0930WarmUp

As you are working very hard to finish off your Celebrity Conversation in Scratch, consider the following websites to add some feeling and emotion to your project:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/#/lb/tikkabilla/emotiontheatre

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/health/feelings/flash/index.shtml?swf=base

http://www.juliasrainbowcorner.com/html/feelingsgame.html

http://www.tvokids.com/games/moodmaker

http://www.mhschool.com/health/2005/student/activity/game_engine/courses/gr2/ch01b/

http://www.childrensmuseum.org/games/puppets/puppets1/html/index.html

http://www.childrensmuseum.org/games/puppets/puppets2/html2/index.html

http://eslprograms.vcc.ca/ESLWEB/feel-jbc.htm

Leave a comment!

dmac

0929WarmUp

The first step to getting an incredibly exciting job in computer science (or even a not so incredibly exciting job ) is to have a resume.

Got one?

What is a resume? Look it up @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resume

Try to create your own at these sites:

http://www.howtowritearesume.net/

https://www.gigtide.com/

http://www.razume.com/

http://www.emurse.com/

http://careersadvice.direct.gov.uk/helpwithyourcareer/writecv/

Leave a comment!

dmac

0928WarmUp

Our environment is disintegrating, right before our eyes!

Don't believe me? Check out these websites:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36200867/ns/us_news-environment/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=interactive-12-events

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/climatechange/

Leave a comment!

dmac

0927WarmUp

Strapped into the one-man flyer this weekend, I found this interesting site:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/nasacity/index2.htm

Give it a whirl and leave a comment!

dmac

0924WarmUp

What's the wierdest building you've ever seen?

Take a look @

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-10-amazingly-odd-buildings-around-world?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+environmentalgraffiti+(Environmental+Graffiti)&utm_content=Google+Reader

http://www.oddee.com/item_94046.aspx

http://www.oddee.com/item_96556.aspx

http://webecoist.com/2008/12/08/15-beautiful-buildings-carved-from-living-rock/

http://www.homedesignfind.com/architecture/8-of-the-best-treehouses-in-the-world/

http://realestate.aol.com/photo-galleries/improve/worlds-wildest-homes?pg=2

http://www.oddee.com/item_96757.aspx

Now, how about designing your own?

http://architectstudio3d.org/AS3d/design_studio3d.html

http://myabodo.com/

http://30elm.com/

Leave a comment!

dmac

0923WarmUp

Did you know that Twitter was hacked on Wednesday?

Read about the Twitter hack @

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100921/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_twitter_hack

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-22/twitter-hack-started-with-rainbow-tweets-high-school-student-says.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/techbytes-twitter-hack-repaired/story?id=11696418

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view/20100922twitter_hack_unleashes_web_of_confusion/srvc=home&position=also

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?entry_id=63345

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/sep/21/twitter-hack-explained-xss-javascript

http://www.pcworld.com/article/156359/twitter_hack_how_it_happened_and_whats_being_done.html

Leave a comment!

dmac

0922Warmup

I love infographics!

What is an infographic? Look it up @

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_graphics

Here are a few cool infographics:

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-tallest-mountain-to-deepest-ocean-trench-0249/

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/earth-atmosphere-layers-atmospheric-pressure-infographic-0326/

A few very cool infographics blogs:

http://www.coolinfographics.com/

http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/

Which was your favorite?

Leave a comment!

dmac


Leave a comment!

dmac

0921WarmUp

How much more money can you expect to get from a college education?

Check it out @

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-09-21-educationpaysONLINE21_ST_N.htm?csp=34news

http://www.uscollegesearch.org/blog/wp-content/uscs-degree-salary-unemployment.png

http://www.focus.com/images/view/8740/

Some other interesting sites:

http://www.realonlinedegrees.com/the-future-trends-of-the-job-market/

http://www.census.gov/schools/census_for_teens/educational_attainment.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091222141628.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+(ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News)&utm_content=Google+Reader

http://cashmoneylife.com/2010/08/25/how-much-is-a-college-degree-worth/

Get it--you need to stay in school!

Leave a comment!

dmac

0920WarmUp

Let's take a look at some more websites that encourage "nanofiction":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/literacy/sentences/index.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/spelling_grammar/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/sentencebasics/whatisasentence/flash7.shtml

Now take another stab at writing some 140fiction on Twitter.

Leave your TweetStory as a comment!

dmac

091710WarmUp

Ever hear of flash fiction? How about micro stories?

Check it out @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

How do you write one?

Look it up @ http://www.bukisa.com/articles/211749_how-to-write-a-micro-story

Look at some examples @:

http://www.dnagle.info/id6.html

http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/shortshorts.html

http://electricliterature.com/blog/2010/07/23/3-micro-stories-by-alex-epstein/

Now try it yourself. Write some 140fiction (that's the max number of characters Twitter allows in a tweet!)

http://twitter.com/

Leave a comment by posting your micro-story!

dmac

hint: It may help to look at a picture.

0916WarmUp

Feeling green today?

Check out these "green" websites:

http://www.phantomcompass.com/index.php/games/greenville/

http://www.willyoujoinus.com/energyville/

Leave a comment!

dmac

0915WarmUp

Continuing with our look at Twitter, check out these interesting sites:

http://apps.asterisq.com/mentionmap/#user-danielgm

http://www.twitflink.com/

http://favorious.com/

http://followcost.com/

http://www.whoshouldifollow.com/

http://tweepskey.com/

http://twittersheep.com/

http://www.neuroproductions.be/twitter_friends_network_browser/

http://isparade.jp/

http://tweetstats.com/

What do they do?

Pick one or two, figure it out and leave a comment!

dmac

0914Warmup

More interesting sites about Twitter:

http://mashable.com/2009/01/01/twitter-user-types/

http://mashable.com/2009/01/06/twitter-follow-fail/

http://www.tipsbytony.com/2009/05/what-is-this-twitter-thing-and-why-should-i-care/

http://bloggingandsocialmedia.blogspot.com/2009/05/building-your-twitter-network.html

http://www.computer-colleges.com/blog/2009/100-tips-to-be-a-smarter-better-twitterer/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/technology/personaltech/07basics.html?_r=2&8cir&emc=cirb1

http://mashable.com/2009/05/31/twitter-tutorials-youtube/

http://mashable.com/2009/06/05/twitter-journalism-school/

http://burcuakyol.com/2009/06/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet/

http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/twitter-new-users/

http://mashable.com/2009/11/02/twitter-lists-guide/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/technology/04basics.html?8dpc

http://www.ourschool.ca/what-is-twitter-and-how-i-use-it.html

Leave a comment!

dmac

0913WarmUp

Twitter is one of the new social networking sites that is creating a "buzz".

What is twitter?

Check it out @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Got a twitter account?

Try http://twitter.com/

How about some very cool Twitter sites?

http://suewaters.wikispaces.com/twitter

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345283,00.asp

http://www.10000words.net/2009/03/top-7-mistakes-new-twitter-users-make/

http://technologizer.com/2009/05/11/ten-twitter-mythconceptions/

http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter

http://mattkruse.com/2009/04/27/a-quick-introduction-to-twitter/

Leave a comment@

dmac

0910WarmUp

Some interesting links about programming and Visual Basic and Kodu, programming languages we will be studying this semester.

http://fuse.microsoft.com/project/kodu.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vbteam/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlightgames/archive/2010/09/04/adding-shapes-to-your-windows-phone-using-some-simple-xaml-and-c-code.aspx

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/activity/h/htgamit/text/2005/HackingSection.txt

Leave a comment!

dmac

0909WarmUp

This year we will be studying Visual Basic, a popular programming language from Microsoft.

Check out an explanation @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic

Check out these interesting sites about VB:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/default.aspx

http://visualbasic.about.com/

http://www.vbexplorer.com/VBExplorer/VBExplorer.asp

And for beginners:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308754.aspx

Leave a comment!

dmac

0908WarmUp

Today we are going to begin to look at our first programming language and IDE.

What is a programming language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language

What are some programming languages?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages

What is an IDE?

Check it out @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment.

The first programming language/IDE we will learn is Scratch.

What is Scratch?

Check it out @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)

Here is the official Scratch website:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Look at a few Scratch projects.

Leave a comment!

dmac

0907WarmUp

As you start your journey learning about computer science, it's important that you begin to develop an understanding of exactly what computer science is. What is computer science? What are the many subfields of CS? What is it confused with?

Check it out @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science

and

http://libguides.library.albany.edu/csci

and

http://www.khake.com/page17.html

and

http://www.cis.udel.edu/jobs/market/

and

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/highest_starting_salaries/index.htm

Can you think of some examples of computer science? What jobs would you hold? How much do they pay? What's the outlook of CS careers?

Leave a comment.

dmac

0902WarmUp

Welcome to another year of GrokIt!

GrokIt originally appeared 3 years ago. While teaching at RHS, I conceived it as the digital equivalent of the Do Now or activator you may be used to other teachers giving to you to start the class.

Interestingly enough, I believe the blog has taken up a much more important role in my classes.

I envision using GrokIt as a hi-tech portal to get you and your energies focused on the class topics of the day by hyperlinking around the net to:

•discover state-of the-art technologies
•bump into some engaging topic
•just enjoy a fun and interesting website.

My hope is to try to kindle a spark of interest in computers and technology.

After all, the World Wide Web and everything in it was created by software developers, computer programmers, web designers, all kinds of techie people of which you are the next generation.

I also want to create a class community, a public forum from which you could express your opinions and see the opinions of others about these topics.

So here's today's GrokIt:

My favorite magazine in the whole world is WIRED. As mentioned in Wikipedia:

Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since March 1993, that reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is published in San Francisco, California.

Check it out @ http://www.wired.com/

Pick an article, read it and leave me a comment!

dmac