Word clouds, or tag clouds, are visual representations of text data. The word cloud below was created using Wordle. As an introduction to word clouds, students have created a list of words that describe themselves. The frequency of the words from the list determine the size of the words. As shown by this example of the class blog’s word cloud, GATE, Mac, classes and laptops are some of the most commonly used words in our class blog. Click on the picture to see a bigger view.
For the last two weeks of the quarter, all classes researched computer memory (bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and terabyte) and the computer hardware and peripherals that relate to them (floppy, CD, DVD, flash drive, hard disk drive, RAM, external disk drive).
The Beginning GATE class work with partners to create drawings for their Googledocs presentations.
After defining the vocabulary and downloading pictures, the Technology classes created interactive PowerPoint presentations while the GATE classes created Googledocs presentations. They all then presented in front of class.
Rene présents in front of class by describing his slide on computer hardware.
L.P. Untalan Middle School, like many of the schools in Guam Department of Education, has not received any new computers since 2003. As a technology teacher, I’ve had to be creative.
Students use one of the GATE laptops.
The Gifted and Talented Education program was able to use some of its funds in 2008 to purchase laptops, specifically Apple MacBooks. The three MacBooks from GATE jumpstarted what we currently use. I am an avid Mac user and have updated by laptops every few years. My current MacBook Pro and 3 older Mac laptops make up the rest of our class set of laptops. We also have two older G4 Mac towers that was donated from DODEA and one PC tower running Windows Xp (and no, it can’t support an OS upgrade).
A Mac G4 works with a similarly aged monitor and a Dell keyboard. And, a PC is also used in our Mac classroom.
It's been a rainy first half of the quarter at Untalan, as shown by the puddles. Photo by Mrs. Carino.
Scheduling for the GATE/Tech classes at UMS has been a challenge this school year. I’ve taken two additional classes from last year, and with the First Quarter half-way over, here’s how the classes have been organized:
• 4th period—8th grade Technology Applications
• 6th period—6th grade Beginning Middle School GATE
• 7th period—7th/8th grade Advanced GATE
• 8th period—8th grade Technology Applications
I look forward to another interesting school year filled with artistic and innovative student work in the use of online tools and computer and media hardware! Go wildcats!
During the summer, the GATE program sent three teachers (two elementary and one middle) to the National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to take a class on robotics. I was one of three women in the class filled with private school teachers and a Salvation Army worker, and did I have an interesting time!
The Robotics class participants were from different parts of the country. Me and a teacher was from South Korea flew the furthest. Our instructor is Tim in green.
The 5-day class focused on using the programming language called RobotC to control the LEGO Mindstorm robots. It was a challenge at first to start writing code just to make the robot move forward, but by the end I was having a blast making the robot make sounds and dance!
I called this robot Johnny 5. My partner Carmen and I made Johnny 5 do some interesting moves--some unintentional!
View the “photography book” with last semester’s and this semester’s best MACRO, BACKLIT AND SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD photos:
The advanced class created their first podcasts using Garageband. The program is easy for the students to learn and use. I had them create their first one on something they all love talking about–music! They grouped together into small groups, created a brief script, and recorded their voices directly onto Garageband. A USB microphone (such as the one from Rockband) helped provide clearer voices. View the short video below of my students creating their podcasts that I edited using iMovie.
Click for Video: GATEpodcasts
Listen to their podcasts:
The Double R&V Show • The British Guy Podcast
Taco and banana show! • JAM Podcast 
On Thursday, March 9, judges evaluated the six websites created by the Advanced GATE/Tech class for the Guam History Day competition. This would be the third year in a row that the class has participated in the competition. For the past two years, the winning websites have gone on to place and win in the island-wide competition and move on to go to Washington, DC for the National History Day competition.
View the website created about the school competition HERE.
As I introduce blogging to another set of students, I have to remind them about the basics when they write their posts:
Beginning Students: Check out this week’s Blogs of Note from Blogger.com. These blogs are highlighted out of thousands and thousands of blogs that you can use as role models. If you want to see a couple of teen bloggers, there’s Alea’s blog and Sarah’s Photography Blog from blogspot.com. Your next blog post is to write about any one of these blogs (from Blogs of Note or the teen bloggers) that you think is interesting. What makes it interesting? Use the quote function to highlight the blogger’s words and the link function to link back to their blog.
Here’s one of the Blogs of Note that I found interesting:
Here is a quote from her blog:
GASP! Yes you can love YA and not be a teen or a mom.
Welcome to a new group of Beginning GATE/Tech students for the Second Semester: Ana, Gabriel, Ethan, Sage, Neina, Lorie, Katrina, Aubrey, Lazaro, Daniel, John, and Marianna! These 12 sixth and seventh graders will hopefully have an enjoyable experience this semester 
