Click here to listen to today's lesson.

Just a quick recap around the room on what we're doing:

Click here to subscribe to the Grade 8 podcasts.

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Research Skills

"His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death. The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved."

Click below to read more or download this entry as a Word file

"I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."

Years afterward, the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill.

His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Link to website

Your task today
*Is to establish how true this story is.
*How will you do this? Write a plan in the space below outlining the facts you believe you will need to uncover to reach a valid conclusion.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Next part – finding this information
For this investigation we/you are going to use the internet as a tool to hunt out this info. Remember not every resource available on the internet tells the entire truth, and sometimes it is not the quickest or most reliable source of information. For each fact you look to ‘unearth’ you will be required to acknowledge your source (ie the URL); You may only use each URL once.

In each step you must:

1. Write the fact or information you are looking for;


2. the process or pages you looked at to find this information


3. the conclusion or assumptions you made after finding ‘the answer’.

The prize for the best submission will be the opportunity to have lunch off campus on the day of your choice.

STEP ONE

1)
2)
3)

STEP TWO

1)
2)
3)

STEP THREE

1)
2)
3)

STEP FOUR

1)
2)
3)

STEP FIVE

1)
2)
3)
STEP SIX

1)
2)
3)
STEP SEVEN

1)
2)
3)

CONCLUSION (and why)

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There was no podcast today - I will only be doing them if I need to brief you on a new topic and/or we need some classroom interaction. You were creating comic "scripts" today.

Your script is very basic - it can be done in Microsoft Word, but needs to be listed like this:

Panel 1:
Background: a city street
View: From the man's right side
Actions: A man is moving from the left side to the right side. He is holding a tennis racket.
Speech: Man: I can't wait to play tennis!

Panel 2:
Background: same as above
Actions: From the man's point-of view we see the street
Speech: Man: I had better look both ways, it's rather dark!

etc...

This script is essential to your comic as it will help you think of ways to sketch later on. Think of yourselves as film directors. Do we always see people in comics from the side? Where else can we put the "camera"?

Try to stick to one idea and evolve it over 6 to 8 (10 at the most!) panels. Also - please try to keep the amount of grisly death scenes to a minimum....

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There was no podcast today. You are moving along at a great pace with your databases. Next week we will be creating reports based off of the information you have put in, and then creating a new database to cater to persons with the disability you have chosen.

Don't forget - phone numbers can exists and display properly if the field type is a text format.

Changes you make when defining the database will not be immediately reflected in how the database entry screen is displayed. This is one of the main differences between Browse Mode (where you input your data and perform searches) and Layout Mode (where you change the look and interface of your database). Get familiar with Layout Mode - you can move any of the database fields around and make them larger or smaller. This is especially handy if you have included a database field to hold a picture. One last point - a picture field in a database must be of a type called "container" (it contains a picture). You can copy and paste into that field at will.

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There was no podcast today as you were finalising your design briefs and brainstorms. Some of you have moved further on to sketching design ideas on to paper. Please remember to be very descriptive when making notes on your sketches.

Do not hesitate to point out the very obvious!

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You will have spent the majority of today's class researching more on your disabilities. The majority of you are at the planning phase and starting to put your ideas into a brainstorm. Don't forget to take into account any allowances or constraints your product might have. If you feel that your product is too specific for a particular group of people, you should consider either narrowing the focus of your target group, or expanding the purpose of your product.

Which do you feel would be more advantageous?

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There is no recording for today's lessons. By now, you have all come up with a design brief either with myself, or with Mr Adeney. You will have spent today's lesson putting your design brief into your formal documentation (that Word file we created last week), and plotting your brainstorm out in Freehand.

I'm aware that there are some of you who missed the majority of lessons from last week. Please have a look through the archives to catch up on lessons with either 7CH or 7EX.

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Here's what we covered in today's lesson:

Create a new document in Word to create a storyline for your comic strip. It will be much easier to create your comic if you know what should be going on ahead of time!

Think about panels, captions and speech bubbles. How will you lay them out? Who is going to say what in each panel?

Create a list of characters who will be in your comic, as well as the background settings that might be used.

Try to keep your comic idea from six to nine panels. Will your idea be communicated well enough?

Have a look at HowToons – comics that are used to instruct on how to create things.

The overall goal of this task is to effectively communicate the use of your visible safety badge. Will people know how it should be used after reading your comic? If not, what could you do to improve the storyline?

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There was no recording today, as you are carrying on more Flash concepts this morning. If you have finished your basic linkages, you can:

Create an animation with four arrows moving in different directions

or

Create a simulated automata with more than three linkages

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Our lesson today was about creating a design brief to respond to our statement of problem, although we found it necessary to go back and amend our existing statement. Save for a few interruptions at the door (!), you then proceeded to work on some product analysis, analysing similar automata projects.

Please do not forget to cite your references! This includes full web addresses for any page on the internet that you deem useful.

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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I was unable to record today's lesson as my laptop was freaking out. I would advise you to please listen to one of the 7EX podcasts from this week (like today's), and the one that will be published this coming Monday morning.

To recap, you developed a design brief in response to your statement of problem, and then began some product analysis.

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There was no recording today, as you were carrying out research on your disability.

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There was no recording today, as you were getting used to the controls and layout in Comic Life.

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Click here Click here to download today's lesson.

Today we recapped some Filemaker basics and discussed how much detail we need to go into when creating a database. You started creating a contacts database, as well as value lists for fields such as "Title" and "Gender".

Subscribe to the Grade 8 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson. We moved on from our Statement of Problem, and into more detail on the Design Brief.

Now that we have all agreed on what our Statement of Problem and Design Brief are, you will need to start working on your Specification.

Subscribe to the Grade 6 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson. We moved on from our Statement of Problem, and into more detail on the Design Brief.

Now that we have all agreed on what our Statement of Problem and Design Brief are, you will need to start working on your Specification.

Subscribe to the Grade 6 podcasts in iTunes

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There is no recording for today's lesson, as it is a repeat of the 8MU lesson from last week.

You are carrying out more research for your interfaces project, which will involve you choosing a disability you will specialise in, and finding/improving upon existing usability interfaces for them.

Click here to listen to 8MU's lesson from January 17th.

Subscribe to the Grade 8 Podcast in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Our lesson today was about creating properly formatted documentation for the new project. You will have created a Word file with the appropriate sections and used Headers and Footers for information that gets repeated in the document.

There was not enough time to brainstorm the Statement of Problem openly, so you were asked to write down some ideas which we will present at the beginning of next Monday's lesson.

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Our lesson today was about creating properly formatted documentation for the new project. You will have created a Word file with the appropriate sections and used Headers and Footers for information that gets repeated in the document.

There was not enough time to brainstorm the Statement of Problem openly, so you were asked to write down some ideas which we will present at the beginning of next Monday's lesson.

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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Because 7EX were on a trip to the National Geographical Society today, and will miss class due to an in-service next week, I would ask that you listen to the 7CH lesson from this week so that you will have an idea what to expect when your normal classes resume in February.

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

We covered storyboarding and using Comic Life today. More information on the Comic Strip Artist's Kit is available link to our lesson on the Westminster Technology department weblog.

Subscribe to the Grade 6 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Today's lesson was a recap from last Thursday. We are now simulating automata linkages using Macromedia Flash. Points to note:

- To create your linkage, Insert > New Symbol. Make sure that your symbol is a graphic.
- Remember to group your linkage. Flash treats outlines and fills as seperate objects.
- Don't forget to exit the Symbol Editing mode (when your screen has a small '+' crosshair in the middle of it) by clicking on Scene 1 - directly above the Timeline.
- Your linkage appears in your Library, which you can access from the Window menu in Flash.
- You only need to drag your linkage from your Library to the Stage to position it.
- You only need to create two keyframes (Insert > Timeline > Keyframe) on frames 6 and 12.

There is an Introduction to Flash that I prepared for Grade 8 earlier this year, available here. You may find it useful.

I urge you to listen to this lesson again before next Thursday (24th Jan).

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Our lesson today was about creating properly formatted documentation for the new project. You will have created a Word file with the appropriate sections and used Headers and Footers for information that gets repeated in the document.

There was not enough time to brainstorm the Statement of Problem openly, so you were asked to write down some ideas which we will present at the beginning of next Wednesday's lesson.

Don't forget that you have until this Friday to have your documentation completed for the Steady Hand Game project. Your teachers are aware that you missed many lessons this last term and are taking that into account as you are graded.

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Our lesson today was about creating properly formatted documentation for the new project. You will have created a Word file with the appropriate sections and used Headers and Footers for information that gets repeated in the document.

We spent the last five minutes brainstorming our Statement of Problem (but got a little sidetracked).

Subscribe to the Grade 7 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

Because we spent last week catching up with our documentation, today we looked at the beginning of our Interfaces project. More information is available in the Interfaces category on the Westminster Tech Weblog.

Today you will have used our past weblog entries to look at computer facilities for disabled users. You will be researching existing solutions for those who are hindered when they need to use computers. Research will go into a Word file, with properly cited references.

Subscribe to the Grade 8 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson.

We covered storyboarding and using Comic Life today. Here is a link to our lesson on the Westminster Technology department weblog.

Don't forget to leave a comment on that weblog entry!

Subscribe to the Grade 6 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to download today's lesson.

This is the video of both 8th grade classes testing their flying toys in Regent's Park.

Subscribe to the Grade 8 podcasts in iTunes

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Click here to listen today's lesson. We covered an intro to our Visibadge documentation and came up with a suitable Statement of Problem.

Remember that in Word, we use the Header and Footers to display information that is appropriate for each page in our document, and we use Page Breaks (CTRL+Enter) to create new pages in our document.

Your document should have the following listed on the first page:
- Statement of Problem
- Design Brief
- Specification
- Brainstorm
- Research
- Sketches/Drawings
- Materials & Tools
- Production Plan
- Evaluation

Once this information is in, proceed to creating a new page (CTRL-Enter) with a heading from your list at the top of each page. Listen to the podcast to hear the Statement of Problem that we all agreed upon.

Remember! Do not format your work (like Word Art, bold and underlined text)! At the end of the project, we'll add some nice formatting and get Word to do some of the work for us.

Subscribe to the Grade 6 podcasts in iTunes

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Don't forget for your homework in Science this week to watch the ITV series on The Big Melt, as it is linked to the trip you are going on to the Royal Geographical Society this Friday.

Get yourselves informed! You'll be able to quiz Antarctic scientists from the British Antarctic Survey who will be there to take your questions.

The Big Melt is on ITV1 all this week at 1700 and every two hours after that.

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The link below is a Word document with questions you need to answer about the Sites of Worship unit we have been doing in PSE. Please download the file, read the questions and research your answers intelligently.

This assignment is due to your advisor on January 19th.

Download file

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