Welcome New Sixth Grade Rotation!

Dear Sixth Grade Students,
Welcome to your computer science rotation! Your homework for TONIGHT is to find this page (congratulations!) and bookmark it. Also make a bookmark to Custom Typing so that you can find it easily for your 30 minutes of typing homework each week. The secret question is: What is […]

6th Grade: Welcome to Scratch!

Dear 6th grade students,
Today was your first taste of Scratch, a programming language for kids from MIT that we will be learning and using for the next four weeks in class.  Your homework assignment for tonight is to download Scratch at home (free!) and show a sibling or parent one of the things you learned […]

Internet Ethics Public Service Announcements

As seen in the “making of..” featurette (below), my sixth grade students have spent the last two weeks writing, filming and editing original 30-second public service announcements about online safety and ethical issues.  Here are a few of the best examples:
Identity Theft
identitytheftpsaweb.mov
Online Bullying
online-bullying-psa.mov
The Internet is Public
publicinternetpsa.mov
Facebook Safety
facebooksafetypsa.mov
Illegal Downloading
illegaldownloadingpsa.mov
I hope you enjoyed these and maybe even […]

Movie-Making Fun

My sixth grade classes are making short public service announcements about various ethical issues surrounding computer and Internet use. The whole film-making process, from research to storyboarding, rehearsals, filming and editing takes about two weeks to complete.  The kids love using the class Flip cameras and iMovie to bring their ideas to life– the classroom […]

Typing Homework for New 6th Grade Rotation

Dear 6th Grade Students– Many of you had questions in class yesterday about exactly what to do for your typing practice homework for my class. Since improving typing speed seems to be a universal class goal, consistent weekly practice is going to be really important for the next eleven weeks (and beyond!).
Here’s the scoop: […]

Welcome New Rotation!

Dear Sixth Grade Students– Welcome to your Winter Quarter Computer Science rotation with me, Ms. Hansen. What is one thing you hope to learn about computers or computer science this quarter? Respond in the comments.
Sincerely, Ms. Hansen
PS Remember to sign your comment with JUST your first name (no last names!) Include a last […]

More Public Service Announcements

Here are two more examples of the public service announcements my sixth graders made using iMovie and our class Flip video cameras.
This movie is about the importance of throwing trash away and not littering (keep your eyes peeled for a brief guest appearance by Ms. Hansen herself, playing “karma”):
trashkarma.mov
This movie is about another important middle […]

6th Graders Create Public Service Announcements

My 6th grade students spent the past three weeks in class writing, shooting and editing thirty second public service announcements about issues around our school. I will be uploading a few of the movies over the course of the next week. Here’s one about recycling:Here’s one about the importance of proper hand washing:skhandwashing.mov

Scratch Sensor Boards

My sixth grade classes continue to study programming using Scratch. Each student created a game or an application (from scratch, so to speak…), and the (mostly) finished projects are available online on the Scratch Web site.
This week the students were thrilled to get a chance to start using scratch boards in their programming projects. […]

Programming with Scratch

Dear 6th Grade Students,
We are deep into our computer programming unit using a new programming environment called Scratch. Scratch was developed at MIT to provide an easy and intuitive way for young people to create animations, interactive games and even basic software applications.  All of the code is in drag and drop “blocks” which fit […]