Americans have a strange relationship with the police:  we want them to protect us, but we don’t want them to violate on our freedoms.  The video below, talks about our freedom to photograph events (including those involving police). It paints a pretty negative picture of cops.  What’s been your experience with the police?   Watch the video and answer the following questions:

1) Describe a time when a police man/woman has helped/protected you or someone you know?

2)  Describe a time when a police man/woman has acted in a way you disagreed with.  How could they have handled it better?

3) Should citizens be able to take photos and videos of the police?  Why or why not?

4) Is there anything a citizen should not be allowed to take a photo or video of (for example, inside the subway, couples making out, outside the White House)?

———–

Extra Credit:   What did the video mean by “Corruption drives on Secrecy”?

 

It’s time for each of you to step up your game.  

The new rule is that every time you have my class, you must post something.  I don’t care if it’s a rough draft of something you are writing, an unfinished SketchUp project, or a Scratch project that you are in the middle of.  Post it on your blog.   You can always edit it later.  Below are videos on how to post different kinds of projects:

It’s that time of year again…

For those of you who don’t know, each year Google has a contest to design their logo based on a theme.  This year’s theme is “If I could travel in time I’d visit…”

Entries are due by March 20th. You can use pens, markers, colored pencils, paint, and Photoshop.  This year, you must submit your work on one of the Google Entry forms below:

Here are some examples from previous years: TCarter, ASebelen, EColon

Click HERE for some facts and images about the 20th Century to inspire you.

Jeesh!  I had no idea how popular my random questions would be for blog posting!  Here are some more– Please answer with a lot of juicy details!

 

1.  Describe your bedroom.  What’s the single most important thing in it?

2. What’s your best childhood memory?

3. What’s something you eat that many people find disgusting?

4. Do you believe in love at first sight?  Why or why not?

5. Do you sing in the shower?

6. What’s one thing you’d change about your neighborhood?

7. If you were the opposite sex, what would your name be?

8. A window opens, it’s you 3 years ago,  what advice do you give yourself?

9.  Make a poem inspired by this song.

10.  What something you fake all the time?

Click HERE for directions on how to move around the screen.

Next, Have your character jump onto platforms

Click HERE for Jumping directions.

What qualities do you look for when choosing your friends? Write a post in your blog about it…

or use Wordle to create a word cloud by clicking here.   Post the Wordle on your blog by taking a screenshot . Watch this tutorial to see how:

**EXTRA CREDIT:

Have you ever had a friend that changed and stopped having the qualities you look for in a friend?  Did you end the friendship or just keep it going?  What lessons did you learn from the experience?  Without using their real names, tell the story of what happened.

Below is a tutorial on how to do it. Remember: YOUR DRAWINGS DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT!

This semester we’ve been playing serious games (think: Ayiti, ICED, HIV/AIDS) in order to learn about important issues in a fun and interesting way.  Your job for the next few months is to create a serious game of your own.    In this assignment you will create several backgrounds for your game using SketchUp.   Below is a video tutorial  on how to create realistic backgrounds in SketchUp:

Once created, you’ll put your backgrounds into Scratch and have them scroll along while your character walks. Click HERE for the lesson.

Watch a clip from the movie A.I. by clicking HERE.  Next, answer the questions below in your blog:

1. Should roboticists (those who make robots) avoid making robots that think and feel like humans?  Why or why not?

2. Should some robots be given human rights?  For example, the right not to be tortured, to be allowed to marry, to be educated, and to be free to practice a religion?

Imagine this:  you are instant messaging with two “people”.  One of the people is human and the other is really a computer.  Can you tell the difference?

This is the question that a man named Alan Turing had in 1950.  He called this test– to see if humans could tell the difference between Man and Machine– The Turing Test.  So far, no machine has passed.  That said, ever year computers come closer and closer to passing the Turing Test.

Now it’s your turn to test some of the machines.  This is not exactly a Turing Test because there are no humans on the other end, but your job is to talk with two machines and figure out why you know they’re not human.

1. Click on each of these machines and have a conversation with them:

Splotchy

Cleverbot

2.  In your blog answer the following questions:

a) Did either of the machines come close to passing the Turing Test (did they seem human?)

b) What were some of the questions you asked Splotchy and Cleverbot?  What kind of questions were Splotchy and Cleverbot better at answering?

c) How do you think these computers program work? Why do you think it’s so hard to design a machine that passes the Turing Test?