Week12: Apr 2nd–Apr 6th

Highlights for the week:

• View the BMS Public Calendar for this weeks events!
• Tip: Use ctrl+f and enter the date (like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) to jump quickly to the Blog entry for today!

Monday 2nd:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. This week is a short week! There’s no school on Friday (but there is on Monday since we have to make up for a bad weather day)
3. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   
   
4. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • View these strange critters which live around hydrothermal vents 
     • Link: http://goo.gl/kh6pO
     • Click the right arrows to advance through the slides
     • 
     • Read the captions to find out what a hydrothermal vent is
     • In today’s warmup form, send me your favorite slide number and tell me what a hydrothermal vent is
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I liked ___ and a hydrothermal vent is ___ 
5. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer

- Part 2) New

1. View the Chrome April Fool’s Day joke video and demo here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/multitask.html
2. Create a New Google Presentation called Review Key Sites which we will use to refresh our memories on things we’ve learned earlier and to give us a collection of links to use in the future
   • 
   • 
   • Here’s a link to Week1 at 308 Today: http://308today.blogspot.com/2011/12/week-of-jan-9thjan-13th.html
   • Here’s a link to the Gzaas above:  http://gzaas.com/Rh6EzP
3. Check your logon to your Aviary Education account to make sure it’s working correctly 
   • http://www.aviaryeducation.com/BastropMiddleSchool/login
   • Username: First Name + 3 letters of Last Name (no spaces)
     • Example ‘Mark Twain’
     • marktwa
     • Here’s a list of all usernames by class period
   • Password: Same as when you logon to your computer
4. Uploads to Google Docs have been fixed, so please upload 6) Scratch logo.gif to your Gdocs 103 student folder. It should look like this after you upload it:
   • 
     

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Create your new Google Presentation called Review Key Sites which we will use to refresh our memories on things we’ve learned earlier and to give us a collection of links to use in the future
   • Remember to drag it into your Gdocs 103 Student Folder so I can see it!
2. Test your Aviary Education Logon 
   • http://www.aviaryeducation.com/BastropMiddleSchool/login
3. Uploads to Google Docs have been fixed, so please upload 6) Scratch logo.gif to your Gdocs 103 student folder. It should look like this after you upload it:
   • 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Create a fun Gzaas to share with a friend or family member!  http://gzaas.com
2. Experiment more with Scratch if you enjoyed the program
3. Checkout the forecast for this short week!
   • 

Tuesday 3rd:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Check out this collection of images from Bev Doolittle and send me the URL to your favorite 
     • https://www.google.com/search?q=bev+doolittle&hl=en&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jWdsT_e7HsaAsgLRtqjzBQ&sqi=2&ved=0CGIQsAQ&biw=1575&bih=905
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I liked ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer

- Part 2) New

1. Add the following slide 3 on InterWrite to your Review Key Sites Presentation
   • Use different colors, sizes, styles, etc. than the example below (which is also in the Student Demo Gdocs Folder)
   • You don’t need to add the purple writing to your slide (those are directions for you to know what to put there)
   •  
2. View the following Aviary Myna Demo Clips
   • Myno demo from Aviary
   • Listen to the following MP3 files created using Myna
     • Penguin Parade
     • Penguin Parade with voiceover
   • Myna Penguin Parade demo video
   • Logon to Aviary Education here (to create your own version of Penguin Parade): http://www.aviaryeducation.com/BastropMiddleSchool/login
   • Choose Edit Audio to get started
   • 

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Add slide 3 on InterWrite to your Review Key Sites Presentation 
   • Follow the directions in the image above
2. Create your own version of Penguin Parade 
   • We will walk through this first music creation process together 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Experiment more with Myna!

Wednesday 4th:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • How many faces are you able to find in this picture (you might use IW to help you mark your finds)?  Please send me the number in the warmup form
   
   
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I see ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer 

- Part 2) New

1. View Aviary Roc music creator screenshots tutorial page at this link: http://advanced.aviary.com/tutorial?tutorial=getting_started_with_roc&singlepageview=1
2. View Aviary Roc music creator ‘Getting Started’ clip (the links below should allow you to view them later on your own if you like)
   • Getting Started Clip
   • Aviary Roc Tutorial Clip (no voice)
3. Tip: you can string several Roc beats together by importing them into the Myna Audio Editor!

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Complete slide 3 on InterWrite in your Review Key Sites Presentation  
   • It should look like this:
   • 
2. Create a new audio file in Aviary, save it as Myna-2 and choose ‘mixdown’ 
   • Logon to Aviary Education here: http://www.aviaryeducation.com/BastropMiddleSchool/login
   • Choose Edit Audio
   •  
3. Create a new Music file in Aviary, save it as Roc-1 (try randomize for some interesting remixes of your work!) 
   • Choose Create Music
   •  

- Part 4) Through?

1. Experiment more with Myna and Roc!  

Thursday 5th:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me! 
2. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • View the Envisioning Emerging Technology interactive diagram,  find the topic most interesting to you and tell me the name of the tech, the date it is expected and why it is interesting to you (example below)
   
   
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I think ___ which should happen in ___ is most interesting because ___
3. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer

- Part 2) New

1. Open your Gdocs 103 Student Folder for folder checks today.  Check to make sure you have everything by comparing it with this picture:
   •  

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Complete the week 12 weekly reflections form
2. Complete the following assignments from yesterday if you have not done so already! 
   • Add Slide 3 on InterWrite to your Review Key Sites Presentation
   • Create a new audio file in Aviary, save it as Myna-2 and choose ‘mixdown’
   • Create a new Music file in Aviary, save it as Roc-1  
3. Complete missing assignments from folder checks
4. View the video clips selections for this week 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Explore more of the Envisioning Emerging Technology interactive diagram
2. View the Easter animated gif files at the link above the Happy Easter gif (in the Friday section below)

Friday 6th: Holiday!
Thanks to Heather for this animated gif.  You can find and share others here: http://www.heathersanimations.com/easter.html

Week11: Mar 26th–Mar 30th

Highlights for the week:

• View the BMS Public Calendar for this weeks events!
• Tip: Use ctrl+f and enter the date (like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) to jump quickly to the Blog entry for today!

Monday 26th: STAAR Pep Rally Today!  (Here’s a link to the Pep Rally bell schedule)

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Please answer the following question in the warmup form for today: What’s the best advice you can give other students to help them before testing begins tomorrow? 
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I plan to ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer
5. Checkout these articles on reducing test anxiety  
   • from Education.com: http://pages.citebite.com/m1r6b0n1h8wwo
   • from Kidshealth.org: http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/school/test_anxiety.html#

- Part 2) New

1. Checkout these new Scratch animated Gif files
   • Scratch goes to the movies (demonstrates multiple scenes) Click here to download the program
   • 
   • Triangle drawing and rotations in Geometry (demonstrates drawing and moving geometric shapes around a coordinate plane background) Click here to download the program
   •  

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Create a new Scratch program using the scripts in the picture below.  Predict what you think will happen and then run it and see if your prediction was correct! You may use any sprite you like to create this program. 
   • 
   • Experiment with the settings and see what happens!
2. Create a new Scratch program and add a coordinate plane background to your stage so you can see where your shapes in the next step are being drawn.  Here’s how to change your stage background (remember to click back on a sprite to see your scripts after you’ve changed your stage background!): 
   •  
   • Your Stage will now look something like this
   • 
3. Create a program to draw any of the following shapes: (for more of a challenge, create a program like the example below which draws them all!)  
   • A circle
   • A triangle
   • A square
   • A parallelogram 
   • Here’s an example animated gif:  Click here to download the program
   • 
   • …and here are example scripts which draw those shapes:
   • 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Checkout this site with some strange looking critters! 
   • http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/487-worlds-freakiest-animals-101030html.html
   • 
   •  

Tuesday 27th:  STAAR TESTING – no regularly scheduled classes today. 

Wednesday 28th:  STAAR TESTING - no regularly scheduled classes today.

Thursday 29th:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:

   
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Checkout the Month in Space Slideshow and tell me which slide number you liked best and what you liked about it in todays warmup 
     • http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46862918/ns/technology_and_science-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I liked slide ___ because ___ 
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer
5. Here’s the forecast for the next several days:
   • 

- Part 2) New

1. Create your own signature logo like this example and save it in your S-drive Scratch folder: 
   •  
   • What’s a logo?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo
   • 
   • Click on Paint new sprite
   • 
   • Use the Paint Editor (or any other paint tool) to create your signature logo (you can use the brush to handwrite or the text tool ‘T’ to type what you would like to use)
   • 
2. Add your new logo to a Scratch file (you can even make it flash while your program is running like the example below if you like) 
   •  
   • If you would like it to flash, here’s one way to do it:
   • 

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Create your own signature logo 
   • This will allow you to ‘sign’ your animated gifs
   • Please DO NOT use your last name in your logo (last initial is OK though!) 
2. Add your logo to your favorite scratch creation (or make a new one!) 
   • You might need to resize it so it doesn’t take up too much space in your program
   • see my example above in the new section!
3. Make a screencast recording of your Scratch with logo program running. It needs to be short… around 10-20 seconds or so for an animated gif file! 
   • Save it as an animated gif file named 6) Scratch logo
   • 
   • Here’s a link to screencast-o-matic: http://screencast-o-matic.com/
4. Upload 6) Scratch logo.gif to your Gdocs 103 student folder. It should look like this after you upload it:
   • 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Check your grades online to see what your progress report tomorrow will show

Friday 30th: Folder checks every Friday!

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Explore the ChannelOne News site and tell me which article, photo, story or activity is most interesting to you and why 
     • http://www.channelone.com/
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I like ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer

- Part 2) New

1. Test Aviary Education account access (we will use this account next week)
   • http://www.aviaryeducation.com/BastropMiddleSchool/login
   • Username: First Name + 3 letters of Last Name (no spaces)
     • Example ‘Mark Twain’
     • marktwa
     • Here’s a list of all usernames by class period
   • Password: Same as when you logon to your computer
2. View Harvard Computer Science introduction to the Scratch program which we are using
   • Here’s a link to take the course free!: http://cs50.tv/2011/fall/ 
   • View video excerpt
   • View Scratch Revolution (arrows game) here (you can create your own account to access many other programs):  http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/lindorniel/40241
   • 
   • Here’s a copy of the program if you would like to play it or see how it was written:  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/Scratch%20dbPublic/Scratch%20Scratch%20Revolution%21%20%28Kanye-%20Stronger%29.sb

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Please complete the Weekly Reflections Form for Week 11 
2. Finish your screencast recording of your Scratch with logo program running. It needs to be short… around 10-20 seconds or so for an animated gif file!
   • Save it as an animated gif file named 6) Scratch logo to your S-drive Scratch folder
   • Try to upload it to your Gdocs folder again today to see if the upload problem has been fixed!
3. View this week’s video selections

- Part 4) Through?

1. Try the Scratch Revolution Game Program from the Harvard video clip
   •  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/Scratch%20dbPublic/Scratch%20Scratch%20Revolution%21%20%28Kanye-%20Stronger%29.sb

Week10: Mar 19th–Mar 23rd

Highlights for the week:

• View the BMS Public Calendar for this weeks events!
• Tip: Use ctrl+f and enter the date (like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) to jump quickly to the Blog entry for today!

Monday 19th:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   •  
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Please use the warmup form to tell me how your Spring Break went! 
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): Spring Break for me this year ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer
5. Checkout this interesting images website.  If you see something you really like, please send me an email with a link! 
   • http://www.crazyimages.com/
   • bmercer@bisdtx.org

- Part 2) New

1. Introduce Scratch! 
   • View the practice program for today and observe how the sprite moves
2. If you like the Scratch program (free from MIT) and want to continue working with it at home, here’s a link to download it
   • http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Scratch_1.4_Download

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Copy the scratch folder from my J-drive to your S-drive 
   • Open the Scratch folder in your S-drive and double-click on the file inside called 4sqr rotate 
   • Double-click on the word repeat to run the program and observe the movement of the cat (a character called a sprite in this program)
   • Experiment with the program by changing some of the values in the white boxes of the program.  We will start by making the following changes and observe what happens.  (If something goes wrong, just exit out of the program and reopen it again)
     1. Change all of the 3s (red arrow) to 1s (there are 6 boxes to change from 3 to 1).  Run the program and observe what happens!
     2. Change all of the 90s(Blue arrow) to 180s (there are 5 boxes to change from 90 to 180). Run the program and observe what happens!
     3. Change all of the 240 X values to 120 (purple arrow) (if the number is negative, leave it as a negative!) to and all of the 180 Y values to 100 (again, if the number is negative, leave it as a negative!) 1s (there are 4 X boxes and 4 Y boxes to change). Run the program and observe what happens!
     4. If you made all of these changes correctly, it should function the same way as the example program at this link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/Scratch%20db/M-Mar19-small4sqr.sb
   • 
2. Create a new program (File then New) to use as we work through the following tutorials (don’t save changes to your original program)
   • View the learnscratch.org Lesson 1 tutorials at this link: http://learnscratch.org/sc1-l1

     Tutorial Part 1: Start Moving  Scratch Activity: Reproduce the actions in the tutorial. Experiment with the size and direction of the steps.

     Tutorial Part 2: Add a Sound  Scratch Activity: Reproduce the actions in the tutorial. Experiment with other sounds.

     Tutorial Part 3: Start a Dance  Scratch Activity: Reproduce the actions in the tutorial. Experiment step sizes and sounds.

     Extensions:
       -Experiment with step sizes: very small, small, larger, very large.
       -Experiment with sounds: select and combine different sounds.
       -Experiment with dances: two, three, more steps in the dance. Select and combine short and long steps.

- Part 4) Through?

1. Checkout this cool insect gallery
   • http://blepharopsis.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0
   •  

Tuesday 20th:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   •  
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Please use the warmup form to tell me what you think about the scratch program so far.  You can include any or all of the following 
     • Have you used the program before?
     • What do you like about it?
     • What don’t you like about it?
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): So far, I think Scratch ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer 
5. Once you’ve completed the warmup, load the scratch program and read through part 2 below

- Part 2) New

1. View a script on how to trace the letter M in scratch 
   • View the Linked Tutorials Gdoc
   • Introduce the green flag to start the program
   • Introduce adding text to your sprite so it can talk and think 
   • Introduce color changes to your sprite
   • Consider coordinates (like x-120, y-100) when plotting your letters
   • 
2. View a screencast of this script running   

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Use scratch to create a script to trace one of the letters of your first name.  
   • Choose a letter with straight letters to start (like M, N A, E, etc. but not letters like S or C with curves yet!)
   • Save your script in your scratch folder with the name Letter__ (like LetterM.sb for example)
   • Here’s a link to my example script: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/Scratch%20db/T-Mar20-letterM.sb
2. Use screencast-o-matic to record a short video clip of your script as it runs
   • http://screencast-o-matic.com/
   • Use 800x600 as your recording size
   • You do not need to record any audio for this clip
   • Save your recording as an Mp4 file type in your scratch folder with the name Letter _ (like my LetterM example clip)
   • Here’s a link to my example screencast: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/Scratch%20db/Letter%20M.mp4
3. View the other learnscratch.org Lesson 1 tutorials at this link: http://learnscratch.org/sc1-l1 or use the Linked Tutorials Gdoc

- Part 4) Through?

1. Checkout more bug images from http://blepharopsis.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0
   • We will be selecting your favorite in tomorrow’s warmup!
   •  

Wednesday 21st:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. Here’s what your 103 student folder should look like:
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Please browse these critter images from http://blepharopsis.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0  
     • Choose the image you find most interesting
     • Send me a link to the image and tell me what you liked about it (copy the URL as in the example below and paste it in the form)
     •  
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I liked ___
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer
5. Open Scratch and continue working on your letter program from yesterday 

- Part 2) New

1. View the LetterM programs with the pen tool added (basic and multi-color versions)
   •  
   • Here’s a copy of the basic program above: W-Mar21-letterM-wBasicPen
   • Here’s a copy of the multi-color version: W-Mar21-letterM-wPen
2. View today’s tutorials and introduce a new program with costume changes, pen changes and a keyboard trigger:
   • How to animate a sprite by importing and then changing costumes
   • 
   • How to start a program with a keyboard key
   •   
   • How to use the pen tool
   • 
   • Here’s a copy of the program above: W-Mar21-PenBox

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Add the pen tool to yesterday’s letter program so that your letter is written on the screen 
   • Make sure your letter program has these features in it
     • It should have some text in it
     • It should have a color change in it
     • It should use the pen tool to write the letter
   • Here’s a link to more pen tutorials: http://technomustang.com/Scratch/learnscratch/index.php-option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=123.htm 
2. Practice with a new script where your sprite changes costumes 
3. Add a keyboard activated function to your new script 

- Part 4) Through?

1. Check your grades in all subjects!  Remember, this grading period ends Friday 

Thursday 22nd:

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me! 
2. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
   • Open the picture at the link below, capture it in IW, and outline and count the wolves which you are able to find 
     • http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197021/find%20wolves.png
     • Tell me the number you were able to find in the warmup form (there are 15 of them)
   • Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I was able to find ___
3. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer

- Part 2) New

1. Practice with fun effects! (Drawing)
   • How to add a drawing tool script
   • 
   • 
2. Practice with fun effects! (Movement)
   • Beginning actions and stamps: View Tutorial
   • Waiting: View Tutorial
   • Doing forever and bouncing: View Tutorial
3. Meow-Puffs! 

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Experiment with fun Scratch effects! 
2. If you discover or create something new, please make a short screencast of it to share with the rest of us!

- Part 4) Through?

1. Checkout this link:
   • http://www.gardnergallery.com/twelve_wolves_gardner.html#ANSWERS

Friday 23rd: Folder checks every Friday!

- Part 1) Review

1. Please check your laptop for damages and report problems to me!
2. 5th 6 weeks Progress Reports ends today!  Here’s what should be in your Gdoc folder for my class: 
   • 
3. Daily Warmup Activity (2min timer if necessary – no talking while you complete your warmup please!)
• Open the pictures at the link below  There are 11 of them with hidden objects in them.  In your warmup, tell me which picture you liked the best and why you liked it.
• http://www.eyecanlearn.com/hidden%20pictures.htm
• Here’s a sentence starter (or you can choose your own): I liked picture number ___ because ___ 
4. Use the Daily Warm-up Form to record your answer 

- Part 2) New

1. Demo Scratch by-the-numbers with a Go to function 
• Demonstrate the R by-the-numbers program
• Get a copy of this program by clicking here!

- Part 3) Do - Today students will…

1. Please complete this weeks reflection form 
2. Please complete your Scratch Letter Program.  If you had trouble with it, try using the By-the-numbers program above to help you!  It should have the following:
• It should have some text in it
• It should have a color change in it
• It should use the pen tool to write the letter
3. View this weeks video selection

- Part 4) Through?

1. Checkout the inside of a Space Shuttle in this image
   • http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html
   •