CCS-PK

GCSE ICT after-school sessions - 2010 onwards

2010-09-01T06:00:00Z

Now that I do not work at Chace I will NOT be providing any after-school sessions.

This page is simply a placeholder to maintain the link to the list of after-school session postings. The previous announcement for 2009/2010 part 3 can be found here.

Summer break - and closing down

2010-08-01T06:00:00Z

The usual post at this time of year says, "No posts - apart from this one - during August.".

But now that I have finished teaching, this weblog must close not just for August but more permanently. There may be the 'odd' post but nothing like the two or three updates per week I have maintained for some time now.

This site will remain operational for one year in the event that anyone finds it useful. Then it will be archived elsewhere for my own use.

As usual I hope you have a good summer break and that when you return in September you make the most of all the opportunities that are made available to you.

What if CCS-PK had been on Geocities?

2010-07-29T06:00:00Z

Geocities was a 'community' site started in the early 1990's that became very popular for a time and made it easy for people to set up their own "homepage". These were often very garish. It was taken over - and later closed - by Yahoo!

This site - Wonder Tonic - has a page where you can enter any URL and see what the page might look like if it had originally been created on Geocities - you can see how 'CCS-PK' came out in the picture at the top. (Click here to see the current CCS-PK Geocitized.)

Here are some other sites that have been Geocity-ised :

A couple of games for summer

2010-07-27T06:00:00Z

The holidays are here and I thought you might like a couple of games to help pass the time.

First - 'The IT Crowd' game.

Based on the popular Channel 4 series written by Graham Linehan. Your job? Help manage the network, get rid of spam, stop viruses and lots of other lovely IT admin stuff. And if it stops working you know what to do ..... that's right ..... turn it off and back on again.

Second - 'What the Hex' game.

If the 'IT Crowd' game made you feel like a real IT sysop then prove it .....

In 'What the Hex' you have to choose the correct colour from the ones shown by reading the RGB colour which is shown in hexadecimal notation. (Read about it here at Debbie T's)

if you find 5 colours too hard try it with just two colours to choose from - EASY
on the other hand you might want to try ten colours - HARD
then again, if you really are an IT superstar try the 48 colour version - MADNESS

Extra - 'Pixel Breakout'

This can hardly be called a game - which is why the title of this posting mentions only a couple of games - but it's quite neat and a bit of fun too. Based on one of the early video games, Breakout, where you controlled a bat which was used to keep a ball in play while also knocking bricks out of a wall.

In this version the ball and the bricks are pixel-sized. It starts slowly but does get quite hectic AND delightful. Refresh the page to try it again.

(Found via BoingBoing.)

Volunteering

2010-07-23T06:00:00Z

The summer holidays are coming up - why not set yourself something difficult to achieve - it will probably take you more than just the summer vacation as well.

There are lots of activities that you can offer your time and enthusiasm towards. This Google search will show you lots of activities in Enfield.

I expect some of you have already thought about getting involved with the London 2012 Olympic Games too - they are looking for people who can present themselves and London in a positive way.

Make a working Lego model

2010-07-21T06:00:00Z

The summer holidays are coming up - why not set yourself something difficult to achieve - it will probably take you more than just the summer vacation as well.

The picture above shows a Lego Technic model - it is a fully-working bridge launcher. It carries it's own bridge which it can lay across a gap, it then crosses the bridge and is finally able to pick up the bridge and move on to the next location.

You can see it in action - with full 'Thunderbirds' theme tune - in the video below.

I first came across this wonderful model via the Makezine site here. The actual "maker" is Peer Kreuger who has a Flickr site with pictures of this and other models.

So ..... why not use a bit of time this summer ..... and get making.

Learning a language

2010-07-19T06:00:00Z

The summer holidays are coming up - why not set yourself something really difficult to achieve - it will probably take you more than just the summer vacation as well.

Making a list of things to do is often referred to as a "bucket list" and there are many sites that can advise you how to go about this or even provide somewhere to store your list. You can even look at other lists to get some ideas of things to set yourself to do. (This Google search will start you off.)

Today I'm going to suggest you try learning Mandarin Chinese. Certainly difficult but most likely to be very useful in the future as China becomes a more dominant force in the world.

Photography - HDR

2010-07-16T06:00:00Z

The Gizmodo website holds quite regular competitons for photography and a recent one had the theme of 'HDR'.

Their galleries have 183 examples to view.

Not sure what HDR is - see here.

Although many of the pictures taken for this competition made use of quite expensive cameras it IS possible to produce good results with other equipment too. The picture above was taken on a simpler Panasonic model.

To prove the point this Gizmodo article has the title "395 Photos That Prove Cellphones Make Great Cameras" - and there ARE some excellent examples of what can be done with modern camera-phones.

Also - find photography, photoshopping and competitions at the Guardian Camera Club section or the Worth-1000 site.

Photography - Spring

2010-07-14T06:00:00Z

The Gizmodo website holds quite regular competitons for photography and a recent one had the theme of 'Spring'.

Their galleries have 264 examples to view.

Although many of the pictures taken for this competition made use of quite expensive cameras it IS possible to produce good results with other equipment too. The picture above was taken on an older Olympus 'point-and-shoot' model.

Also - find photography, photoshopping and competitions at the Guardian Camera Club section or the Worth-1000 site.

Photography - Shadows

2010-07-12T06:00:00Z

The Gizmodo website holds quite regular competitons for photography and a recent one had the theme of 'Shadows'.

Their galleries have 104 examples to view.

Although many of the pictures taken for this competition made use of quite expensive cameras it IS possible to produce good results with other equipment too. The picture above was taken on an LG cameraphone.

Also - find photography, photoshopping and competitions at the Guardian Camera Club section or the Worth-1000 site.

What does your email address say?

2010-07-09T06:00:00Z

The image above is of a poster that can be found here at The Oatmeal - a site that is entirely "written, drawn and coded" by Matthew Inman. (Quote taken from here.)

If you like the 'Email' poster then try these as well :

There's plenty of others to see at the site and you can also buy many of them as posters.

EXTRA -
Back in May I posted a link about Gizmodo graphics and '10 reasons to avoid using the phone'. I realised later that this was an Oatmeal poster and actually noted in the Gizmodo article. This post should correct the error.

Important elements for technology

2010-07-07T06:00:00Z

Most people are aware that silicon is a very important element in our modern technologically-driven lives as it underpins the electronics of almost all our digital devices.

But there are quite a few more elements that have, or will, play a part in helping drive technology forwards. This article from Popular Mechanics describes a few of them.

I find it interesting that the BBC GCSE Bitesize section on the Periodic Table does not include the 'rare earth' elements. When I was at school - in the late 1960's doing 'O' levels in all three sciences - we had to know quite a bit about the first 20 elements and be aware of the rest of the Perdiodic Table. They certainly featured in every picture or poster I ever saw at secondary school.

Deleting your Facebook account

2010-07-05T06:00:00Z

Facebook is very popular - over 450 million people can't be wrong, can they?

Yet, particularly in recent months, (I'm writing this in May) Facebook has attracted a lot of criticism for changes it has made to users' privacy settings. In almost every case this has increased the amount of information that becomes publically available.

You can see in this interactive graphic how things have changed over the last few years while this Gizmodo article details the complex privacy settings in graphical form.
This article at CNET goes into much more detail about the concerns AND it discusses how to delete or just deactivate your account.

EXTRA - since I originally wrote this article Facebook has made some progress towards both simplifying the privacy settings and making the default options more secure.

EXTRA 2 - Facebook appear to be testing an "Instant Destruction" option.

London and Tower Bridge

2010-07-02T06:00:00Z

'How to be a Retronaut' posted the wonderful picture above which shows Tower Bridge during construction. A truly historic photograph from 1892.

View Larger Map

Tower Bridge is now recognised worldwide and is one of the iconic images that characterise London - and the UK - in the minds of many people. The map above shows clearly where Tower Bridge is situated in London and this is also the location of the Tower Bridge Exhibition. Their website has a wealth of information about Tower Bridge and Wikipedia has a useful page about Tower Bridge too.

Stream videos at Ustream

Finally, from the Tower Bridge Exhibition site, a live view of Tower Bridge.

You could use the Tower Bridge Exhibition website to look up the times when the bridge is going to be raised and view the webcam. (English language version of the times can be found here.)

London Cycling

2010-07-01T06:00:00Z

London Cyclist is a great weblog about ..... cycling in-and-around London.

I thought this article from a couple of months back was quite informative -

7 mistakes you are making with your cycling and how to correct them