Saturday, September 30, 2006

Friday, September 29, 2006

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Fifth Period Answer these questions on your blog

Leave a comment when you are finished.

1. What is a packet?
2. What is a configuration table?
3. What are the two jobs of a router?
4. Under “Transmitting Packets” what different routes (e.g. copper wiring) may information take?
5. The largest routers used to handle data at the major traffic points on the Internet are most like _________ rather than office routers.
6. Routing Packets: What is a subnet mask?
7. What is a logical address?
8. What is a MAC Address?


http://computer.howstuffworks.com/router.htm

Write the answers on your blog...

Who was Leibniz?

What is the advantage of the binary system?

Describe how boolean algebra works.

Why don't we have analog computers?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Comment here - Second Period

Leave your comment here after you finish the post about why computers use binary numbers.

Second Period

Here's a good place to start:

http://chortle.ccsu.edu/CS151/Notes/chap02/..%5Cchap02%5Cch02_3.html

Monday, September 25, 2006

How do you use computers in Killian outside this class?

If you were in charge how would you have the students use computers and technology?

What's a better investment new computers or newer textbooks? Why?

Are computers well utilized at Killian?
How do you use computers in Killian outside this class?

If you were in charge how would you have the students use computers and technology?

What's a better investment new computers or newer textbooks? Why?

Are computers well utilized at Killian?

Fifth Period Comments

Your opinion about computers in schools!

What is a router?

1. What is a packet?
2. What is a configuration table?
3. What are the two jobs of a router?
4. Under “Transmitting Packets” what different routes (e.g. copper wiring) may information take?
5. The largest routers used to handle data at the major traffic points on the Internet are most like _________ rather than office routers.
6. Routing Packets: What is a subnet mask?
7. What is a logical address?
8. What is a MAC Address?

Read this "How Routers Work"

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/router.htm

Three questions about technology and school

Survey Questions (Leave your comment for a grade):
How do you most use computers in Killian outside this class?

How would you use computers here at Killian if you were in charge?

Do you honestly think computers and technology is a good investment for schools?

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Good tips for picking stocks..

Check them out.

Fifth Period

Post your comment here when you finish the assignment below.

Current Events

Read the following articles. Answer the following questions on your blog. Label each answer 1, 2, 3, etc. Copy and paste these questions.

1. Article 1. What is the flaw with IE? How can this flaw be fixed?

2. Article 2. Think of three slogans you could use to sell as many units as possible!

3. Article 3. Name three possible customers.

4. Article 4. Will China have a "better" Internet than America? What can we do?

5. Article 5. What is net neutrality? Who is in favor of it, according to this article? Who is against it?

Find two other articles and label them 6. and 7. Give the URL of the article and summarize the article.

When finished put your comment here (second period).

I'm asking for old computers...

Look at this.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Interesting idea?

Comment on your blog.

page 34 # 1-10 Due Tomorrow

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060925ta_talk_surowiecki

Friday, September 15, 2006

Fifth Period

Storage is getting cheap and fast.

Here's the link to the free storage online

http://amd.streamload.com/index.aspx

Computer images on your blog to remove an F in the gradebook

A. bar-code scanner
B. digitizer scanner
C. graphics tablet
D. joystick
E. keyboard
F. magnetic ink character recognition
G. magnetic scanner
H. mouse/trackball
I. optical character reader
J. optical mark reader
K. speech recognition device
L. touch display screen
M. band/chain printer
N. cache memory
O. dot-matrix printer
P. ink-jet printer
Q. laser printer
R. liquid crystal display
S. monitor
T. sound synthesizer
U. plotter
V. thermal printer
W. CD-ROM
X. magnetic disk
Y. magnetic tape
Z. WORM

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Only five people emailed me the powerpoint presentations?!

Some of you need to get on GMAIL immediately!

Computer news

Answer these questions on your blog:

Why are Stocks going up?

What is flash RAM being replaced by?

Second period leave a comment here.

Monday, September 11, 2006

What school should be about...

Exploring:

Check out this cool game.

This game is helping searche engines like Google identify pictures!

Try to guess as many words as you can about an image...if the partner guesses the same as you- you win!

Friday, September 08, 2006

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Google Centered World?

It seems this is a good time to explicitly lay out my theory for this course and tie it in with what we've done so far.

This week we have been practicing with Microsoft's famous (or infamous) Office suite. We've designed simple spreadsheets to manipulate stock market data with Excel. We've designed databases with Access to keep track of students and their records. We used Publisher and Word to write pamphlets to explain the stock market to the uninformed (what a task!).

But there was a problem. We had to think of ways to publish the information. The information wasn't easily shared with others, without email! Historically Microsoft was surprised by the speed at which the Internet changed the PC and society. Today it seems Google is at the forefront in allowing people to quickly share their ideas quickly. For instance, Google bought Blogger, the site I'm now using, and runs it ad-free. So why did they purchase it? How does it benefit them if it costs nothing to sign up and no ads run on the blogs at first?

This course will not be an advertisement for Google's services (except for this one time: they are awesome). But it won't be an advertisement for Micrsoft either. I taught for a couple of years at a local college and I was dismayed at the way the courses were structured and especially displeased with the boring, Microsoft-centered textbooks. Professors were pretty much limited to Microsoft software. There was never any discussion of open source software. The courses seemed outdated and professors and students were not encouraged to venture far from the safety of Microsoft's shadow.

This course isn't about a software company in California or a software company in Washington. This course is about solving problems. Let's say you own a business, how can you use a spreadsheet to analyze decisions? How can you ensure that the data in a database isn't corrupted? How can a wiki benefit an organization?

This course isn't just about using computers for commerce either. There are social implications as well. Are people overwhelmed by a certain level of data? How will instant communication change relationships?

With all this said, I'm happy with the way the year started out. Keep in mind the pseudocode from the beginning of the year. Computers use algorithms to solve problems. Remember the way computers must be told every step. Loops and if statements are just ways of solving problems.

I'm happy with the interest in the stock market game. I'm planning on using the data in a few months for a project. I'm wondering if students who traded more do better than people who just leave the stocks (perhaps they just forgot their password?). Maybe we can draw a connection with the data. Maybe not. We'll see.

I sent out gmail invitations today but I got a lot of emails bounced back. Everyone will need a gmail account by next Monday. It's for a grade: A, you have an account- F if you don't. The if statement is simple. So is getting the account.

With all that said, today we'll be learning the basics of HTML in order to make "About Me" web pages...

Fifth period

What is your stock market game name? Leave it in the comments for an easy A.

Stock Market with Publisher

What is your stock market game name?

2nd period: Leave a comment here with your name in the stock market game.