New Quarter

A new quarter, the final quarter of high school for some of you, has started. Please take careful stock of your personal intentions. The purpose of the course was and is to give you time to work on the project of your choice. You will reap the benefits of the work and concentration you sow.

You may spend time comparing yourself to others in the class, but the bottom line is a personal evaluation of how you are growing as a student, and reaching goals in the world of computers. The course, as your whole school career, is either passing time, or a deep and satisfying experience. Always your choice, and always a new choice each day.

Review your original proposals and see where you stand to determine if you want to change the direction of your focus. I will assume you are all staying with your outline of work unless I hear otherwise very soon.

~GeekTeach

End of the Quarter Approaching

The end of the quarter is approaching, and a few of you, I'm sorry to note, have been slack on the outside of class time (minumum 2 hours/week). Those students should expect a consequence on the quarter grade for that choice.

This week you will need to review your class week by week plan, and see how you have done. The plans were realistic, so if you are not making the schedule, consider how you can move faster through the material - more efficient time; add resources; more outside time, etc.

A coming Wednesday will be the best day for us to have a presentation of your quarter's work - but we are starting the season of fragmented class time. There may have to be presentations without the full class present.

~Richard aka GeekTeach

Keeping it Academic

Gentlemen,

Now that we are back in full class schedule, please keep plugging and keep the work academic. Remember the two extra hours per week outside of class are necessary and your commitment, and you need to document them or, as far as I know, they didn't happen. Somehow identify those hours in your BLOG as outside of class hours. As with any other class, if you are sick or out, make up the work, by making up the time. It's time to get obsessed with learning your topic.

Wednesday, I am on a field trip so Todd will be sitting in with the class. He has Photoshop experience, so that may be useful for even more than Eli. We will meet during all six class periods together this week, and you may log 45 minutes of that as extra time, but after missing two snow days last week, there should be a strong individual push by each of us.

Friday, some students will be ready for progress presentations - others may wish to delay until early next week - all need to present. These should be informative, with some demonstration, and question/answer time, but it's certainly not necessary to over prepare - we just want to know what you are learning. Later, before the end of the quarter, you will be doing a more complete presentation for outside faculty and students - and outside faculty assessments of these will be part of your grade.

~Richard aka GTeach.

Two Week Break

To All the Class,

Have a good two week break. If you do work on your project during that time, be sure to Blog your hours (include day and amount of real time spent). For instance, checking out books at Borders is great research time. (but no, the travel time to get there isn't, Josh.)

I assume you will return motivated to continue. The stretch after Projects Period is often the longest continuous class time we will have, so plan to make a lot of progress during those weeks. By then Photoshop CS, Studio MX, and all the books will be in.

As books arrive, I will send you an email, and leave them at the front desk, if any of you would like to make the trip in to school to pick them up.

I am thinking the next presentation should have an audience - I will invite any students and staff who are free sixth period, in particular Ann S., because of Eli's art connection, and see if Craig can get free as well - and this should happen about two weeks after we get back.

Thanks,
Richard.

HTML and other language tutorials

All the class,

Here is a link to one of the best online HTML (and other languages) tutorial sites.
There are examples, snippets of code to swipe, and windows in which you may write code and immediately see the results and changes.
Put a link to it on your computers, and those learning HTML should go through the lessons.

The references are clear and clean. I may show it on the overhead in class.

http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp

for Carl, the ADO and SQL are going to apply

Richard

Start the Independent Computer Course Off Right...

This is a method that may satisfy both our interests..
I need you to document:

• what you are learning every school period
• what you are learning every homework time
• your sources - exact internet links, exact titles and authors of books
• what software and hardware resources you are using
• pose questions that I may be able to answer, or others may be able to answer
• what you are planning next

Your blog will contain daily timed entries of your work. I can review it and make specific comments, and suggestions that you will follow. You may point me towards computers with folders of your ongoing work as needed.

Students in the class will have a chance to view the blogs and documents, and make appropriate academic suggestions for you as well, and I expect that you will be contributing to each others' success this way.

Although it is a blog - I want real words, sentence structures, and words capitalized appropriately.

Richard alias 'GeekTeach'

geekteach@santbani.k12.nh.us will get to me by email.