photograph and name in the same place. Enter the avatar. Avatars are used to represent oneself. Today we learned how to create our own personalized avatar which mirror our own features. We will use these avatars in place of our actual photographs when doing the project I have lined up. But first, here's our agenda:
- Take Register
- Computer problems
- How long will you live
- Project (Strange Jobs)
- Lesson (Avatar)
Computer Problems
Unfortunately, our computer labs have been plagued by frequent technical problems this year. As a result, the computer club was not able to do any practical work tonight and our project did not enjoy the launch I hoped for. :-( Rather than waste the time of everyone involved (parents, members, and myself) I am going to suspend Computer Club activities until we have some reassurance that our labs will be restored to their former operational glory.
How Long Will You Live?
I recently read that one of the questions most asked by youngsters is "How long will I live". I stumbled upon this cool online app which gives you a rough estimate of your life expectancy. I don't think that this "calculated age" should really be taken to heart but what I do like about the application is that it allows one to see how things like: not wearing a seat belt, smoking, excessive alcohol use, regular medical check-ups, etc can affect your life. You can check out the Longevity Game for yourself by clicking here. Unfortunately we were not able to try it out due to the computer problems.
Project (Strange Jobs)
I like using projects as a method for educating and enforcing 21st century skills. And it occurred to me that the SCC has not really done a project since its inception. My recent holiday in the Western Cape sparked the idea after I had the following experience.
I visited a close friend of mine who manages chicken farms. He took me on a tour of the chicken cages and taught me some really interesting facts. I was amazed at how clean and organized they were. The chickens were in very good health and well taken care of. What I saw completely laughed in the face of my misconception. This caused me to think that there must be many more such "misunderstood", unfamiliar, or maybe even frowned upon" jobs. Now, about the project. At our next SCC meeting will learn about blogging. Each member will be assigned to a job which they must research and interview somebody who does that job, then write a blog post which will aim to educate others about the job and iron out any misconception. Hopefully we can get the newspapers to do an article about our project when we're finished.
Lesson (Avatar)As mentioned earlier, an avatar is an image which represents oneself. http://www.myavatarecitor.com/ allows you to create your own avatar and allows you to change many features. Height, weight, skin colour, nose, eyes (48 to choose from), mouth, hair, freckles, mole, eyebrows, glasses can all be customized to make your avatar resemble your own facial features. Unfortunately we were not able to try this out either due to the computer problems.
DiaryI do not have a date for our next computer club meeting at this point in time. I want to make sure that our computers work properly first. I will be in touch.
Until next time.
