Stockholm Syndrome

Is this one to one laptop program advantageous for highschooler’s learning? or is it disadvantageous?

I personally think that this one-to-one laptop initiative is not a bad idea. Of course there could be some drawbacks when first having that initiative in use at the school. Some obvious problems in the classroom could be, such as students deviating from classwork, and considering the ergonomics, spending a long time in front of the laptop everyday can be harmful to teenager’s health. The teachers for sure, have a hard time preparing everything on online school source when we were using paper textbooks, which can be quite sudden. Also, the class structure will be changed, both physical classroom structure, and the method of teaching. The arrangement of tables will be change in order to enable teachers to see what students are doing. Also, the teaching method will be changed, such as online collaboration, and online discussions.

I know some schools that puts one to one laptop initiative in practice for few years, and i haven’t heard any of those schools having problem with that. I have some friends from all of those schools I know with one-to-one laptop program and they say it is not the problem in their school. Schools close to our school, such as ISHCMC is known for their one-to-one laptop program thats been implied for few years now, and one of my friends goes to that school, and he says there isn’t any problem with those one to one laptop program. A friend of mine in Korean Int’l School told me that the school requires students to have Macbook for their one to one laptop program. A friend of mine in Int’l school of Warsaw told me that the school just gives the students laptop and the cost is in the tuition fee.

The way I see the one to one laptop initiative is positive. For first few weeks into the program, we will definitely see some problems regarding the issue above. But then that program is settled into our school and rules are unforced, I believe that people will start to learn the rules and follow them. Now, when we sometimes have chance to use laptops we use to deviate from classwork, because we don’t really use laptops regularly. However, when one-to-one laptop initiative is enforced, and when students get used to it as method of studying, more will focus on classworks.

This scratch game is created by me and my partner Keonsun. The reasons we chose to create this game are; that this game is one of those simple games that are popular for a long time, and it also looked really simple. But we were wrong.

So, objective of this game is simply, break all the bricks with the ball. Our game consists of 5 levels.. As the level goes up, blocks with multiple hit-points appear. Also the speed of the ball and the size of the stick changes as level proceeds. I know that five levels are not enough, but considering the time that took us to make each level and time that took us to figure out how to increase level; it isn’t so surprising to me

Over the last few weeks, we played around with the sprites to find the most efficient way to make the game work. But we were consistently heading into problems and problems. Both I and Keonsun are not that great programmer or mathematicians, so it took us quite a while to fix a problem. The problems we were consistently facing were; Balls does not bounce properly, Ball speed is not consistent, Levels does not change, Multiple-hit blocks does not change colors, ball just goes through the stick, and more. Some of the problems, such as ball does not bouncing properly, was out of our hands. We came out with the best way to make the ball bounce (by having it turn 180-incident angle degrees and making it spin random degree -20 to 20), but even that does not work 100% we want it to. Just before I started writing this blog post, I had to re-upload my game, because level 5’s block did not change colors, so I made a whole new set of Scratch for level 5.

We tried to stick to our personal responsibilities, but sometimes, we worked collaboratively. Because the problems we bumped into were not easily solved, so we had to put our heads together and discuss. The games are finished, but in a sense it is not. If I had more time, I would like to have more levels on my game.

What I felt in the process of creating game was: programming is hard. It was a hard, complicated, and difficult process. Thing about scratch is that, you need to know what statements works how, and just figuring that out was hard. Also, the statement sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, and that forced me to find alternative ways to make the game work sometimes. But I’m glad the game finally works now despite all the lags that occurs while playing the game.

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Tags: CSI10, csi10bertoia, csibertoia, gr10

I never knew, creating a simple game, like a brick breaker is that notoriously hard. It took us more than 2 weeks, figuring out how to make the ball bounce, and we still havent figured a way to alter the level after a stage is completed. Now only having 1 more week to go, we need to work on the level changes and the item dropping. We were consistantly confronting troubles with ball doesnt bounce as it is supposed to and level does not change. Broadcasting and forever-if statements were both not working. But I hope to figure a way out soon so that we could finish the game before spring break!.

Tags: CSI10, csi10bertoia, gr10

My partner is Keon Sun. We will be working on a game that has been widely known as the “brick breaking game”.
This game features a set of bricks, a ball that bounces off of the walls and bricks and a stick that moves left and right in the lower part of the game screen. As the ball is bounced off the stick, it will glide upwards, and as it makes contact with the bricks, it will make that brick “go away” or simply, break it. It will bounce off as it breaks it, and it will move in a random direction. Also, when the ball hits the stick, it will bounce off in a corresponding angle, or in an angle of reflection, which will be different everytime, as it depends on the angle that the ball intially made contact with the stick. It will have more than 5 stages, and we are aiming for 10 sentences with more blocks will be appearing as well as blocks that has more than 1 hitpoints. We will also attempt to have the variation in the speed of the ball as the level progresses and have items randomly comes out from the bricks. It will have effective sound effects, and background music to make the game more interesting. Keon Sun will work on the ball movement (Angles , breaking the blocks, and bouncing) and I will work on the movement of the sticks, blocks that has multiple hit points as the level proceeds, sound effects, items, and level changes as all the blocks are eliminated,etc.
The game will probably look something like this

Tags: CSI0, csi10bertoia, csibertoia, gr10

          One thing after reading the 2nd half of the book, I felt “It is hard to achieve the equality, and the minds of the mankind are selfish and egoistic, and when they get hold of the power they become corrupted. When they have absolute power, it leads to absolute corruption. In the second part of the book, Napoleon, who once called for equality of animal was becoming ‘more equal’, as he was not working but getting more rations and he made the pigs and the dogs to have more ‘rights’ than the other animals. The pigs changed the Seven Commandments fluently whenever they wanted to do something that go against the seven commandments.

          After their windmill was destroyed, Napoleon declared it was Snowball who destroyed it and killed anyone who is related with him. I do not know if they were talking to the truth, but many animals confessed they were working with Snowball and got slaughtered. One of the commandment  “No animal shall kill any other animal” now reads: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.” Then Napoleon exploits the Hens by ordering them to lay a lot of eggs, and sells it to the humans for money. This foreshadows that Napoleon will become more and more like human. There was one more fight against the man and the humans when the windmill was again, destroyed and some animals were left dead. Not long after, pigs find a box of whisky and drinks it, and changes the commandment to   “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess,” from  “No animal shall drink alcohol”. When the animals got confused, squealer, one of the most devoted follower of Napoleon, and his practical spokesperson, persuades the animals that Napoleon is always right and it is their memory that does not remember properly. Napoleon orders them to build the windmill again, but decreasing the ration. Again, Sqealer succeeds in persuading the animals that this is more than they have got from Jones. But the pigs and the dogs increases the ration, and builds a ’school’ for its young despite lack of funds. When Boxer, a hard working stallion, shows a sign of sickness, they send him to be slaughtered, and tells the animal that he went to the hospital but failed to revive. Years pass, and animals were still hungry, but the dogs and the pigs were living a wealthy, comfortable life. They becomes more of a human, as they drink alchohol, sit in the chair, wears clothes, and walk in two feets. The sheeps were chanting “four legs good, two legs better” and the commandment “All animals are equal” was changed to “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. The pigs coorperates with the humans, banning the hoist of the flag and use of the word “comrade”.

        That commandment is somewhat of a oxymoron, since you can’t be “more equal” than others, and it is also bit ironical. The protagonist is Napoleon which is a round charactor. There isnt really a conflict in this part of the novel, since it depicts a leader’s change and its affects towards the other animals. Lot of situational ironys when pigs were changing the commandments. I do not know much about russian revolution, but the book really talks about communist country is impossible, and the leaders will seize the chance and get more corrupt

Tags: eng10white, gr10

The second book im reading is called Animal Farm by George Orwell. The genre of the book is ’satirical novella’, or ‘dytopian novella’ which the whole book is an allegory, where the characters and settings represents the Russian revolution in 1917.

After roughly half of the book, the story is at the point where the main conflict is still building and still at the point of anti-climax. To summarize the plot, the book starts off with animals overthrowing the human owner of the farm, Jones- this depicts Communist Government overthrowing the Tsar.  Right after the overthrow of Jones, the animals passed the resolution stating that all animals are fair, Seven Commandments for animals, and also they popularized the song ‘Beasts of England’ all over the country. The animal ‘troops’ worked hard, got same amount of rations and they were happy. The leadership, was controlled by the pigs. There were 2 dominant leader, Napoleon and Snowball, which representing Stalin and Trotsky in the Russian Revolution. Snowball happens to suggest the idea of constructing a windmill, and as he calls for a meeting, Napoleon, with some dogs, symbolizing the secret police of USSR, it brought up since the ‘overthrow’, kicks out Snowball from the farm, and he, by himself leads the construction. Also as he dominates the farm, he gets more foods than anybody else in the farm, suggessting the idead corruption of Communist government.

So, the whole book is based on allegory and personification. Also at the first 3 chapters the book depicted the conflict between human and the animals. But as the plot developes, it focuses more on the two pigs, Napoleon and Trotsky, and the rest of the animals. The takeover of Napoleon really bodes that, Napoleon will have more ‘rights’ than anyother animals and will control over them. It is Dramatically Ironic, that we know that Napoleon is really going to take over and dictate the farm and the other animals are not aware of it. The protagonist is somewhat equivocal, since the story reall focuses on everyone in the farm, but i think as the story unfolds it will be Napoleon, who can be also considered as the villain of the story. When Napoleon kicks Snowball out, he said that he is against the construction of windmill, and shortely after, he announced that every animal will be ‘working hard to build the windmill’, which is a paradox. I really look forward how will the story end!.

Tags: eng10white, gr10

Google released the information on their official blog that they have faced “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” from China that “resulted in the theft of intellectual property”. The reason being, Chinese government wanted to find out email address of the Chinese human rights activists using Gmail account. Google also stated that 20 more large companies in ‘internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors’ were attacked similarly. Google was successful at fending off those attacks, all of the Gmail accounts were left unknown to Chinese government, except two accounts with account information and subject lines revealed which does not include actual email that this account was sending or recieving. It is highly controversial news, and it became a bigger issue when American government stepped in to resolve the problem concerning the economic affect and when censorship in China became an issue.

Google China’s market share in the country is very low compared to local search engine Baidu, with 17% of market share compared to 77% of Baidu in the third quarter of 2009. Also as the number of Chinese internet users grew by 28.9% in 2009, this is undoubtedly an extremely controversial issue. Google’s opinion is that they are highly offended by the attack and is very concerned with Chinese Government’s actions. It “raises serious national security concerns” by they way Chinese government is attacking ; they are planting malwares into computers to ‘phish’ the accounts of the Gmail users. Google, having been highly offended, decided to take the extreme measures: This is when this issue of censorship in China kicks in.

Google announced that, they will no longer censor results in Google.cn, which they aggreed to the Chinese Government in order to start their business in China. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”, wrote David Drummond on their official blog. Google is “really concerned about their safety and feels that there is a very real possibility that they will be interrogated”. Google’s opinion is this; no more censorship on the issues such as Tian An Men Massacre or leave China.

China’s attact on the Google was atrocious and shocking, and I really do think Google should react more aggressively by completely uncensoring all the information. Every single person on this planet have right to speech and right to access all the information; rights to knowledge.

I was able to search Tian An Men Massacre in google.cn

Bibliography

Drummond, David. “A new approach to China.” Web log post. Official Google Blog. Google, 12 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html?utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-ww-ww-bk-cn&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20china>.

Zetter, Kim. “Google to Stop Censoring Search Results in China After Hack Attack.” Wired – Threat Level. Wired.com, 12 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-censorship-china/>

MSNBC. “Google may quit China over cyber-attacks.” MSNBC. MSNBC, 13 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34831106/ns/technology_and_science-security/#storyContinued>.

AsiaNew.it. “Beijing dampens Google controversy and censors news on line.” Asia News. Asia News, 16 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Beijing-dampens-Google-controversy-and-censors-news-on-line-17366.html>.

Mehta, Stephanie N. “Google v. Baidu: Which company will win China?” Web log post. Fortue – Brainstorm Tech. CNNMoney.com, 28 Dec. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/12/28/google-v-baidu-which-company-will-win-china/>.

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Tags: Computer Science 10, comsci10, CSI10, csi10bertoia, csibertoia, gr10

The book greatly focuses on Marcus’s school life from the middle of the book. Marcus came across the girl called Ellie on the school hallway. He gets close to her (in a sense, adopted at first,) quickly and their friendship blooms. Will helps Marcus with how to get together, and also introduces the band Nirvana, which Ellie really liked.  Sharing same interest, Ellie and Marcus, despite the fact that Ellie is 2 year senior, get really close together. Marcus at the same time, feels something more than just a friendship. Meanwhile, Will also falls in love with a woman called Rachel, a single mom. He feels more mature now, and feels real love and wants to marry her.

Reflection.

First of all, I really enjoyed this book, and I want to recomend it to everyone, no matter what age or gender. I think the main theme here is about growing up, and again, ‘growing up’ mentally has nothing to do with physical maturity. The book focuses on how the 2 men ‘grows up’, and adapt to the real world. This book, in a sense, has unclear plot line. It builds up to climax, as Fiona finds out about Marcus and Will’s relationship, and reaches the climax when Marcus says he need a father. But then, there is no more real plot line existing. I think the message of this book is that, you can’t live in this world alone. We need friends and people that we can get help when needed, and who can take care of you. It was kind of ironic for me that Will didnt fall in love with Fiona eventually. It was also ironic that, Ellie actually considered Marcus as one of her best friend. It was a great book to read, and his use of language really made it interesting. Point of view is third person narrative. There is no person versus person conflict, but characters rather faces internal conflict. There are little conflicts inside the book, such as Fiona not wanting Marcus to see Will, but the main conflict is inside the characters ; growing up. There is no juxtaposition or antagonists in the book.

The book is also made into movie, starring Hugh Grant

Tags: eng10white, gr10

I chose a book called ‘About a Boy’ by Nick Hornby. I will write about the first 150 pages, roughly a half of the book for this first blog response.

The book starts off by introducing a boy called Marcus, who is a ’stuffy youngster’ with odd personalities. He does not get along well with his classmates in school, dresses odd and ‘listens to Joni Mitchell’ unlike everyone; he is different. Furthermore, his mom is a hypochondriac. Then the book talks about a 36 year old man, Will Freeman (A lot of times, book switches the protagonist when chapter changes, except when two characters appears on the same chapter). He doesnt have a job, and he lives off by the loyalty he gets from his grandfather’s composition, Santa’s Super Sleigh. He first, appears to be an imprudent man by joining SPAT : Single Parents – Alone Together, just to meet a woman. Then coincidently Marcus and Will happens meet in the group’s picnic, and they get close as Will helps Marcus when Marcus’s mom, Fiona, tried to kill herself. As the story unfolds, Marcus and Will become close friends to each other. Will helps Marcus to fit into the school, and the world; He takes him to shopping, buy him a pair of shoes, advices on his hairstyle, and introduces him to new kinds of music, which later comes to be a source of Marcus’s and Ellie’s friendship. Marcus then wants Will to be a ‘father figure’ for him and makes Will’s days ‘full of life’.He also believes that Will can be Fiona’s partner and help her overcoming the depression…..

Reflection.
I really enjoyed the novel, since it is very easy-to-read-kind of a page-turner. I like the theme of ‘male-bonding’, when a boy and an adult man becomes good friends to each other, when they had no company of their life and helps out with each other’s lives. The language use was really pleasant, and somewhat ‘light’ which wasnt too serious and easy-to-read. I learned that friendship is really important, even when I was half way through the book; every person is not ‘an island’ and they shouldnt isolate themselves from the world. There wasnt much literary devices in the book.

Tags: eng10white, english 10 Mr.White, english 10 white, gr10

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/01/13/four-possible-explanations-for-googles-big-china-move/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/google-v-china-the-chinese-government-reacts.ars?utm_source=microblogging&utm_medium=arstch&utm_term=Main%20Account&utm_campaign=microblogging

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-censorship-china/

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Beijing-dampens-Google-controversy-and-censors-news-on-line-17366.html

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/google-china-controversy-causes-android-phone-delays