I think that I have had good experiences with science and math. I have enjoyed math and science since I was a child and am currently two years ahead of my grade in math(I am in Advanced Pre-calculus). I also enjoy science and have good general knowledge about it. My favorite subjects are Biology and Chemistry. I think I have been good at science and math all through school and have relish doing it all along.
Today in class, I learned many things that I previoulsy did not know. I learned about HTML programming and what it is, which I thought was completely different. I also learned about Shodor's policies including its internet use policy and dress code. I now know how webpages are made and what it takes to make them. I also know what this program expects of me and I feel that I will be able to meet all of the program's requirements.
I learned about all the various different ethics rules here at Shodor. I did not know all of the rules earlier, but now I am excited that I do. Learning these different policies, rules, and customs made me think about my life in general, outside of Shodor. I also learned how to use GIMP and and Inkscape today. I was never exposed to these programs earlier and I really like them.
This week I was excited when I learned how to incorporate Cascading Style Sheets into my homepage. These style sheets allowed me to customize my page and make it my own. I also learned specific information about CSS such as the three types: Internal, External, and Inline. In the afternoon, I learned about the mathimatics component of the Shodor Program and got to refresh my mental math skills. I think I will used the math programs that I learned today to improve my skills.
This week, I improved my knowledge of stylesheets and HTML coding in general. I learned how to format my page by adding columns and top bars. I also learned basic JavaScript and added some to my webiste. The most useful thing I learned though was how to proofread my own code for errors without the help of others. This new skill helped me out greatly whenever I had minor errors in style or format.
Today I learned about the application AgentSheets and all of its different uses. The program was new to me and I have never used anything like it. I had fun experimenting around with different behavior and creating agents. The model that we made in class was about doctors, healthy people, and sick people interacting. I hope to use the program more in the future.
In class today, I learned more features in the AgentSheets program by doing various projects and assignments. I also made my own model with grass that grows and rabbits that eat grass. I was fun doing the models and they taught me a lot of new information. I hope to be able to use my skills with computer modelling in the future to do other projects.
Today, I learned about the program NetLogo, which like AgentSheets does modelling. I like this program because it is interesting and it very easy to control. However, it is also hard to use at time because of the various times that specific text entry is required. Even though this program is a little difficult in the beginning, I think that I will be able to use it effectively soon.
Today, I improved my NetLogo skills by practicing again in class. Our new teacher, Patricia, did a great job at showing me the right steps to making models. Specifically, I learned about how to quarantine and isolate certain groups of turtles. I also got started on my group project and got a good amount of work done on the movement of the chickens, farmers, and other people. Finally, I learned about the new AMC project for Module 2 and will most likely start it next week.
Today, I learned about how to use some of the applets at the Shodor Interactive website. I did the activity "Flake Maker" and learned about fractals, iteration, recursion, and other concepts and terms brought up in the activity. This is because today was primarily a work day. I also learned more about how to use NetLogo 4.0 because I wanted to improve my abilities. I think that my practicing NetLogo will help me in my group project.
This week, I learned about PHP programming and about modeling. PHP is a commonly used programming language that has many features and capabilities. In class, I was able to create a guessing game using PHP session variables. I learned about modeling by using the program AgentSheets. I have used this program before but this week, the class went more in depth by constructing a infection model with Zombies and Humans. The model that my group built taught me the ways that infections can be spread along with what can be done to treat them.
This week in class, I learned about the Unix coding language. Unix is a tool used by many programmers to gain more control over the processes of their computers. To learn Unix more efficiently, the class was given the opportunity to use it in a real setting, through the program Terminal. In addition to learning Unix, I learned about probability and statistics this week. I learned this by using the computational science activities located at the Shodor Interactivate website.
This week, I learned about Java programming and the computational chemistry software WebMO. Java programming allows a person to create dynamic webpages with many interactive features. I plan to use JavaScript to make my own website more interactive and complex. The web-based software WebMO provides many interesting and useful features to enable one to construct molecules. With WebMO, I was able to determine the bond angle, bond length, and vibrational frequencies of a H2O molecule.
This week in class, we learned about making mathematical models and creating servers. We learned about mathematical modeling by designing and executing experiments at the YMCA. My experiment dealt with determining if the rate of calories burned increases as a person's speed increases on an elliptical. The class learned about creating servers through the System Administration class, where we created our own virtual machines and installed software on them. The software that we installed was called WebMO, which is a computational chemistry tool that can be used to explore the bonds between molecules.