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Easter Week Teaser

Before getting into this week's teaser, our super teaser from last week is over and Kai was the only winner. I will bring her $10 gift certificate at Subway to school on  Monday.

The city without streets is Venice, Italy. For a panoramic 360 degree look at Venice, click here. Let the picture load and click full-screen. It's an interesting way to see places.

For this week, the first three people to correctly e-mail me the name of the city and country will receive the usual hour's worth of free computer time.

Since Easter is the celebration of Christ's rise from the dead, we head to a world famous city where a huge statue of Jesus overlooks the city and bay where it is located.  Name the city and country it is in.

Good Luck; send your entries to v6math@gmail.com

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Our Class Calendar

Here's a calendar of events and topics in class for the next three weeks. Time is going to go by very fast in the 4th quarter. Don't let yourself fall behind.

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Your Easter Week To-Do List

Besides sleeping in, watching t.v., eating, and chatting, there is one more item on your Easter Week to-do list.

Try doing as many of these problems as possible. We only have one more class day to finish. If you're not sure how to do a problem, circle it and bring your question in.

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Weekend Break; The Future, Games/ Music & More

Want to see into the future? Sure, who doesn't. Check out in20years.com.  Take a picture from your web cam, upload it to the site, and see yourself 20 years and 30 years in the future.  Do you look like mom or dad?

In the last post, I mentioned the advantages of having a mouse. Here are some fun, time wasting, on line games that require a mouse to play.  The first one is Basketball. How many points can you score in the given time.  My high score is 90, try to beat it.....if you're not scared.

 Another fun, on line mouse game is Ricochet Kills 2. Test your aim and ricochet skills. Be careful, you can lose a lot of time playing this one.

 

For music lovers, especially those who like to sing or want to be in a band, there's Breakout Band. Using the built-in microphone on your computer and the breakout band's instruments, you can create, record, and post your songs. Send the song link to your friends if you like.  A great site to practice and be creative if music is your thing.

Last but definitely not least is an on line typing program called Z-Type.  I've mentioned the importance of learning how to type before. You'll be doing a lot of it in your 8th grade computer class. With Z-Type, you learn typing by shooting down the words as the drop from the sky.  If you want something that is fun and improves your skills, Z-Type is a great way to do it.

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Got a Mouse in Your House? ...You Should

Most of you probably use your computers at home more than anywhere else. If you do, you really should have a mouse to use with it. Using your computer is much faster and easier with a mouse, and there are a lot of programs ( and games) that you must use a mouse.

There a many places on Saipan that sell mice (plural of mouse) for $15 or less. Sherwood, MegaByte, PC Outlet, and others carry mice. It's definitely worth the money, especially since the computer was free.

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Trouble with Transformations? Here's Help

If you're having trouble figuring out the whole transformation thing, you know, translations, reflections, and rotations, help is on the way.

Two short animated videos can be downloaded here and here.

 

 Another video for those who need to start at the very beginning can be downloaded here. This video covers x and y coordinates, how to plot them on a graph, and what positive and negative coordinates are.

I have also created a few short Power Point presentations covering all the different topics involved. They can be downloaded here, here, and  here,

There is one last Power Point with 3 problems to solve and the answers so you can check yourself. I encourage you to try those three, as we will be testing on this the week we return to school. The download for this Power Point is here.

More to come during the week.  So what??? Only Kai knows how to create, save, and send a short video?? Really?? You're all so rich and full that you don't need $10 from Subway. C'mon, someone give it a shot!

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Kai Rocks!!!

That's all.

Well, that's not really all.  One of the reason Kai rocks is that she has already put her video together and sent it to me. One winner down, one to go.  Good job, Kai.

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Grades are Here

The list of all 3rd Quarter grades by code can be downloaded here.

See you all tomorrow.

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This Week's Super Teaser

The staff, management, and employees here at V6 Math world headquarters have gone absolutely crazy!!!  For this week's SuperTeaser, they are giving away a $10 gift certificate at Subway (eat fresh) to the first two people who successfully answer this weeks question and follow all the instructions doing so. 

Instead of simply emailing me with the correct answer, the winners are going to create a short (at least 15 seconds) video using their webcam. On this video, you are going to give me the name of the city, the country it is in, and one fact about the place--Any fact. You will then simply save the file and attach it to an email sent to the usual place: v6math@gmail.com. 

Is that the easiest ten bucks you ever earned or what?? Don't say no, because you know it is.  Alright, here's some pics of this weeks world famous place, the city without streets:

See the post before this one for making videos using your webcam. Good Luck, and Josh Matt, if you're thinkin' Arby's, we can do something about that too.

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Using Your Web Cam & V-Mail

 There are many things you can do with your web cam.  One of them is to create, save, and send v-mails. (Video mail).  Maybe someone is having a birthday, and instead of just writing them an e-mail, you can record audio and video from your webcam and built -in microphone and send them this file instead.

After recording and saving the file, you just add the file as an attachment to an email. When the person gets your email, they can open the video with VLC, Windows Media, or whatever player they use.

I'm not sure if your computer has video recording software on it, but there is a great free, and easy to use program called Cam Studio. You can download it here. After shooting your video, there is another easy to use program for adding special effects and text. This program is called Many Cam.

Try it out. You can always shoot a video, add some special effects, and email it to yourself just for practice.

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Final Score: Girls 3, Boys 0

Congratulations to Carlene, Kai & 'Casey', for correctly identifying this:

 As the Opera House in Sydney, Australia. As is our custom here at the V6 Math blog, each of these girls receive one hour of computer time when they choose.

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A Question for Each One of You...

As you know, report card day is coming soon, which means only one thing: Grades.

Here is my question to each of you:  Have you ever failed a class you actually tried to pass??

Have you ever done all the assignments, finished all the reading, studied for the tests, asked for help until you understood, and still failed the class?? 

Nobody fails Math. Nobody fails Social Studies, Nobody fails Science or Language. That's too easy. No, No, No. It's not the subject.

If some of you fail, you didn't fail Math or any other class. Understand this now. You failed in your effort. You failed in your responsibility, and you failed in taking care of you. None of that has anything to do with  math or being able to do math.

Grades are about your heart and your guts first. Grades are about your character more than anything else.

No one, and I mean no one, with a grade of 62% or below failed math. You failed to do math. Each of you has the brains to pass if you want. Do you want to, for you?? You still have another quarter to do what's best for you. Do it.

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In Case You Missed It.....

Here's our school calendar for the rest of April:

Best in Class: Media Centers

If you download movies and video clips, and have lots of songs and pictures on your hard drive, it's far easier to find, organize and play these media files if they are stored in one place. By far the best media center application is XBMC. I mentioned this program in an earlier post, but it's worth saying it again. XBMC will play almost any type of file, is skinnable (has many different 'looks' to it), can be customized with easy to find add-ons, and keeps all your files organized for easy  playing.  Here's a couple of pictures of XBMC:

You can download XBMC here. Select Windows from the list showing. As usual, since the program is free, it's worth a try. If you don't like it, or don't have a lot of media files, you can always uninstall and delete it.

If you like to look for pictures on the internet for your desktop or whatever, you may come across some pictures with writing or other markings on them that you would like removed. See picture below:

 Notice the writing on the bottom left. A website named webinpaint can easily remove this and almost anything else you may want removed from a picture. Even if you don't see a need for this now, you can always right click on the link, select 'bookmart this link', and you'll have the site saved in case you need it later. Below is the same picture after 30 seconds with webinpaint:

More to come this weekend including links from earlier posts like Avast!, Chrome, Firefox, and new stuff.

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Last Week's Winners: Kai & Josh

Congratulations Kai & Josh for correctly identifying last week's Tuesday Teaser as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Here's a couple more shots of it before moving on to this weeks teaser.

Remember, winners receive a free hour of computer time during class whenever they feel like it.

For this week's teaser, another world famous landmark. If you don't know the name of the place, you can say what city it's in; that's good enough for a winner.
Did you read last week's post about the program TinEye? Check it out for a guaranteed win.

3rd Qtr. Final Review Pt. 2

Be sure and download both of the final review parts and bring them on your laptop Monday.  The second part can be found here, and should download to your downloads folder. Once again, let me know if these work with Open Office. There are a couple of things we can do to fix it if you cannot view the PowerPoints.

Of course, you can always get started early, since you will be solving all the problems on both of the presentations. Good Luck.

Windows 7 Gadgets

Here's a couple of gadgets for your desktop you may want to try. Of course if you download them and don't like or use it, you can always delete the gadget.

1. Mini T.V.: Get hundreds, no, thousands of t.v. and radio stations on your desktop. You can even change the t.v. to full screen mode. Get it here.

2.  Facebook Explorer Gadget:  The Facebook Explorer Gadget keeps track of your friends’ activities, your messages, event notification and more. It’s a waste of time to open your browser, login to Facebook account from time to time only to find out there was no update. If you use Facebook Explorer, you do not need to visit Facebook as you will be notified of all the updates on the gadget. Try it here.

PowerPoint Tutorials/Review for Final Exam

If you need more practice or are confused about some of the topics we covered this quarter, then please download, view, and practice the examples in the following PowerPoint presentations. As mentioned in the previous post, you should be able to view them with Open Office.  See the post before this for directions and the final exam review for download.  Here's the downloads:

For Circles: Click Here

For Triangles, Polygons, and Area, click here, here, and here

Finally, for Proportions and Similar Shapes, click here

This should keep you busy for awhile. Put some time in before the final and you'll do much better.
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3rd Quarter Review for Download

As mentioned before, your review guide for this quarter's final exam is a PowerPoint presentation. Although the answers are given, you will still have to work out all the problems. If you do not get the right answer, work it again until you do. I will be checking your work to make sure the answer was achieved correctly. Here is the link for the Presentation. It should download directly to your download folder.

NOTE: Even though OpenOffice does not automatically open this type of  file, you should be able to open and then go to slide show, from beginning.

If you are having trouble opening the file, please email me and let me know.
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