Internet Safety 2 days left! Alice programming introduction

There are 2 days left to work on (in class) your Internet Safety project.  Tomorrow is the last day you will be allowed to work on it and it should be done by the end of the hour.

If you are done you are going to begin working on Alice - an Educational software program that teaches you computer programming in a 3D environment.  To use Alice, go to Finder on your computer.  Next, double click on the Alice folder.  Then, double click on the icon labeled Alice - you will need to agree to any user agreements.

Once you have opened Alice come back here and go to the following video and watch an introduction on how you will interact with the Alice interface.

Alice introductory video

Once you have watched that video you will begin working in Alice with Oracle Academy.  You will work through a series of Lessons that will help you to better understand how Alice works and how to manipulate the Alice programming environment.  Here is where you need to go:

Oracle Academy

Once at that website, click on "Get Started with Alice 3" under the red rectangle on the left side of the page (the red rectangle says "Self Study: Getting started with Java using Alice").  Work through each of the sections of that lesson - if you complete all of the sections move to the next lesson ("Add and Position Objects"); if you complete the different sections of that lesson move on the next lesson, and so on.

We will be using Alice often in the last quarter - you will be getting a head start on learning the software.

Read More..

Vocabulary introduction beginning week 2

This week:

Vocabulary
Create Wikispace accounts
Create a Classmarker account
Review of all keys learned
Learn N, G, Left Shift key, period (.)
Technique grade 

TODAY:
We are going to begin by talking about the vocab words and vocab lists for the class.  If you go to the vocabulary page on the blog youll see a variety of information - well be covering this today.  Additionally, youll need to have access to the wikispaces page so that you can submit vocabulary definitions (thats already been done by me - you will need to verify by checking your gmail, and well do that in a little bit).

The vocabulary for this class is really split into 2 parts - on one hand you will be responsible for knowing all of the vocabulary words for any given week, and you will demonstrate your knowledge by completing a vocab quiz.  On the other hand you will be required to find definitions for the vocab words and post them to the wiki for everyone to study off of.  This "research process" will be graded, just as the vocab quizzes will be graded (our first vocabulary quiz will be this Friday, and it will be taken online on a website called Classmarker).

When you post a definition to the Wiki, your definition should be easy to understand.  Sometimes, after finding a definition, you will see that the definition that you have found doesnt help you to understand what that vocab word means (or is).  Therefore, find definitions that are easy to understand, and if you cant find one that makes sense please see me so I can help you write an easy-to-understand definition.

Additionally, if you have a vocab word that is an acronym (GPS, WWW, or FAQ) then please include what the letters stand for (for example, WWW stands for World Wide Web, and when you enter your vocab definition on the wiki make sure to include that).
This will seem a little foreign to begin with, but we will be talking about this every day between now and the end of next week, which is when your first quiz will be.
You could set up a calendar reminder in Google so that you receive an email - this way you will be reminded several days in advance of when you need to have a definition posted on the wiki.  And, since you already know the words that you will be asked to define, you could find a definition for each of your words and save those definitions in a Google Doc - then when it is your week all you have to do is copy from your Google Doc to the Wiki.

Read More..