTPUT – monitor, printer, speakers, drives (flash, external, disk), other computers
On hand we had an old keyboard and a couple of types of mice. We took them apart and found that the keyboard has printed circuits that are activated when you push down a key. All the keys are identical, except for the letters printed on them, so we swapped them all around and it didn’t have an effect on the input received by the computer.
One mouse used an optical sensor to send input to a computer, the other used a mechanical system (wheels and axles, just like we learned about last week in STEM). Both mice had buttons which transmit no info (off/up) or yes info (on/down).
Finally, one group of student looked at 3 types of computers (laptop, desktop, iPod Touch) and labeled each input and output.
Alex and Rory specifically wanted to know what binary combination correlate to letters and symbols After the jump (or below if you are reading the post page) are tables provided by Wikipedia’s ASCII entry: (more…)
Quote of the day
506 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
It’s raining binary!!!
7th grade student Ben commenting on the data cloud we learned about yesterday.
GAM review
506 days
by Jac de Haan
in 8th grade
8th grade students dug back into their memory banks to remember some useful facts about 3 of our most talked-about companies: Google, Apple and Microsoft. Teams competed to gain the most points for accurate answers.
| Apple | Microsoft | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded by | Larry Page and Sergey Brin | Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne | Bill Gates and Paul Allen |
| Founded in | 1996 | 1976 | 1975 |
| Founded location | Stanford University, CA | Los Altos, CA | Albuquerque, New Mexico |
| HQ in | Mountain View, CA | Cupertino, CA | Redmond, WA |
| Web browser | Chrome | Safari | Internet Explorer |
| Operating system | Chrome OS | OSX | Windows |
| productivity | Google Apps | iWork | Office |
| Stock ticker | goog | appl | msft |
| revenue | $26B | $54B | $62B |
| employees | 22M | 37M | 89M |
| revenue per employee | $1.2M | $1.4M | $702K |
| price per share | $482 | $268 | $25 |
| shares | 318M | 913M | 8.6B |
What is cloud computing?
507 days
by Jac de Haan
in 7th Grade
7th grade chatted about “the cloud” today – a name for data that is stored on the internet instead of on a local computer. When accessing the cloud, our computer becomes a window into this information, we see straight into the cloud and use different services (email, photo sharing sites, video sites, etc) to make sense of the data and put it together in a way that we understand.
Some companies want our entire computer experience to be linked into the cloud. They offer tons of amazing features, like free storage for all your files, photo editing software, free content for projects you are creating, all in an effort to convince you to spend your time connected to the cloud and share your information.
There are 2 problems we uncovered with the idea of relying on the cloud:
- If you don’t have an internet connection, you can’t access cloud services and content, and
- The owner of the place your info is stored might decide to stop giving you access.
It turns out that we’ve already been relying on the cloud for much of what we do at school. The blog posts that 7th grade did for American History exist in the cloud, as does our school’s email system and even our end-of-term report system.
Students agreed that the cloud is an exciting idea but also a little scary. As always, if you want to keep something private, don’t put it onto a computer, and especially not up in the cloud!
Lab expectations defined
508 days
Students spent a period setting boundaries to work within while in the TechLab. We started with our 3 rules, and then defined what that behavior would look like in specific settings. It turns out that sometimes focused computer work is an expectation, and other times it can be a distraction. We’ve posted this table in the lab so that it can be referred to as necessary.
| transitioning to class | presentation or lecture | discussions | independent time | end of class | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| be awesome to each other | *treat others as you want to be treated nicely
*be flexible *be calm *talk to each other |
*listen
*assume others are trying to help *take turns *offer compliments *agree/disagree respectfully |
*listen
*assume others are trying to help *take turns *offer compliments *agree/disagree respectfully |
*work quietly
*compliment others work *help others focus *give suggestions if asked |
*treat others as you want to be treated nicely
*thank others |
| participate | *log in to computer
*paper, pen(cil), planner *write agenda in planner |
*eyes on speaker
*take notes *ask questions *share ideas *stay where you are meant to be |
*eyes on speaker
*take notes *ask questions *share ideas *stay where you are meant to be |
*stay focused
*try new things *use time wisely |
*leave on time
*take your stuff *help clean |
| respect the lab and equipment | *use technology as appropriate
*control your body *no food/drink *wash hands *use cubbies |
*use technology as appropriate | *use technology as appropriate | *use technology as appropriate | *log off computer
*hang headphones *push in chairs |
Techers use technology too
509 days
by Jac de Haan
in Reference
Technology is everywhere at Billings, but it’s not just students that find ways to innovate and use tech to be productive. Teachers have been looking for an easy way to take attendance and get a view into records by grade or student.
Goals of the new system:
- easy to use – teachers are busy, we need to enter an “A” or “T” and move on
- ‘live’ view of attendance – once a student is marked absent or tardy, all teachers have access tot he information
- student trends – an alert system that uses color-coding to spot absence or tardy trends by student
- grade trends – an alert system that uses color-coding to spot absence or tardy trends by grade
- daily trends – an alert system that uses color-coding to spot absence or tardy trends by day
- accessible – from anywhere on campus or from home
- automatic backups – version history is important for record keeping
- levels of access – summary pages should be locked down, daily records should be editable by teachers
We found an answer in Google Spreadsheets. Beyond meeting the above requirements, the solution is a free one. After creating a few formulas, it was just a matter of copy & paste. Some of the more interesting formulas:
=countif(L3:BC3, “a”) + countif(L3:BC3, “e”) – this counts up all “a” (absent) and “e” (excused) marking across a row (for an individual student)
=countif(P2:P31, “a”) + countif(P2:P31, “e”) – this counts up all “a” (absent) and “e” (excused) marking down a column (for an individual date)
=SORT(FILTER(’7th grade’!C2:E ; FILTER(’7th grade’!K2:AZ;’7th grade’!K1:AZ1=G1)=”a”), 3, TRUE) – this formula was created with help from Ahab, a Google Groups community member who volunteers to assist others with Google Spreadsheets. The filter figures out today’s date, searches all columns for that date, and then returns all students absent in that column. Definitely a nice feature…with this formula our Spreadsheet Sheet 1 displays all students absent for the day along with the number of previous absences each has.
STEM: Simple machines, powerful solutions
512 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
How can you move a teacher from one end of a room to another without hurting yourself?
How can you get bigfoot to slide off a filing cabinet into a pool of water without touching any part of the apparatus?
How can a teacher be stronger than 4 students in a game of tug-of-war?
How can a 6th grade student lift an entire school bus?
6th grade STEM kicked off the year with an introduction to the wheel & axle, inclined plane, pulleys, and levers – simple machines that we use to create mechanical advantages and perform amazing feats. Student groups rotated through 4 stations, each introducing a concept, and then put their knowledge into action.
Groups also learned how artists, archeologists, stuntmen & women, and baseball players use science, technology, engineering and math to excel in their careers.
A great start to the year – stay tuned for more exciting news from the lab…
And we’re back…
513 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade students visited the TechLab for the first time this year while 7th and 8th graders explored the recent changes and updates to the school. Our lab has new all-in-one ThinkCentres running Windows 7 and a pair of iMacs. The server room was reconfigured and the BricLab is ready for tinkerers.
The 6th grade took a few minutes to look at the new iPod Touch that was released yesterday. In fact, these words and the attached photos were created using only the Touch!
Welcome back!
