Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Your Final Grade

Your current schoolloop grade is your final grade for this class.  Unless you tell me that you have finished some more assignments, your grade will stay the same.

If you have a grade average of less than 70% you will receive no credit and a grade of Incomplete.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Your Grade for this Trimester

is your current Schoolloop grade for this class.  Login to schoolloop and see what your grade is.

You must have all nine (9) Google Drive assignments completed with a grade of 7 or higher to earn "technology proficiency."  This is a graduation requirement (meaning that you will not get a diploma without it).

If you complete nothing else this week, then you will get the grade that you have on schoolloop right now.  

If you have finished an assignment(s) that still shows no grade or a zero, then let me know and I will look at the assignment and give you the appropriate grade for that assignment.

Monday, November 17, 2014

The final week of coding

The last two sections of coding are assigned for this week.  These sections should only take a day or two to complete.  I have purposely given you a small amount of work, so that you will have extra time to finish up any unfinished work.

Every Google assignment must be completed and graded with a 7 or higher to earn "technology proficiency" in this class.  In addition to that, you must have a grade of 70% or higher to earn 5 credits.

Friday, November 7, 2014

After today we have 11 class days left...

during that time we will be finishing the remaining coding sections.

There is no official new assignment today, but if you are finished with looping you can continue working on the next sections.
Arrays and Objects will be assigned next week, and Object Oriented Design and Becoming a Better Programmer will be assigned the week after.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Halloween Blog Assignment

Tell me about your best Halloween or make up a spooky Halloween story.
Title the post "Halloween."

Posts need to...
be correctly written in paragraphs (at least 4)
have correctly punctuated sentences with correct spelling and capitalization
be school appropriate
be interesting
have at least 2 post related pictures.


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Assignment for Wednesday


You are going to go here again today.  Complete the one that you didn't do yesterday.  So, if you did "Flappy Birds" yesterday, then do "Angry Birds" today, or vice versa.
Click on either "The Hour of Code" or "Flappy Code."  Watch the short introductory video (with headphones).  Then complete the exercises.  Do a screenshot (apple/shift/4) of each completed exercise.

Post the final screen shot in a blog post titled either "Angry Birds" or "Flappy Birds."

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Today's Assignment

You are going to go here.
Click on either "The Hour of Code" or "Flappy Code."  Watch the short introductory video (with headphones).  Then complete the exercises.  Do a screenshot (apple/shift/4) of each completed exercise.

Post the final screen shot in a blog post titled either "Angry Birds" or "Flappy Birds."

Monday, October 20, 2014

There is no new assignment for today...

Everyone should have every assignment completed with a grade of 7 or higher.  If you are not up-to-date with all of your assignments, then you are in danger of not passing this class or not earning the full five (5) credits.

If you do not earn five (5) credits in this class, then you have to take the entire class over again.

Use this extra day to finish all of your current assignments.  Tomorrow will be a new assignment.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Coding for Thursday and Friday


The section for today and tomorrow is really short.  This section is really a one-day assignment.  I am giving it to you as a two-day assignment, so you can make sure that you are on pace. If you are not caught up, then you need to get to work and catch up!


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

All grades are current

Some of you have had missing or unfinished assignments for weeks.  If you are not finishing the assignments in class, then you have to finish them outside of class.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

All grades are up to date except for the current assignment.

That last grade will go in today.  Your percentage grade on Schoolloop will be the grade that I put on your walk-around progress report tomorrow.  Most of you are passing, but some of you are not.

You are responsible for completing all assignments.  When this trimester is over, you will not earn five credits if you do not have all 9 Google assignments completed with a grade of 7 or higher and a 70% overall grade.

If you don't finish an assignment on time, then it is your responsibility to let me know when you do finish it, so I can change your grade from the initial zero (0) to the grade that you earned.

Monday, October 13, 2014

The last graded assignment before walk-around progress reports.

The next section is called "animation basics."  Obviously, if you have not finished last week's coding work, then you must finish that first.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Coding for Today and Tomorrow

These coding assignments are sequential, so if you did not finish with yesterday's sections, you must finish those first.  The next 2 sections are assigned for today and tomorrow.  The first one is shorter than the second.  For sure you should finish Coloring and begin working on Variables today.

If you are not getting the coding work done in class, you will need to work on these sections outside of class so  that you don't fall behind.  If by end of class tomorrow you are not finished with variables, then you will need to finish it over the weekend.


Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Coding


Today, you are going to sign in to khanacademy.org with your google account.  We are going to start doing some coding for the next weeks of this class.

Coding is a very lucrative career.












For today's assignment you are to do the first two sections.

You will be provided with headphones to use during the video tutorials.  These headphones are only for the video tutorials.



Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Blog Assignment Perseverance



Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.  Thomas A. Edison

Have you ever heard of the noun perseverance or the verb persevere (to persevere)?


Life is not easy for any of us.  But what of that?  We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.  We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie

If you were offered $50 right now or $100 in one year, which would you choose?

Successful people persevere when attempting to accomplish something.  Graduating college, running a marathon, earning money to buy a car, losing weight, these are examples of accomplishments that require perseverance.  These things take work and dedication to accomplish.  Once you decide on a long term goal there are endless instant gratification activities that can derail your plans.  Should I study for the test or play Xbox?  Should I go to the gym and workout or lounge on the couch and watch television?  Should I save my money or spend it on random junk?

Most if not all significant accomplishments in life involve some form of delayed gratification.  Built in to the process of succeeding is hard work and failure.  As a sophomore in high school Michael Jordan was left off of the varsity basketball team (he played on the junior varsity team) before he became the greatest basketball player on the planet.  That let down fueled his drive and desire to succeed.


Winners never quit and quitters never win.

Not everyone is going to be a professional athlete (actor, singer, model, etc.), but whatever your chosen goal you must persevere to accomplish it.  Once you realize that meaningful things often times require hard work and dedication, you will begin to prioritize your life around your goals.

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."  Benjamin Franklin

Some of you might already know what you want to do with your life.  Others of you might still be trying to figure it out.  The first steps to success are choosing a goal and creating a plan.  Do you have any long term goals for your life?  What are your goals and have you created plans to achieve these goals.  Write about your goal(s) in life and detail the steps you need to do to achieve those goals.



This is a blog assignment.  Title it "Perseverance."

The post must be at least 3 paragraphs of at least 150 words.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Monday Free Choice

This is a blog assignment.


Today's assignment is another blog post.  The topic is up to you as long as it is school appropriate.  Title the assignment “Free Choice."

This assignment must be at least 150 words in at least 3 paragraphs.  Include at least 2 pictures and at least 1 link to a website related to your topic.

Blog Assignment Favorite Film Friday


Title this blog assignment "Favorite Film" or "Favorite Film Friday"

Write at least 3 paragraphs of at least 150 (total) words about your favorite movie.  I don't want to read a summary of your favorite movie.  DO NOT WRITE A SUMMARY OF YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE.

Write about all the reasons why you like the movie.  You will include some details about the movie that you liked (do not include any spoilers), but DO NOT WRITE A SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE.

Include at least two pictures from the movie (movie poster, etc.).  Finally, 
DO NOT WRITE A SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE!!

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Complete all unfinished work!

I am not supposed to give you make up days.  Today, you are lucky because I am giving you a make up day.  By the end of class today, you should have every assignment completed.

Get to work!!!!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

How Many Handshakes?


This is a blog assignment.

1)  You walk into your first college class and the professor tells you to shake hands and introduce yourself to every other student in the classroom.  Every student shakes hands with every other student exactly once.  How many handshakes were there (there are a total of 10 students in class)?

2)  After everyone finishes shaking hands an eleventh student enters the classroom.  How many handshakes will there be (total) after he is done shaking hands?

3)  What would be the total if there were 20 students in the class?

The following illustration is your hint as to how to figure out these three answers.  Post your three answers on your blog.  Title the post "How Many Handshakes?"

Additional hint-  There is a pattern (formula) to this problem.  Once you figure it out, you can quickly calculate the answer no matter how many people there are.

You may collaborate with your fellow classmates, but you must be able to explain your answers.


Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Google #9 Drawing



Today's assignment is the last of the "technology proficiency" assignments.  Log in to your Google account and go to Drive.

Click on create then drawing.  Rename "#9 Yourlastname."
Share with me (misterwalske@gmail.com).

You are going to explore the drawing program in Google Drive.  You will spend time creating a masterpiece.

You final drawing must contain 
lines, 
shapes, 
different colors, 
and letters (your name at the very least).

Your final art must be school appropriate. 

You must spend at least 45 minutes creating this assignment.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Google #8 Resume

Today you are going to be creating a resume for yourself in Google Drive.

Create a new document, and rename it "#8 Yourlastname."  Share with me, misterwalske@gmail.com.  Use the picture below as a guide.

1)  Center your name, address and contact information.
2)  Include each of the 5 headings (Objective, Education, Experience, Relevant Skills & Courses, and Interests)  If you have not taken any college or vocational courses name the fourth heading "Relevant Skills."
3)  You don't need the horizontal lines to separate each category.

Notice that each heading is in bold and starts at the left margin.  All of the information after each heading starts at the same tab unless it is a further indented bullet point.  Correctly formatting a resume will make it look professional.  

The last thing you want is your resume to stand out for being sloppy and/or unprofessional.


Thursday, September 25, 2014

Blog Assignment "Being Charitable"




This is a blog assignment.

Name your post "Being Charitable."

Here is the hypothetical situation.  Mark Cuban mega-rich business man and owner of the Dallas Mavericks shows up at Back Bay High School with two million dollars to spend.  He offers you a job.  The pay for this job is one million dollars. The job is to choose a charity that you care about.   Mr. Cuban wants to donate the other one million dollars to that one charity.
Let's be charitable.
Your job is to research different charities to find one that means something to you.  After you find the charity that you want to support, you will write a blog entry that 1) **briefly describes the charity in one paragraph2) details (at least 2 paragraphs) why this charity is important to you (what about this charity is personally meaningful to you) 3) includes a link to the charity's website and 4) includes at least 2 pictures related to the charity.

There are a total of 3 paragraphs in this assignment.

**The link to the charity's website will include all the information about the charity.  This is why you will only briefly describe (a few sentences) the charity in your post.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Blog Assignment- "Bucket List"

A bucket list is a list of things that you want to do/accomplish before you die ("kick the bucket").  There is a 2007 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called The Bucket List about 2 terminally ill men attempting to complete all the items on their bucket lists.

For today's assignment, you are to come up with 5 things that you want to accomplish during your time here on earth.  Do not include things that you have already done.  Graduating college and having children are not on my bucket list, because I have already done those things.  List the things from 1-5 including at least 1 sentence describing why you want to do/accomplish each thing.

Minimum requirements

this is a blog assignment
numbered list of 5 things/goals/etc. that you haven't done yet.
at least 1 sentence describing why each thing was chosen

1. run a half marathon faster than 1 hour and 55 minutes-  I will never be an elite level distance runner, but I consider running 13.1 miles in less than 2 hours an accomplishment. My original goal was under 2 hours but 2 years ago I ran a 159:47.

2.  run a marathon (preferably in under 4 hours)-  I have yet to attempt this goal.  I will hopefully run my first marathon next year.

3.  complete a triathlon-  I know I can swim, bike and run.  The question is "can I find enough time to properly train for a triathlon?".  One day I will.

4.  travel overseas-  I have a passport, but have never used it (except for Mexico).  One day I would like to travel to many countries.

5.  Donate platelets as many times as possible-  I used to donate blood, but I was told for my blood type (A+) it was better to donate platelets.  Platelets can be donated every 2 weeks.  The problem for me is that the process takes about 3 hours and with 2 little ones at home I can't get away on the weekends for that amount of time.  Right now, I donate during the summer and vacation times since 2010.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Google #7 Letter of Recommendation

This is a Google drive assignment.
Today's assignment is writing another business letter.

Specifically, you will be writing a letter of recommendation.  When applying for certain jobs (usually the higher paying ones) or scholarships you will be asked to provide letters of recommendation (usually 3).  These letters are written by teachers, principals, former bosses, etc.

For this assignment you will be writing a letter of recommendation about yourself.  You will be writing this letter as President Barack Obama.  It needs to be typed in the proper format in Google Drive.  Name (Rename) your google document "#7 Yourlastname"   After you have named the document, share it with me misterwalske@gmail.com

Follow the example (pictured below).  Write this letter "Dear Mr. Walske:"  instead of "To whom it may concern:"

Your letter needs to have at least three paragraphs.  For example the paragraphs could be 
1) background information about you  2) skills/talents that you have 3) accomplishments you have made.

This letter is by President Barack Obama, about you, and addressed to me.

Barack Obama
President
United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Walske
Teacher
Back Bay High School
390 Monte Vista Ave
Costa Mesa, California 92627

You will not be writing in first person "I this and I that."  You are writing about yourself (as the President), but you are not writing as yourself.  This letter will be written as Barack Obama in first person.

Example: this would be how I would write about myself as Barack Obama.

          I would like to recommend Mister Walske for the Governor of California.  He is a very intelligent and motivated person.  Mister Walske has great problem solving skills and works well under pressure. Blah, blah, blah, etc.


Monday, September 22, 2014

Google #6 Business Cards




Click on this link.
Choose the fifth template (circle business cards) and click "use this template"
Rename the document to "#6 Yourlastname"
Share with misterwalske@gmail.com
Edit 1 business card with your correct information.
Copy and Paste that onto the rest of the cards on the page.

You business card must have 
your first and last name
full address  (street number and name, city, state, zip code)
phone # w/area code  (###) ###-####
email address

Friday, September 19, 2014

My Top Three

This is a blog post.  Title it "My Top Three Yourcategory"

You get to choose the category (sports, video games, candy, soda, movies, television shows, foods, etc.)

List your choices from 1 to 3.  Write at least 3 sentences about why you made each choice.

Include at least 1 picture for each choice.

My Top Three Sports That I Play

1.  Beach Volleyball

I have been playing beach volleyball for about 25 years.  I love it for many reasons.  It is great exercise, and I love competing.  I have played in many tournaments over the years including one this past Saturday.  When I was younger, I would play for 8 hours a day on the weekends.

2.  Running

I have been into running since the ninth grade when I began competing on the track team.  After high school I ran sporadically.  I picked it back up and have been running consistently for the past 8 years.  I love the exercise aspect of running as well as the personal competitive part of it.  I currently compete in half marathons.  Last year, I ran the Surf City Half Marathon and well as the OC Half Marathon.  This year, I will be running the Long Beach Half Marathon (3 weeks from Sunday), the Surf City Half, and the OC Half.  I also love mud/obstacle course runs.  

3.  Curling

The newest sport that I participate in is Curling (the Olympic sport played on ice).  I have been curling for about 6 months.  I am currently in the last 2 weeks of my third league.  In my first league, my team won the championship!  In my second league, my team got dead last!  In the current league, we are playing in the semifinals on Saturday night.  If we win on Saturday, we will be playing for the championship on the following Saturday.