Excel Day 2: Sabado Gigante

The day kicked off with a Learn@UW quiz as students trickled into the lab on this fine September morning. Kevin followed up the quiz with demoing different functions such as SUM and making a checklist. Students were on task, proving that they are well on their way to becoming true spreadsheet nerds. End of first period.

Upon returning from first break, Kevin demonstrated more ways to effectively use Excel to make life easier. With the NFL season in full swing, the most obvious reason to use Excel is to create fantasy football teams. These fantasy teams come fully loaded with players' stats for the football-savvy. Richie took Drew Brees, one of the leading quarterbacks in the league, and the Green Bay Packers receiving core, a fine pick with success guaranteed. All the while, Maddy and Jamarra made spreadsheets that rank quarterbacks' good looks. They followed this activity with entering their blogs for the day.

In the third period, Kevin introduced the "Excel Your Skillz" game. Many students recalled seeing the older students perform a skit with this game. Excitement grew as they continued to reminisce their past experience with EYS, which, in turn, fueled anticipation for battling one another next session. The end of the day came with finished blogs and more fantasy football team building, a victorious end for all.

Excel B106 2nd Day!!

Everything started off a little rocky today, what with the outer doors of the building being locked, probably due to the President coming into town this week. So, I had to stay by the doors and make sure students could get in. After that, the day started with a quick review of our previous session, and then we got to work! The students took their Learn@UW quiz, and then Elizabeth went over the questions. Everyone did very well, getting some of the harder questions without trouble. Then, Elizabeth discussed functions and how to use them as well as find new ones on the internet. Carrie did a great job with the Order of Operations exercise, figuring out the complicated math problem that was put on the board.

After the break, Elizabeth covered conditional formatting, rules, and sorting/filters. The students looked at the document showing city populations and had them figure out which were the largest and in which countries, giving them an idea of how Excel can be used to keep track of information. Then, she introduced the assignment of having them make a list of things in their refrigerator, and using conditional formatting in order to keep track of the items in their fridge, making sure that they know when they get low on something. AJ stopped by and reminded everyone to keep track of the moldy stuff in their fridge.

After that, Elizabeth had to leave because she wasn't feeling well. Get better, Elizabeth!

Here's Alli's fridge list:


And here's Tenzin's:



Lastly, the students finished up their fridge list, and then blogged. All in all, it was a great day for ITA!!!

B106 Excel, First Day!!!

After a long and eventful summer, the students returned for their first day at ITA! It was great to have all of the students back for their first session, and a lot has changed.

We started with a homeroom meeting in 3139, to explain to the students how things have changed. We went over the new structure of the sessions, as well as the homeroom concept and the integrated class groups, which are no longer restricted by age. The students were really interested in that, and a lot of them raised the point that it will add a good deal of variety to their ITA experience. They'll have the chance to interact with students in different grades, and get to know people outside of their normal range.

After the orientation, students went to their first real session, coming to B106, for their first lesson on Excel. The very, very first thing they had to learn was how to use the network setup, which has changed since before the summer. That ran very smoothly (a lot smoother than it did for several of us instructors).

Following that, we started for real on Excel. Elizabeth explained how Excel can help with a whole host of different things, such as making lists, organizing information, and doing math. She started with formulas, having everyone take a look at a sort of trick equation to illustrate the order of operations. Marleny went up to the board to show how it was solved, doing a great job with the answer. After that, Elizabeth showed an example of a spreadsheet she made this summer, explaining how Excel can be used for keeping track of different kinds of information (dollar amounts, contributor names, etc.) all in one spreadsheet.

Because everyone was so attentive, we ended up ahead of schedule, giving everyone plenty of time to work on their Excel projects. Students were given the option of creating spreadsheets based on what's in their garage, their favorite songs, books, movies, etc. Everyone got right to work, putting together their lists and ranking things with as much information as they could.

Here's an example of Allie's spreadsheet:


And here's Jaylah's:


All in all, it was a great day for ITA, and it's good to be back!

The Road Test... Dun Dun Dun!

As 1:00PM approached, the students mingled and mashed in the hall getting their daily dose of sugar. Unfortunately, as they filed into the room, they were informed by AJ that no food or drink is allowed during this road test!

After AJ directed each student to their prospected seats, they read the instructions together and then moved right onto the test~

When the allotted time was over, the students were on break! Except.. they stuck to their computer so much, it didn't seem like a break so AJ said, "At least do something that looks like you're on break!" Nevertheless, the student's break resumed.. on either Facebook or their projects.

As the students came back to their work-mind set, AJ introduced his favorite treat to the class, chili-powered dried mangoes. It was tried by many and liked by some.

Anny even mentioned "Baby Lucus (at least I believe that's what she said)" and the similarities of it.

After the student's were giving time to finish up their projects, Jose went up to give his presentation.

Jose: PowerPoint was very interactive and quite simple and clean! Your organization skills were really put to use in this project. Good Scratch project! The class enjoyed seeing your starfish get eaten~ =X

Marleny: Although you didn't seem that enthusiastic to go after Jose, your computer was very still good! Or as Eliza would put it -- she remarked, "I like the way your computer is VERY blue! All color coordinated and whatnot~" Loved your Scratch project! Very humorous and true. Girls running from random guys! ;)

Maddie: Very thoughtful when creating your computer. Especially when you bought the headphones!

Jaylah: Very humorous PowerPoint! Liked the title page. Loved the transitions to different slides. Never seen that kind before! Liked how slick your your PowerPoint was.

KeKe: Loved the intergalactic, glow-in-the-dark PowerPoint and computer! Gamers would be intimidated to see you at their LAN parties! =) Cute Scratch project. Loved the Pac-Man like game!!

Anny: Great PowerPoint (and especially getting the internal hard drive! ;D). Great Scratch project concept: The Booboo stalking the furry little Monkey! Very, very humorous!

Last but not least, Jamarra: A different approach to your PowerPoint (making other students guess what the component is)! I like it! Getting your audience to interact with your PowerPoint and your presentation as a whole. Like your clever use of South Bridge and North Bridge schools! You're an alumni in doing and creating presentations!

Loved it when you said, "It's about what's inside the case that matters."

Your Scratch project was very ... deep. Connecting our confusion with your character's.

The rest of the time was spent on being free~

The New Ghosts

So, the day before, the students were all asked to enable SATA 0 and disable SATA 1 before they powered down their computers so that the computers can be newly imaged.

And when the time came for the new images to be discovered, the Dropbox was a topic that was discussed between Eliza and Anny. Unfortunately... that wasn't the only thing that was discovered today...

When Eliza decided to show Anny how to use the Dropbox via desktop, she linked her Dropbox to the desktop... and every single computer in that room (or.. just all over the network!)!

Distressed, the first thing that came out of Eliza's mouth to AJ, who later came into the room was All About The Dropbox -- forget the Pentium, Weird Al!~

After some researching, rebooting of the computers, and reinstalling, AJ wrote to Brad and those guys and then proceeded to ask everyone in the room to turn off all of their computers.

As the students turned off their computers, they headed out to break. During this time, AJ turned on one computer to see if the Dropbox problem was fixed. It wasn't.

As each student came into the room, they were instructed to turn on their computers and resume work on their projects. When Krystal turned on her computer, everything was ENLARGED! "I'm not blind, you know!" stated the very frustrated Krystal as Jose goes, "Whoa.. that's giving me a headache." Indeed, her icons were large... Cristina attempted to help, but the problem was unsolved. Luckily, Tenzin walked into the room. The two sought Tenzin out for help but... the problem remained unsolved. Once again, Krystal rebooted her computer and this time around, everything seemed normal... right?

Earlier in the day, AJ had mentioned something about a password... that is, the new network drive requires the user to log in with a username and a password. Well, after several failed attempts, Cristina sought help from AJ and his email. Hidden deep within was the username and password. Unfortunately for Krystal, when a password was entered (instructor's), her computer wouldn't stop loading... so once again... She had to reboot her computer.

"By the time I open my project, class would be over!" Krystal remarked as she was instructed to reboot.. one last time.

After she got onto the network drive, without the prompt of a password or username, she began working contently on her project.

BTW Work Time and OS TEST!

The students started the day with diving right into one of their two projects! Whether they wanted to finish their scratch project or begin building their own computer was up to them. Many of the students started off with the more familiar scratch project because the Build Your Own Computer was recently introduced at the end of the day yesterday~

Nevertheless, many of the students jumped right into newegg.com and began finding parts for their virtual computer as soon as they finished their scratch games.

After the first break, Maddie was the only one working on her Scratch project, but she was also the only one who dived into this project with a mindset of making a complete game.. with all the levels and everything. Before the break, Cristina had worked with Maddie as she came up with a goal of making her dog chase her cat through this maze... but once all the other students started working on their Build Your Own Computer again, Maddie decided that she wanted her dog to chase the cat throughout the house. This required a background changing variable which Cristina did not know how to do. As she explained to Chou the problem that they were dealing with, he goes, "Oh.. I haven't done that before." But after 10 minutes or so, Maddie was well on her way to finishing off her project.

Hope it turns out the way you wanted it to, Maddie! Good luck, girl~ =)

As the students were supposed to head out to their next break, Chou kept telling them that they needed a break away from computers (they've been staring into the monitor intensely for a while now)... so he wasn't going to help them with any of their projects until the allotted time was done.

When they came back, the class had a Q&A session about operating systems, more work time, and then began their long awaited operating system permit test.

Permit Test?! Hardware?!

After shortly discussing DR3 -- a type of ram and Dance Dance Revolution, AJ ask the students if they had a question (one of the three that they were supposed to have written down over the weekend) and Krystal wondered whether a virus would effect both operating systems once it's caught. Jamarra answered with.. "not really" and AJ confirmed that even if you have two operating systems, you won't spread the virus because "they don't share needles." A perfect leeway to the Weird Al video about being White and Nerdy.

After the video, the students were to write a joke that Weird Al had in his video (must be about computers) and the majority of the students wrote about Weird Al making a web page for his dog... but couldn't exactly explain why the joke was funny!

"You better do better on this next test," said AJ as he played "All About the Pentium" by Weird Al.

After break the students were sent off to researching an answer to one of the questions that they compiled before the break. As AJ left for the day, he had the students answer the question via blogs!

As he left, Chou came into the spotlight with Antivirus and Spyware. After debating whether or not worm, trojan, rootkit, and phishing were either Anti or Spy, Chou told them the answers and explained to them the reasons.

The next activity was reviewing for the hardware permit test. Cristina lead the group on a competitive 2 team Jeopardy game focused on hardware. At the end of the game, Chou asked Gates: Windows, Jobs: Mac, [blank]: Linux. The first team's score, for getting the wrong answer, depleted to 0. The second team's score, for cheating (Googling the answer), was also depleted to 0. They're ALL winners!

As the students were getting done with their permit test, they finished their blogs. As each one of them finished up and published their blogs, they rebooted their computers and got to working on their projects!

Hope you 8 did well on the permit test!!

--- Eliza ended the day with the introduction to the student's BTW.