An EduTyping Start to the Day

Good Morning -

As opposed to writing a blog response today, we are going to make a little headway on Edutyping.  To kick off our block period, please complete lessons 17.1, 17.2 and 18.1 :)

Thanks!  You can rest your fingers for a moment between lessons!!

Nelson Mandela

Good Morning!!  Happy Tuesday!!  To kick off this morning I posted a quote from Nelson Mandela who passed away last week.  Mr. Mandela said, "do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."  ~ Nelson Mandela  What does this quote mean to you and why, in your opinion, would anyone want to be judged by the number of times they fell down and got back up?  In fact, what does that mean?

Thanks for your thoughtful response!  We will get started with Current Events shortly!


Once you have completed the blog post, please complete lesson 16.2 on EduTyping

Staying Focused and Being Consistent

Yesterday I actually sat down for a minute and watched some of the 49ers game.  The fact I was born and raised in the bay area and my wife's whole family is from Seattle - bragging rights were definitely on the line.  In any case, as I watched, Russell Wilson made a comment “You just take one day at a time and ignore the noise. It's about staying focused and being consistent on a daily basis - that's what a pro does."  What did Russell Wilson specifically mean when he made that comment and how does it extend to every part of your life and your future?  Specifically address the importance of staying focused, consistent and "ignoring the noise."  Thanks and we will get started shortly!

Please complete Edutyping lesson 16.1

December has Arrived!!

Good Morning, Welcome Back and Happy December!  Although we have been talking about how quickly the semester is going, it is crazy to think it is already December 2nd.  In fact, in just two weeks you will be taking your first semester final exams!

Today we are going to transition into Microsoft Excel - another powerful tool that will undoubtedly help you as you move through high school, college and life.  Our main goal with excel (given our limited time) is to ensure you know how to navigate the program and use the different tools available.

Before getting started, and even though it is a bit redundant, discuss what needs to be done over the next 2 weeks to ensure you get the best grades possible!!  Feel free to highlight which classes you need to focus the most attention towards and why.  In addition, do you feel you are responsible for getting the best grades possible?  Do the grades you get affect anyone besides yourself?  Explain?!?

Thank you and we will get started shortly!

Thanksgiving!!

Good Morning - Happy Tuesday!!  This Thursday is Thanksgiving.  What are your plans for the day?   Does your family have any special traditions?  How about the rest of your "long" weekend? Do you have any plans for the rest of the week with your extra days away from school?

While every year brings unique struggles and challenges to all of us, it is still amazing to think about everything we have to be thankful for!  Discuss a few things in your life that you are thankful for!!  Try to put forth some thought and really come up with something meaningful!

Thanks for your response.  After completing the post, please complete lesson 15.2 on Edutyping!

Quote of the Week

As you may know, last Friday was the 50th anniversary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas. JFK was the 35th president of the United States and was well respected by Americans at the time. JFK once said:

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Explain this quote. What did JFK mean by it? What does it mean to you? Do you agree or disagree with a quote like this and how important is its meaning to you? Be thorough and thoughtful. After completing today's blog (5-6 sentences please), please complete through lesson 15.1 on Edutyping and email me (crubin@seq.org) a copy of your powerpoint presentation in PPT format!

CTE!?!?! What in the World is That?

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

On Thursday, December 5th, we will be going to Canada College in Redwood City to learn about their CTE Career Pathways.  For today's blog I would like you to respond to the following:

1.  Give as detailed a description as possible regarding what CTE is!
2.  Why do you think Career Technical Education is important and why has Menlo-Atherton High School and many districts around California made it a requirement for graduation?
3.  How do you feel like this type of education could help you personally?
4.  Finally, look up online a few different CTE pathways and list 3 that sound most interesting to you!

An Amazing Visit with Ms. Kleeman

Good Morning!!!  Block Day!  This past week we have been researching a variety of career options and we are just now starting to transition into looking at schools that might help us pursue the careers we are either interested in and/or that fit our interests well!  Yesterday was a perfect transition day as we had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Kleeman.  Today I would like to start off with you reflecting on our visit to Ms. Kleemans classroom with a "Thank You" blog.  Please write a Thank You to Ms. Kleeman as your blog post.  Your blog may include some of the following which discuss what you learned and how it benefited you:

• For her time
• For the specific things you learned
• For the things she motivated you to do moving forward
• For the various resources she offers to M-A students (be specific)

As you write this, keep in mind that Ms. Kleeman graduated from Harvard University, has worked at M-A since 1994, she is the reigning national typing champion (147 words per minute and 97% accuracy and she has helped thousands of students get into college, make their dreams come true and make their families proud!  What a lady!

Exploring Colleges and Careers

Good Morning and Happy Friday!!  This weekend is a 3 day weekend!  After all, Monday is Veteran's Day, a day to honor those who have served in the armed forces.  This week we spent a significant amount of time working with Naviance and exploring various career options that might appeal to you.  For today's blog, please respond to the following questions:

1.  What is your first impression of Naviance?  Do you like or dislike it?  Why?
2.  Do you think that Naviance could be helpful to you?  In what ways could it be helpful? 
3.  How did completing the career interests survey help you?
4.  Did looking through the various careers that might "fit" you based on the career interest survey make you think of other professions that might be of interest to you?  Why do you think that you had never thought of those as a career option before?

Thanks for your feedback ... and, hey, HAPPY FRIDAY!

Once you have finished the blog, please complete lesson 12.2 in Edutyping :)

A Day in the Guidance Classroom!

Hello, Happy Tuesday -

Yesterday you spent the class period with Ms. Escobar.  To be completely honest (and since she excused me early) I don't know what she covered with you during that time.  For your blog today please respond to the following:

1.  What was the purpose of the meeting with Ms. Escobar?
2.  Discuss a minimum of 2 topics that were discussed.
2.  What was one thing that was helpful and/or that you learned?
3.  What is one more thing that you would like and/or need to know as you move forward?

Thanks!  I look forward to learning more about your day in the Guidance office yesterday!

Mr. Rubin

A Blogger Day About You!

Good Morning  and Happy Wednesday!

What a strange day!  It feels like it should be a block day, but ... at last, it is not!  Today I would like to take a break from our regular routine and blog about your goals and what it takes to achieve them.  I know we have done assignments before where I ask you to just list your goals but I wanted to attack this from a different perspective today.  Please read on:

Albert Einstein once said, "Your imagination is the preview to life's coming attractions." It is now time to put your imagination to use. Pretend you have just been hired by a famous Hollywood Director to write the screenplay for your perfect day. Write what your perfect day would be like five years from today. This must be a detailed account so we can truly get a sense that we are living in that moment with you ... the more detail and passion the better.  Where would you wake up? What time would you wake up? What kind of house would it be?  (describe it in detail) What would you do when you woke up? Where would you go? In what kind of car would you be driving around town? Would you have a family?  Etc, Etc! Write in detail what your perfect day would be like five years from today. 

After you have completed that portion of the assignment, now I want you to write a second paragraph that discusses the following;

1. How realistic is the scenario you wrote about above?
2. What support, help, questions do you have in regard to making the above happen
3. Name one reason why the above would not happen
4. How committed would you say you are to making the above happen on a scale of 1-10 and why did you choose that number?

I am excited to read your responses.  I will explain at the end of class why it is so important for something like this to be on paper (or in this case, at minimum, in print)!  Thank you for your thoughtfulness in advance, while I look forward to reading these, I will admit, the purpose is more to benefit you than me :)

A Great Quote!

As you can see, the quote above was from Wayne Gretzky.  Who is Wayne Gretzky?  What do you think he meant by this quote and how can you relate it to yourself and your academic goals?

Thanks for a thorough thoughtful response.

Quarter 2 Begins

Happy Friday and Welcome to the 2nd Quarter!  I suppose the 2nd quarter actually officially began on Monday but to me it feels like we are finally getting going today after the project we just completed!  Hopefully most of you are feeling comfortable and confident with your MS Word skills and are just about ready to move on to PowerPoint.  

For today's blog, I would like you to take a moment and think about 1 very specific way you feel like the Academy could help you achieve your goals.  Obviously to answer that question, it is important that you have a goal in mind!  After responding to the question, please click on the link below and complete the following survey!  

Thank you!

http://goo.gl/jfpOFz

You're the Boss

Good Morning!

On Friday you will be getting your first real world business experience with the Academy when we travel to Cisco in San Jose. Two questions today:

1 - Why would it be so important for you as an individual to make an outstanding impression that day?
2 - If you were the owner of a company (or even the boss) and were responsible for making hiring decisions at your company, what would be the three most important things you would look for in a candidate.  How would you assess these things?

Thanks!  I look forward to discussing your responses.

Mr. Rubin

Beginning the 2nd half of Quarter 1

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday -

Yesterday we began working with Microsoft Word.  Explain 3 reasons why mastering a program like MS Word would be important to your future success in both school and career?

As a second part of today's post, highlight what you enjoyed about our Google Apps unit.  What were your favorite tools?  Anything you would have changed?  Anything you would still like to know more about?

Thanks for your thorough (and, of course, thoughtful) responses!

Mr. Rubin

Shoreline Lake and the End of the First Progress Period!

Good Morning!!  

Part I:  Yesterday we spent the morning and Shoreline Lake in Mountain View as you all know.  Just for the sake of clarification, what was the purpose of that field trip?  Did you enjoy the trip?  What was your favorite moment of the day?  Next year, what would you change about the day?  Anything?  If there is somewhere else or another activity that you think we should consider, feel free to include that too.

Part II:  Can you believe that Friday marks the end of the first quarter progress report period?  That means that for the first time this school year your grades get printed by admin and sent home!  I am sure that all of you want to make sure that you are in good standing in all of your classes and off to a good start!  On the block day this week we will have a study hall.  2 questions.  1.  What does a study hall mean to you?  What would you establish as the requirements for you and your classmates?  In addition, what are some things that you would work on during this time on Wednesday/Thursday?

Thanks for your thorough, thoughtful responses to all of the above and Happy Tuesday!

Picasa is Awesome!

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

This week we focused on the cool tool known as Picasa!!  List 3 reasons you believe that people should be using Picasa.  Please write a detailed sentence for each with the tool you think is helpful and how it can benefit the user!

It's as simple as that.

Thanks!!

More Google Apps to Come!

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday!

Over the past 2 days we have had an opportunity to investigate a few more applications that Google offers you for free.  These include "Google Advanced Search," "Finding and Saving Images in Google" and using "Google Translate."  For today's post, which of these tools are you most impressed with?  Which one do you think would be the most helpful for you in the future and explain why?  Think of a time when it would have been incredibly helpful to have a tool like this or think of a specific need you might have where this tool would come in handy.  Elaborate on how it would help!

Thanks!!

Happy Monday and on we go with Google!

Good Morning and Happy Monday -

Before completing your post, please complete lesson 4.2 on Edutyping.  Thank you.

Post: 

Today we are going to move forward with our use of Google!!  Before doing so, however, I would like you to quickly reflect on your experience over the past few days working with GoogleSites.  We will begin with a quick recap of your weekend.

1.  How was your weekend?  What was something that you did that was particularly fun?  Did you have to work and/or did you do any work for school (study, make-up work, homework, etc?)
2.  What is your impression of GoogleSites?  Did you like working with it?  What were some tools that you found easy to use?  Did you find any tools that you thought were difficult?  Would you be tempted to create your own site using Google?
3.  What is the most powerful use for a website?  Instead of me offering any examples, think about how you or someone you know could use a website and how it would help you (or them)!

Thanks for your response ... today we learn more about what Google can do for you!!

The Google Calendar!

Good Morning and Happy Friday!  You are about to officially finish the second week of the school year and as a reward you get a 3 day weekend :)!  Well, actually, you get Monday off because our government decided that each year, on the first Monday in September, there would be a day off to recognize the contribution workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.

Okay, enough about that.  Yesterday we set up a Google Calendar together.  From what I could tell, it was a first time for many, if not all of you!  What do you think of the Google Calendar?  Do you think it is something you could use?  Is there someone you can think of besides yourself who it would benefit?  If you do use it (or if you were forced to use it), name three things that you believe it would be most useful to you for?

Thanks!  We'll keep pushing forward in just a moment :)

Mr. Rubin

p.s. As soon as you complete this blog, please work on Edutyping lesson 2.2

Class Assemblies

Good Morning  -

For our blog post today, I would like you to reflect on the school assembly from Monday.  Obviously there were a lot of rules outlined by our vice principles.  If you were in charge of running the school, what would be the 3 most important rules that you would insist on enforcing to ensure the school runs smoothly?  What would you list as the 3 most important rules needed for a classroom to run smoothly?  Are these rules the same or different and why?

Finally, the school has invested a lot of money into providing planners for all students.  List three ways you can/will use your planner and how you feel it can help you be successful during this school year!  Are there other ways that you stay organized?  If so, explain any of the tools you use in addition to/instead of your planner.

Thanks for your thoughtful response!

Happy First Block Day!

Week 1 - Complete

Good Morning and Happy Friday!  When you leave school today you will have officially made it through the first week of the 2013-2014 school year!  For today's post, please briefly highlight what you have planned for this weekend.  Then, I would like you to take a moment and reflect on the classes you have this year.  Which class are you most excited for? Why? Which class do you think will be the most challenging? Why? Is there anything that you plan to do over the weekend to make sure you are as prepared as possible as things start to move a little faster next week?

Thanks for taking your time to write a thoughtful response!  We will get started as a group momentarily!

Using Google!!

Good Morning and Welcome to day 3!  Today we will begin our first unit of the school year.  This unit will be focused on Google!!  For today's blog please write a short paragraph about all of the things that you know Google can do for you.  For example:  We all know that Google is a fantastic search engine. You could write:

Google is a search engine that can help me locate information and images for school or personal use.

Let's see what type of list we can compile as a class :)  Ready, GO!

All About Me - Blog Post 2

For our second blog post, it seemed appropriate to design something that would allow both myself and the rest of the class to learn something about you. Give a brief introduction of yourself including your name and then answer the following questions thoroughly.

Please write about your:

• strongest personality traits (outgoing, caring, social)
• things you spend the most time doing outside of school
• One thing you really enjoy doing
• Goals you have set for the year
• How are you going to achieve those goals.
• How do you learn best? i.e. how can I help you achieve those goals.

As part of this assignment we will include a picture of yourself.

Here's an example:
bout Me

My name is Christopher Rubin.  I was born and raised here in the Menlo Park area and attended Menlo-Atherton High School from 1993-1997.  After graduating from M-A I went to UC San Diego where I majored in Psychology and Philosophy and played competitively for the Men’s Water Polo team.  As we begin the 2013-2014 school year, this marks my 13th year as a teacher. A big part of my time at M-A has also been spent coaching the girls water polo team.  I finished my 11th season as girls water polo coach last year and am looking forward to taking on a supportive role this year (in the stands).

On a personal level, I just celebrated my 2 year anniversary with my wife Laurin who also happens to work at M-A.  Our current family consists of the two of us, our 5 chickens, 4 rabbits, 2 kittens and 2 pygmy goats.  We both love to cook, work in the garden and ride our beach cruisers.  This past summer was probably one of the most relaxing either of us have ever had.  We spent time with friends and family, spent time enjoying the area and, as usual, watched some great Earthquakes soccer games. 

I’m looking forward to meeting each of you as we begin the year and hope this gives you a better idea of who I am as we get started.  On campus, in addition to my role as Academy Coordinator and Mentor Coordinator I also teach 10th grade Computer Applications and 12th grade Government and Economics.  I am looking forward to a fun, fast paced academic year.  In addition to covering core academic standards in my classes I hope to equip each student with the skills necessary to succeed in our world today.

Preparing for the First Day of School

Good Morning and Welcome back to M-A!  Today we are going to begin our year long blog.  This blog will not only provide a good opportunity to use technology, but is a great way to track our course throughout the year, your thoughts on a variety of issues and general information along with a fun opportunity to learn a little about your classmates.  Each day we will begin with a new topic.  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 did you prepare for the first day of school?  Did your preparations begin just today?  This morning? Perhaps it began a week ago.  In addition, how do you feel today as school begins.  What are some things you are hoping to achieve this school year?  With each blog post, you are required to include one picture that represents your post.  Obviously, given that today is our first post, if you need help with this, don't hesitate to ask!

Welcome Back Again!! Let's have a great 2013-2014 School Year!