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Australia!

This week, in honor of our Australian vistors, imagine that YOU are moving to Australia!

1. Pick a city in Australia to move to.

2. Pick a place to live in that city; apartment or house

3. Pick the high school that you will attend in the same city.

Provide a picture link (use Google Short links) and comment to each task. Look at my example and model it for your entry.

This is not an easy assignment and you will be discovering some unique skills in Internet searching for this type of information. It will be interesting to see who rises to the top in this challenge!

PS Let's vote on who finds the coolest place to live in Australia. Prize? Yes.

Leadership

Considering the philosophy of the GenYES organization; sound leadership plays a major role in the programs' success, from the local perspective of students acting as campus, technology ambassadors to running a world class company.

1. Explore this Leadership link. Choose one of the topics and fully investigate the properties of leadership. Give a summary of what you read.

2. What leadership strengths do you possess?

3. List some characteristics of being a leader that you feel you might need some improvement.

Google Apps

What are the best Google Apps? Find 3:

1) One for fun, chillaxin (did I really say that?)

2) One for education (use for school stuff)

3) One for productivity (organizational, study help, notes, etc)

Give a reason why you chose that app. Just a few words why it's the best. (This is easy, schmeasy homework huh?)

Oh yeah...you have PRESENTATIONS due this week!!

Spend the Money

Say Shadow received a check for $ 200,000. to use for technology and YOU were in charge of how to spend it for our school.  How would you spend it?  (No it's not for you...it's for the SCHOOL!)

1. Research prices of the items you want to buy.  (Round out the dollar amount)  What decisions would you make?  Would you replace the labs?  Would you buy another laptop cart?  Would you buy portable devices?  Which devices?  Smartboards?  Would you mix it all up?  Come as close as you can to spending all the money to best represent current technologies.     See my (somewhat crazy) example below.

2. Provide an idea for care of the purchases you made against theft or misuse.

3. There are approximately 1750 students, about 60 classrooms at SMHS.  How many kids will benefit from your idea?

Chrome Notebooks

This week your challenge is to research information about these devices.

1. List three (3) significant specs or facts about the chrome CR-48.  No duplicate entries.  

2. What's the point of owning a chrome notebook?  Hint:
 

3.  Find the absolutely, positively, coolest, most unique way to use these devices in a classroom.  Include the website.  There is a prize on this one so ramp up your research!  

Laptops! Netbooks! Tablets! (and books..)

The past year or so,  a wide range of tablets, iPads, Galaxys, Xooms and more hit the streets.   Netbooks are making a splash splitting out the laptop market.  There are so many choices... it's mind boggling!

1.  Why don't we see more kids bringing these devices to school?  If there are so many devices out there ...who has them?  


2. What are the issues with the idea of parents buying digital devices for kids to bring to school? (Instead of paper, pencils, binders etc)


3. What about the school providing a digital device for each student?  What are the good points of this idea?  Bad points?  (Schools have only about $270/student to spend for books) 


Vote:  School vs. Parent 

4. So what's the best all around 'educational learning tool' for a high school student?  ipad?  other tablet?  netbook?  laptop?  book?  Why?

New Year - New GenYES

Your blog entry this first week is to explore the GenYES website. 


 http://genyes.org/


1.  Find a paragraph of interesting text on the website.  Highlight, copy and paste it into your blog entry.  


2.  In your own words, provide a reflective commentary about the ideas in the paragraph you chose.


3.  Summarize what you think the overall mission statement is of GenYES.  


Number your entry exactly as indicated above.  Make sure you read the previous posts of other students.  No entry can be duplicated so be mindful you don't pick the same paragraph!  

(S12) What's the best smart phone OS for the money? Droid? iphone?

1. List your phone

2. Costs, operating and phone cost

3. Why this phone is the best for the money

4. Significant features are...

(S10) Transformice!

Yes it's true.  You, have before you, a homework assignment based on the game...Transformice!  Your teacher has gone over the edge!  Play the game.  Play it some more!  And more... and then...

1. Describe the key elements that make someone want to play this game.   Just what is "it" that makes it so fun?


2. Is there a mild addictive quality to it?  What drives to to open this game vs a movie or another game?


3. Suppose you were commissioned to develop a game by a competitor and your task was to create a game that was better than Transformice.  What would your game look like? How would you improve on it?


4. How would you build an audience to play it?