Think About This!

In South America, in the country of Uruguay, the government has given every student a laptop.

Read about it here.

What would it be like if every student in the U.S. got a simple, basic laptop with internet access?

Most Expensive and Cheapest Bridge

Using West Point Bridge Builder, create the cheapest bridge that you can, and the most expensive. Be sure to test your bridge with the green button.

When you finish, blog about your bridges and what made them so cheap and so expensive.

Do you think they could be built?

Post about your bridges by the end of class today, Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Check Your Presentation

Take some time now, and check your presentation.

Use this list and check EVERY slide.

All items are incomplete or complete only – no half way.

You cannot pass until all items are complete.

1. no serif (Roman) fonts
2. high contrast letters/background
3. 12 or more slides
4. no more than 25 words on any slide
5. no complete sentences
6. pictures not distorted
7. title slide has your name, class period and email address
8. all slides use the same template
9. all slides have the same theme/appearance
10. bibliography includes source websites

I will check your presentations at the beginning of class on Tuesday, and if you are not READY, you will lose 10 points per day.

EXTRA CREDIT

If you want to guarantee a 100 for this six weeks, you can attend a workshop at U.T. on Saturday (10/17).

To document your participation, you need to take pictures of yourself there, and then write a summary when you return.

Visit their website to find out more about where and when.

PowerPoint

Today you need to make a PowerPoint about the topic you chose.

Take the statements from the Word Document you created or your blog and put a statement on each slide.

Then put a picture on each slide.

Make sure that the statements are NOT complete sentences. Remember complete sentences take up too much space, and you only want the important parts.

Make sure that the pictures are large enough that they look good and are not distorted.

Create a cover slide with a title, your name, class period, the date and your email address.

Be sure to use a sans-serif font, and that the letters are big.

This is due by the end of class today.

Professional PowerPoint

Due at the end of class on Wednesday:

Create a blog entry listing the 10 most important points from my presentation about how to create a professional PowerPoint.

Pix

Find ten pictures to go with your topic.

Be sure that they are good resolution (not pixelated or blurry).

Save them to your H drive.

Transfer the statements from Friday to a Microsoft Word document and save it to your H drive.

Due by the end of class today.

Choose Your Topic

Do some searching and find a topic that you are interested in. It could be a social or political issue, or something you are interested in like music or poetry. I shouldn’t need to remind you that the topic needs to be school appropriate.

Find one really good article about your topic. In a blog post explain why it is a good article, then list the points below. If you cannot list all of the points, you gotta pick a new topic or article.

List the following:

A statement from the article summarizing the topic.

One point describing the topic, and

One detail.

Second point about the topic, and

another detail.

And, a third point  about the topic, and

another detail.

And then, finally, a conclusion.

For example:

Statement One: Trees are very important for the environment and clean air.

Point One: Trees convert carbon dioxide to oxygen.

Detail One: Through the process of transpiration trees use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis to convert the gasoline.

Statement Two: Trees can store large amounts of carbon dioxide which they remove from the air.

Detail Two: When cut, trees stop converting CO2 to oxygen, but they hold on to the CO2 that they remove from the atmosphere.

Statement Three: If we plant more trees, we can remove some of the excess CO2 from the air that we make with fossil fuels like gas.

Detail Three: If we replanted trees on 25% of the area of the U.S. that used to be forest, we could slow global warming.

Conclusion: Trees are an essential part of the environment because they convert CO2 to oxygen and store CO2. We should plant more trees to slow global warming.

This is due by the end of class MONDAY, Oct 12.

What Would You Do?

If you could create a semester or year long class with computers, what would it be? Keep in mind, it actually has to be constructive (can’t just be “play games”), it has to be school appropriate, and it can last one semester or a whole year.

What things would you like to learn to do on the computer?

What have you seen on the computer or the web that you want to learn to do?

What things do you think that you will need to know how to do after high school, at a job you might do or pursuing your own interest in art, or entertainment, or something else?

Write your answers in a blog post, then email a link to the blog post to me. To get credit for this assignment you must email me a link. Be sure that your first AND last name and class period are in the subject line, or YOU WILL NOT GET CREDIT.

To get a link for your blog post, publish the post, then go to the “Visit Site” link next to the name of your blog on the top of the page. When you are at your posting for today, right click on the title and choose “Copy Link Location,’ then past the link into your email.

Intrepreting Your Charts

Look at the charts that you created yesterday.

Draw 2 conclusions from each chart.

For example, if the sales seemed to go up then down, you could write that there seemed to be a spike or increase in sales during the week of January 22-26.

You need 12 conclusions total, and they should be numbered.

Post the answers to your blog – due by the end of class today.