Teaching CS in Dallas

XBox in the classroom

We've been doing some beta curriculum for XNA for the past few weeks (we're at Chapter 6 and working on building a "Button Blaster" game.

Took in my XBOX, hooked it up (felt like being a REAL spoiled brat, and maybe will tomorrow, and hook up two projectors, since I have them) and did a demonstration of deploying a game to the xbox.

It's pretty cool, and even worked in the classroom even though we got XBox live errors because the firewall.

I started out with the test game, deployed it to the xbox, and then compiled a real version. 

Then I had them help me write the tug of war version, deployed it and played it. 

I have several students with XBox's, don't know if they have Gold Live but hoping they will give it a try over Spring Break.

Will give it another try tomorrow, with the other version of Button Blaster.

Smart Board Experiments

Now that we have room ---

I've set up my Smart Board -- weil, not exactly mine but one that has been loaned to me.

One of my remedial math kids asked me about Algebra Tiles and since they were invented when I learned algebra, and also were invented after I learned to teach Algebra, I sent her to some websites.  Since last night was parent conferences, I had a minute and downloaded some lesson on Algebra Tiles from the internet.

It worked best with the smaller group.  In fact, the Smart Board didn't work at all with the 7th period, not sure , but I think the Bluetooth got unplugged.  How does the rest of the world cope?  I know, they call me.

One of my kids even videotaped it.  He had a tripod and a camera with him, why I don't know, and he's going to make a movie later in the week.

Pretty cool.

Microsoft My Phone

Okay, I was 90% sure I left my phone at school.

I had rearranged my classroom so well, I couldn’t find my car keys.  Oh, and we had parent conferences and I was trying to get out of the building before I ran into another parent.  So once I found my keys, I kinda of left and left my phone and camera behind.  Didn’t know they weren’t with me until I got into the car, so there was the possibility of having lost it.

Here’s the cool part, I hadn’t purchased the Premium services yet!  I was able to purchase the Premium services without having the phone in hand, AND find it with the MyPhone service.

COOL!

Posting Photos using Typepad Albums

How to make a photo album with Typepad.  Note, you do have to upload and run their software in the "Upload Multiple Pictures" box.

 

Sample Photo Album created with the movie - http://www.kweaver.org/photos/sample/

 

New Classroom Layout

http://www.kweaver.org/photos/classroom_march_2010/

Here's a photo album of how the classroom looks.  And I am quite tickled by our security guard, he came in, said it was back the way it was when he was a student and was teasing the kid in his old seat, kicking him out.

I have an A/V media place now, in the center of the room, and I 'm using an old cow to secure those items.  I'll need it next year when I teach Multimedia.

I also need to get some 4 foot power strips -- I've asked our office manager for them, and will put them in the tables.

Still Off Grid - and so Angry I could spit

I was very sick this weekend, ended up sleeping all day on Saturday after coming home from the event that made me angry.  I got no sleep Friday night, as I was in horrible pain.

Sunday I got a massage which helped. 

Most of the my problem was pain from rearranging the room.  It looks very nice and will post about it this afternoon.

So why am I mad?

I presented at an AP Session.  I was not given enough material to present.  The other teachers interferred with the AP portion that I was presenting. 

I should have just called in sick.  or just not shown up.

Yes, I should have realized I was being set up to fail and should have found more material. 

The kicker, one of their student's parents called my school to complain about something I said.  I was completely mis-quoted.

I won't be back this year.

AP Tutoring Session - Strings

 Okay, this is the only way I'm going to prep.

Tomorrow, I am covering an AP Free Response question at our Super Saturday Tutorial Session.

It's called String Coder.  
I've pulled the things I think they need from the Quick Reference, String class, List and some code from the Grid World does a for each.

They get a String Coder class they can use.

They have to do the following:

 

I always have them write the return stuff first, as that will give some points.

    String result = "";

...

    return result;

Then I am going to have them figure out how to meet the post condition.

for (StringPart part : parts)

   {

    int start = part.getStart();

    int length = part.getLength();

       result += masterString.substring(start, start+length);

   }

Next they have to do:

Again, first we have to return an ArrayList of String Part:

ArrayList<StringPart> result = new ArrayList<StringPart>();

and

return result.

In the middle (instead of and).

They have to go through the word, searching the parts of the master string

while (word.length() > 0)

{

    StringPart part = findPart(word);   (they will find it according to the pre-condition)

    result.add(part);

    word = word.substring(part.getLength());

}

I'm going to have them give me the answers, I'm going to type the code in and see if it works.  If it doesn't, I'm going to have them debug it.

I do have code to try.

If we run out of time, I'll teach them how to program the XBox.  The other AP teachers will probably kill me.

New Lab Layout

Here's the new lab layout:

This gives me lots of room and storage in my corner.  I actually kept two fo the tables, one for projects, and one for my printers.  That gave me my other desk back.  For the last year, I've been working on a 3 foot desk with two big monitors.  Every time I move, I knock something on the floor.  By putting the computers to the side, people walking in can't see my screen, and my view of my students is completely open.

It will take a while to get used to talking to them from the side, but I think it will work.

While it might be because a lot of students were out of the bulding today, I still think their extra space is making them calmer.  Each student has 6 inches more work space, but we also have more space between each other.  Weird, but I always felt cramped with the horseshoe.  This works better, but I wish I had space to have kids with no computers.

The good news, is that I can blank the screens thanks to Lanschool.

Off the Grid -- Tables are installed

I have been completely off the grid, haven't been on the phone, text messages, or email -- not one of my accounts for over two days.

Wednesday TAKS Day was pretty well forced, plus agility class night.

Thursday the tables came.

I finished moving tables at the end of first period today.  Okay, I didn't move the tables.  Well, I moved a few, but not far.

Here's what I did.  I asked my PAWS class (study hall), who wants to move furniture, showed them where it was at, had them move the empty tables out of the room and put the new tables there.

My tech support class and I installed about a 1/4 of the computer on the new tables.  My custodians brought about another 1/4 of the tables during that period which absolutely amazed me, as they have lunch to deal with.

I asked my 6th period, who wants to move furniture and we did more.  Same thing with 7th, and 8th.   We had all the tables in the room 6th period, and all but 8 computers were moved and installed by the end of the day.

This morning, one of my more annoying students and I moved two computers on two tables.

That left 4 tables.  5 of my 8th period students volunteered to do that last table.

I then worked on my desks and tables. 

We still have a lot of tables to fix the wiring on.  Some of the computers, I just slide the old tables out and slid the new tables under the computers, so they are still a mess.  I should have taken pictures but was just too tired.

Not only did I get the tables done, but this week's grades are in the gradebook, lesson plans for next week are turned in, and all my other paperwork is done.

I'm a little tired.

Tables came today!

They are not in my room yet and I am going to see if I can get a few up here this morning.

They are the tables I expected them to be -- used for several years in the Buckner lab, but they will be easy to keep neat -- they have troughs for the computer tables.  I don't remember if they have a place to put the computers though.  I should take a picture of them.