Monday! Monday! Monday!

Hey All -

That's right - believe it or not we are in our 3rd week of the school year!  Hence the 3 Monday's above - although I guess it's technically only our 2nd Monday of the school year ... oh well - here's today's agenda.

1. Today I am going to ask you to post a quick response to a blog.  Also remember that you are required to have responded to Friday's blog post that included your first animation embedded as a video! For today's blog post, please simply describe the google animation for the day.  You can find it at https://g.co/doodle/nkrw62 or you can see it above.  Here are some discussion points I would like you to touch on:
• do you like the animation?  What do you like about it?  What would you change?
• watching the animation, can you tell when it restarts?  In other words when the animater set it to loop and repeat itself?  How can you tell?
• having learned a few tools so far, do you think you could create something like this?  What aspects would be easy for you to create and which elements (look closely) would be challenging?
2. We are going to start a new lesson today after taking a few minutes for your blog post.  You can look into what we are going to be doing on Schoology.  The assignment is named working with motion guides.
3. A reminder that if your "Ever Growing Changing Me" hasn't be submitted - it's now or never.
4. Finally, below is a reminder for how to submit your flash assignments:

For your blog:

• Export your animation by doing the following:
• File > Export > Export Movie 
• Give your file a name (Motion Guide Assignment) and select "Save As Type" and choose "QuickTime"
• Next, upload this QuickTime file to your youtube account.
• Once the file has been uploaded, grab the embed code (you may have to wait until the file has finished publishing), go to your blog, click the HTML button on the top left and paste that embed code in under the existing code. 
• Remember to then switch back to the Compose respond to the blog prompts directly underneath the video that you posted.

For Schoology:

• Export your animation by doing the following:
• File > Export > Export Movie 
• Give your file a name (Motion Guide Assignment) and select "Save As Type" and choose "SWF Movie"
• Simply go to Schoology and upload this SWF file where it says "Submit Assignment".

Adobe Flash Friday!

Good Morning and Happy Friday!  Today is your chance to show off your first Adobe Flash Animation!  With that said, please complete the following before the end of class.

1. Complete your Flash Animation.  Remember to refer to Schoology for the complete requirements but at minimum, ensure you have 
• created 5 objects that will bounce around your screen
• your entire animation will last 80 keyframes
• every object must be different
• different shape, size, color
• each shape must move at a different, but consistent, speed
• your largest object must appear on the bottom and your smallest object on top.
2. Save your Animation in your home drive
3. Export your animation by doing the following:
1. File > Export > Export Movie 
2. Give your file a name and save as type "QuickTime"
4. Next, upload your file to your youtube account.
5. Once the file has been uploaded, grab the embed code (you may have to wait until the file has finished publishing), go to your blog, click the HTML button on the top left and paste that embed code in under the existing code.
6. Switch back to the "Compose" mode and respond to the following questions:
1. Name a minimum of 3 different tools that you used.  What does that tool do and how did it help with creating your final animation?
2. Which tool would you say was the most helpful in creating your animation?  Were multiple tools important?
3. What did you enjoy about this first Adobe Flash animation?  What was challenging?
4. Lastly, having been introduced to Adobe Flash and completing this first assignment, what is one thing you would like to learn how to do using this software?

Great!  Two other things I need you to do today:

1. Your Every Growing Changing Me MUST be complete by the end of the day!
2. Please complete the form at http://goo.gl/forms/4scYsWkRZ5

The Big Day!

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday!!  It's really not that "big" of a day BUT our first assignment of the year must be submitted today.  It's very important that this is submitted correctly.  Once submitted as a .pdf I cannot make any changes and if it doesn't print out correctly, you will be stuck without full credit.  Here are the submission requirements again:

Your final draft MUST be in .pdf format

Be sure your document is formatted correctly

• Body of the document, Font size 12
• Ensure you have quality titles and great images

Your Central Image Must be Of You!  Absolutely no exceptions!

Preparing to Print

• Be sure your document still has the same style as the template - one page only and there is nothing hanging off the page; it's easy to change the zoom to ~25% so you can view the entire document
• Go to File > Export. It should automatically bring up a save window with PDF and Name your File "Chris Rubin Ever Growing Changing Me" and save into your home drive
• On the pop up window that follows, towards the bottom please change the jpeg quality to high

You're all set! We will submit your file into Schoology together shortly!

**Amazing Opportunity: Win a brand new laptop!!  Simply write an essay titled “Why I need a brand-new laptop computer.”  Send your completed, thorough and high quality essay (proofread) to kayton@alum.mit.edu."**

Week 2! August 24

Good Morning and Happy Monday! We are going to kick off the day by making sure that we are set to publish our "Ever Growing, Ever Changing Me" by the end of the class period -- tomorrow!  I know it takes a lot of work when there is a lot to format, many pictures to include and, of course, descriptive text to write.  While there is no official "blog post" today, lets get right to work on our InDesign document so nobody falls behind!

Your first task for the day is to ensure that you have done all the writing:

• Name at the top, quotes, headings and titles, some adjectives about yourself and then the main body text - first an indepth discussion of who you are right in the middle of the document.  Off to the right you need to discuss first your High School goals followed below by your plan to achieve them.  Lastly, at the bottom, is your chance to share some of your hopes, dreams and ambitions.  Be thorough in what you write - there is only one of you and what your interests, passions, background and more are will be interesting to those who care about you!  If you need some suggestions on what else to write, don't hesitate to ask me.

Your second task is to ensure you have 4 great images on your document that help tell a visual story/paint a picture of who you are.

• The main image in the center must be a picture of yourself! You should have a picture but if you need help, I can take a picture and send it to you.  That will be the central image on your printed document.  The other images are up to you but should either be of you or of things you discussed that are of great importance in your life.

Your third task is to adjust the look of the document - specifically, we are only changing background colors.  Do not change, move, alter the text boxes.  If you do, your assignment won't be done correctly and may not print properly which would not be good.  Remember, if you accidentally move a text box just hold down ctrl + z and the action will undo.

After confirming all of the above, read through your document and ensure that there are no spelling or grammatical errors!  Spelling and grammar errors demonstrate carelessness and you don't want anybody to make that assumption of you when they read your "Ever Growing, Changing Me"

Once you are happy with your document, the following is what you will do.

• Verify the format of your document.  In particular, be sure you text is no larger than 12 point font - if you didn't fill the columns, go back and think of what else you could write - you need to be thorough!
• Be sure your document is one page only and there is nothing outside the margins - an easy way to do this is hit w on your keyboard and change the zoom to ~25%
• Once you are satisfied with your document you will go to File > Export. It should automatically bring up a save window with PDF and Name your File "Chris Rubin Ever Growing Changing Me" and save into your home drive
• On the pop up window that follows, towards the bottom please change the jpeg quality to high
• You're all set!  We will then submit your file in Schoology together!

First Friday Back!

Good Morning and Happy Friday!  It really doesn't matter to me what Friday it is, Friday's are good days!! Today we are going to take a moment and make sure we are all on track before we move forward into week 2 of the 2015-16 school year - can't have anyone falling off the ship before the first week is over!

Today I am making time for you to do the following:

1. Ensure all blog posts are complete
1. Title
2. Image
3. Thorough Post
2. In particular your second blog, the one entitled "Blog Post Day 2 - August 19th!" is very important.  While I know the majority of you did not complete the blog that day, remember, we said "to be continued" I am going to ask you to go back and make an edit on it today.  Under where you wrote "to be continued" before class ends today I would like you to post an image of what you have done so far with your inDesign project.
3. Finally, before leaving today, please ensure you have successfully set up your Schoology account for access to assignments and that you are logging into your computer using your student id.  Also - never forget to save your work in your "home" drive.
4. Register for "Reading Partners" if this is something you might be interested in: https://goo.gl/rlpzHd

Here are a few helpful hints if your stuck on something:

• Have an extra blog you don't want anymore that might be confusing you?
• Next to the blog you want to delete, select Settings from the drop-down.
• Select Settings.
• Under “Settings” on the left side of the page, click Other.
• Go to "Blog tools" - it's at the very top of the page
• Click Delete this blog.
• Remember to always hit new post - the orange pencil when you are getting started in my class
• Want to simply edit the post you didn't finish to add the image I'm talking about?
• You can edit your posts by clicking on "Posts" from the drop-down menu on your Dashboard.
• From there, click the "Edit" link next to the post you'd like to edit
• That will take you to the posting form, which includes all posts you've written that are either published or saved as drafts. When you're done editing, you can click Preview to see what your post will look like on the blog, or go straight to Publish.
• Finally, need a reminder on how to take a screen shot on your pc.
• Open Snipping Tool by clicking the Start button (it might be in the dock at the bottom of your screen)
• Click the New button, select Rectangular Snip and then select the area of your screen that you want to capture.
• Save the file and upload it to your blog!

Collaborative, Social and Playful!

Good Morning and Happy Thursday! You've already almost made it through week one. In my opinion the first week can be one of the hardest so stay focused, keep working and you'll be enjoying your Friday afternoon before you know it.

For today's blog I would like you to consider the following.

• What is the difference between a collaborative, social and playful environment. 
• Give a brief description of each of those ideas in your mind (or feel free to get some insight from Google) 
• For each of those types of environments, think of a place you are familiar with where each would be appropriate. Are there places where more than one is acceptable?
• Based on the definitions you have given, how would you characterize school? Do any of those three work? Can you think of different adjectives that would describe the school environment?

We'll talk more about this and where my classroom falls before we keep going.

Agenda for today (actual):

• Log onto your computer using your new username and password
• Explanation of how to create blog posts and not new blogs each day.
• what to do if you mistakenly added a second blog yesterday
• how to follow my blog
• finishing unfinished blogs
• Respond to the blog
• Review Planner
• Work on completing your "Ever Growing, Changing Me!"

Day 2

Good Morning - it's Wednesday, August 19th and the second day of school. While we'll make sure everyone is getting off to a good start, we are going to start moving a little faster now. Today we are going to use our blog post to brainstorm for our first assignment - that's right, if you do a great job with this blog post you'll be able to simply copy and paste the majority of your writing into your first assignment. I have titled the first assignment "The Ever Growing, Changing Me" which, similar to last year is an opportunity for you to introduce yourself but also an opportunity to contemplate how you have changed over the past 12 months as a student, an individual, etc - it's important to continue to evolve into you. While last year I offered a variety of prompts, this years intro is entirely yours to write.

Here is our tentative agenda for today:

• Come and see me to set up a new username and password (username = student id)
• Log onto your computer using your new username and password
• Log into Google Account and access Blogger (http://compapps1516.blogspot.com/)
• Respond to the blog
• Login to Schoology @ schoology.com (and/or register if you haven't already)
• Period 2 Access Code = 8Z4QV-88V7N
• Period 3 Access Code = 558RX-5M6R5
• Download and begin assignment #1 - The Ever Growing, Changing Me!

MultiMedia - Let's Go!

Good Morning and Welcome back to M-A! This place is looking a little different than it did when we left in June!! Today we are going to begin our year long blog for our MultiMedia course. This blog will be similar to the one you used last year, providing a good opportunity to use technology, but will also be the way we jot down notes and reflections about current topics and display the many unique projects we will be working on this year.  Your blog will consist of your opinions, information and more and will be updated (typically) 4 times each week. For today, the question is simple. 

• How does it feel to be back at school? 
• How does it feel to be a junior?
• What's exciting about this year for you?  What makes you nervous? What do you want to build on from last year?
• How was your summer?  Mention 2-3 highlights. 
• What are some things you are hoping to achieve this school year? Even though it's August, this isn't a terrible time to establish an academic new years resolution.  I know I have!

With each blog post, you are required to include one picture that represents your post. While some o you did an amazing job of this last year, many of you have not.  Obviously, given that today is our first post since being back, I will review just how you can do this!

Welcome Back!! I am excited for a great 2015-2016 School Year!

Agenda for today:

• Log into Google Account and access Blogger
• Login to Schoology @ schoology.com
• Period 2 Access Code = 8Z4QV-88V7N
• Period 3 Access Code = 558RX-5M6R5
• Review Syllabus
• Begin Assignment #1 - The Ever Growing, Changing Me!