Monday, November 24th

Blog Post of the Day:
What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Do you have any traditions? Go in to detail about your plans for the 5 day weekend.

For Thanksgiving I am going to my family's house outside of Topeka. I've never been there, but it should be fun because they live on a lake. We always spend Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family, but we rotate who's house it is at each year. Last year it was at our house. A couple of people have to work on Thanksgiving this year so it may be a bit smaller than usual. The host always makes the turkey and other meat and everyone else brings side dishes and deserts. This year we are bringing the deserts so I may help cook them on Wednesday. My family isn't really into the whole Black Friday thing, so we will probably just catch up on some sleep and recover from a food coma.





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Thursday, November 20th

Blog Post of the Day:
Go out and look up a what all goes on a resume website. What can you find? Include an example image if possible.

For the most part, people put what they would put on a regular resume on their resume websites. They have all the things that they have done, what they want to to in the future, and also a little about themselves. Resume websites are different from traditional resumes, however, in that they present the information in a more casual and creative way. 

Monday, November 17th

Blog Post of the Day:
Consider the quote below. What exactly do you think it means and how does it relate to Web Design?

 

I think it means that design is everything about something, not just the way it looks. I think it means that if it looks good but doesn't work, then it doesn't have good design. This can be applied to many things, not just we design. However, I think that it relates to web design in that your web page can look good, but if it isn't functional and doesn't work in a logical way, then it does not have good design. For example, most apps made by professional companies such as Facebook, have very good visual design and also have good functional design, meaning it works well and is logical.

User Experience: The overall experience a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

Thursday, November 13th

Blog Post of the Day:
Reflect on your learning this semester so far in this class. Think about the first day you walked in to this room until right now. What have you learned about Web Design? What have you learned beyond Web Design? Explain yourself.

I have learned a ton about web design. When I walked in I knew basically nothing about making a website. I had no idea what html was or anything about coding. I have learned all the basics about html and css, and how they work together to make a website. I have learned lots of tags that are used to tell the computer what to do with the information. When I look at websites now, I think about how I would code it or if I could. I also have a new appreciation for people who work in the computer industry.

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Friday, November 7th

Blog Post of the Day:
Define the following terms on your blog. Do not copy and paste definitions. Site where you got your definition.

FTP

Web Server

Web Hosting (also list examples of web hosting companies)

FTP: A standard network protocol used to transfer computer files from one host to another host over networks such as the Internet.

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Web Server: A program that, using the server model and the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol serves the files that form Web Pages to Web Users. 

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Web Hosting: The activity or business of providing storage space and access for websites. Companies include Dreamhost, Weebly, and GoDaddy.

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Monday, November 3rd

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me about your weekend. Give me details and photos!

     On Friday I left school early to put up my haunted house. On Halloween night, things started off pretty slow but when it got dark, there were tons of people waiting in line for the haunted house. My haunted house was super successful and we had the most people ever come through, it was the biggest its ever been, and, of course, it was also the scariest its ever been. It was open from 5:30-9:30 and there were still people in line at closing time. 

     On Saturday I was really tired so I just watched Netflix all day and slept a lot. On Sunday I did my chores and went to Petland.

Below is a picture of the line.

Monday, October 20th

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me about your weekend. Share pics.

     This weekend was super fun. I went to St. Louis with the band. We left Saturday morning. We got to Saint Louis at about 3:30 and then hung out at the hotel until it was time to leave for the Edward Jones Dome to perform. We performed at 7:30 and had a great run. When we got back to the hotel, we had pizza for dinner. The hotel we stay at is right across the street from the Cardinals stadium and most rooms either have a view of the arch or of the stadium.

     On Saturday we ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to Adrenaline Zone/Demolition ball. It is basically like an arcade with laser tag and two demolition ball courts. Demolition ball is basically like lacrosse with bumper cars. It is super fun. The laser tag there is really fun too. I played enough arcade games to win a big banana, which I have a picture of below. After Adrenaline Zone, we went back to the dome to watch prelims awards. There were 64 bands there and only 14 make it to finals competition. We really made a big push to make it to finals this year, but we didn't make it, which was pretty disappointing. Since we didn't make it to finals, we walked to the arch and ate dinner under it. After dinner, we went back to the dome to watch the finals bands perform. There were some REALLY good bands there. There are about 15 BOA (Bands of America) competitions all around the country each year and St. Louis is by far the hardest, toughest, and biggest competition. Essentially whoever wins St. Louis is pretty much one of the best, if not the very best, high school band in the country. There is a school called Broken Arrow in Oklahoma that wins it almost every year. They are really good. After we watched finals, we endured a four hour bus ride back home and got back about 3:30. It was a great weekend. 

     

     

Tuesday, October 14th

Blog Post of the Day:
Below is a letter written to the editor who wrote the article 'Enforcement of dress code creates negative effect' that your blogged about last week. Most of you wrote on your blog that you agreed with the writer. What are your thoughts after reading the letter below and seeing a different perspective. Are they the same? Are the different? Do you agree? Disagree? Explain yourself.

I agree completely with the letter and couldn't have said it better myself. I get that girls want to look and feel good but is it really so hard to save the short shorts for the weekend? Most girls always talk about how much they love winter clothes anyway and most people seem to wear jeans until almost May, so I don't see how it is such a big deal, and especially don't see how it is the teachers' and administrators' fault that they can't wear the clothes they want. I also know that Blue Valley's dress code is certainly much less strict than anywhere in the professional world. My mom works at the UMKC dental school and if her students aren't wearing the right color of scrubs then they are sent home to change or are just told not to come back for the day.

Monday, October 13th

Blog Post of the Day:


I don't really know what the perfect curriculum and perfect classes would be to prepare me for my life. Right now I think I want to be a vet so I guess that good classes for me would be anatomy, which I am taking now, and zoology, which I want to take senior year. Beyond that, I don't really know what other classes I should take because I don't really know what being a vet requires.

Assignments

Career Search
Copyright Law

Tuesday, October 7th

Blog post of the day:
The following article was in the September issue of The Tiger Print. Read the article (even if you already have) and respond to it below. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Consider all perspectives of the article while you respond.

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     Being a guy I don't have a very strong opinion about this. Honestly, I think girls should be able to wear what they want, because guys pretty much wear what they want. However, I do think that if a girl is wearing clothes that aren't warm and she complains that it is cold then it is definitely not rude for someone to say put some clothes on. I also think that it isn't just they guys that make the clothes inappropriate, and that some girls do wear skimpy clothes to be provocative. I'm not saying that every girl does that, I'm just saying that girls shouldn't ignore that fact and that it isn't all the guys' fault. 

Monday, October 6th

Blog post of the day:
Tell me about your weekend! If you don't have anything fun to share, tell me about the city you live in. What do you love about Kansas City? Do you have a favorite place in the city? Favorite team? :) Favorite event? Explain.

     This weekend was super busy. On Saturday I woke up at 4:30 to go to the Blue Springs competition for band. I was there all day and I got back home at 12:30 am. Our band did really well at the competition. We got first in class 5a and swept all the preliminary awards including best drum majors, best music, best general effect, best marching, best soloist, best percussion, and best color guard. In finals we got third which is the highest we've ever placed and was a huge accomplishment. I'm so proud of the work we have done this year and it is the best feeling in the world to see it finally pay off. Band competition season is my favorite part of the year. It is so much fun.

     On Sunday I slept until noon and then did homework. 

Monday, September 29th

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me about your Homecoming weekend! If you didn't participate in the Homecoming festivities, what did you do? Share pics!

     My Homecoming weekend was super busy. On Friday I marched into the parade and then I went home for 15 minutes before I had to come back to school for band. I played at the game and went home exhausted. 

     On Saturday I woke up and did my homework and helped get the house ready for my group to come over to take pictures for Homecoming. At about 7:30 my group came to my house to take pictures for Homecoming and then we went to Gorozzos for dinner. We got to the dance at about 9:45 and stayed until they shut it down. Our original plan was to go to Ihop with the band group but nobody was hungry so everyone kind of went their own ways and We ended up going to someone's house to watch movies. It was a great night and I didn't get home until 4 so I slept for all of Sunday morning.

     On Sunday I woke up and started planning to build a drop panel prop for my haunted house. Basically a drop panel is a wood panel with a picture frame attached to the outside but on the inside there is a gate latch that when you open it, the "wall" which is basically a window drops down and the actor behind it can stick his body out and scare people. 

Monday, September 22nd

Blog Post of the Day:
How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Share photos!

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     My weekend was pretty boring. I really didn't do anything exciting this weekend. On Friday I came home and my plans got cancelled and I was super tired so I just slept most of the evening.
     On Saturday I woke up early and went to the national archives across from Union Station to go through the exhibit for extra credit in AP Euro. After that I went home and about half an hour later I left for band which was from 11-4. When I got home from band I was super tired again and my parents were out on an anniversary date so I slept again.
     On Sunday I slept until 11 and then did some homework before I went through all my Halloween stuff for my haunted house that I have blogged about.I now have a good idea of what I need to get for the haunted house this year. After I went through all the Halloween stuff I worked on the YouTube channel for the haunted house. It takes forever to upload the videos to YouTube from my phone so my 20 minute vlog takes probably 3-4 hours to upload. I usually can't make the vlog in one video so I have to upload them to YouTube privately and then merge them together using the editor on YouTube. After I merge them together I can change the title and description and then post it as public.
     It was a pretty boring weekend but at least I got to sleep a lot.

Friday. September 19th

Blog Post of the Day:
Now that you are several weeks in to this class and have coded one (super small) website, what do you think? What are your thoughts on web design? Is it what you thought it would be? Is it better? Worse? What's your favorite part? What's your least favorite part? Explain.

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When I signed up for this class I never realized that web design was so complicated. There is lot more to it than I ever imagined. I had no idea about tags and such and I really had no idea what to expect of web design. It is kinda cool but it is much harder than I thought it would be. I think what makes it hard is the fact that I had no idea these things even existed before coming into this class and so it makes it harder to learn because there isn't really anything that is familiar. But overall, Web Design is a pretty fun class. My favorite part is seeing the website when its all done and my least favorite part is probably CodeAcademy or when you are just starting a website and you have to figure out where to start. 

Thursday. September 17th

Blog Post of the Day:
What is the importance of deadlines? How do high school deadlines reflect or simulate "real world" experience? Give an example of when you met or or didn't meet a deadline that was important.

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I think deadlines are important because if there weren't any deadlines would people actually do anything? I know I wouldn't. I think without deadlines the world would be really chaotic. For example lets say a bread factory had no deadline to fill its next shipment of bread. The bread wouldn't ship out and if enough companies did this there would be a really short supply of a lot of things. I remember meeting the deadline for the honors bio project last year and having a huge sense of satisfaction and relief. I think high school deadlines reflect real world experience because in the real world you will have deadlines but if you don't meet them in the real world there are harsher consequences. Deadlines can be stressful, especially if they are close and you still have a lot to do, but I think deadlines keep the world turning.

Tuesday, September 16th

Blog Post of the Day:

Reflect on this quote. Give an example of a time in your life that this might have been the case.

This quote is kind of the story of my life because I procrastinate things until the literal last minute, or at least very late at night, and by waiting to do it until then I have failed to prepared, therefore preparing to fail. I pretty much procrastinate everything, which is really bad. So according to the quote, I prepare to fail a lot. I remember when I got my Eagle scout, I had to give a speech at the ceremony and I waited until I was sitting there waiting to figure out what I wanted to say. Needless to say I well never procrastinate a speech again, but for the time being it seems homework is a whole different story.

Monday, September 15th

Blog Post of the Day:
What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

     On Friday I played at the football game. It is always fun to play for people! I was up very late the night before so after the game I went home and fell asleep with my headphones blaring and all the lights in my room on. I woke up at 2 and was too tired to turn off the lights so I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Somewhere around four I woke up again and took my headphones off and I think a few minutes later my mom came and turned off the lights but I'm really not sure.

     On Saturday I woke up and got my passport photo taken for the mission trip we are going on to Jamaica for spring break. After that I went home and watched Youtube until my friend came later. 

     On Sunday I slept until noon and then watched videos on YouTube. Later in the afternoon I went to my grandmas house and pulled weeds. When I got home I made the sign for the haunted house I do every year on Halloween. It may seem early to be already working on it, but I have been working on it for a few weeks now and my first round of Halloween stuff should be here tomorrow! It takes a lot of time to put together the haunted house and time is something I don't have much of so I have to start pretty early.

Thursday, September 11th

Blog Post of the Day:

Below is one of my favorite quotes that I found on Pinterest. Think read and think about what this says and then blog about it. What does this quote mean to you? Elaborate! Feel free to give an example of tell a story.

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I can definitely see the argument the quote is making. Yes, I may have only seen a very small part of the world, but it's not like I can just jump on a plane and go do something. Sometimes I may be stuck at home and not really have anything to do. However, I do agree that I'm bored is a useless thing to say because there truly are lot of things you can do when your bored. You may just have to think about it for a while, but from my experience there's always something fun I can do. When I'm bored I like to listen to different music and try to find new songs I like. Sometimes I even just ride my bike wherever I feel like going. So in my opinion, I'm bored is a useless thing to say,too. You may not be able to just go do something amazing on the spot, but there is always something that you can do.

Tuesday, September 9th

How do you express your creativity? Explain.

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     I'm really not much of a creative person but I express my creativity in several ways. The first way I express my creativity is through music. I love to listen to music and while I am listening think about what I would change and sometimes I even tap out the different rhythm that I would make. I also play the clarinet, but I don't really play solos, so I don't consider playing my clarinet to be too creative. 

     The second way I express my creativity is by putting together a haunted house each year. Building a haunted house is truly all creative because you can pretty much do whatever you want with it. I express my creativity through the haunted house by designing it, coming up with the scenes, building the sets and props, choosing and creating costumes, choosing music for it, figuring out what I want the actors to say and do, buying props to go with the scenes, and by using scare tactics to scare people. I spend a lot of time working on it and it is something that you can have a lot of fun with and let your imagination run wild(and the people going through it) and improve on each year.

Monday, September 8th

Blog Post of the Day:
What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

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     On Friday I hung out with one of my friends. He came over and we watched Last Comic Standing and then we rode our bikes to Blue Valley Middle. We talked about life and then it started pouring so we rode back in the freezing cold rain back to his house to move his car in. He just got subs so he showed them to me. They are sweet! After he moved his car in we rode back to my house to watch more Last Comic Standing.

     On Saturday I woke up with terrible allergies and debated whether or not to go to band. Since we were going to learn about half of our second movement that day I decided I should go to the rehearsal. Although it was a beautiful day the five hours could not have gone any slower and all I could think about was how my head was pounding. After band I went home and took a well-earned nap for most of the evening and then woke up to watch a movie on tv before I went to bed again.

     On Sunday I slept until 10:30 and woke up feeling a little better. I did some homework until about 2:30 and then I went to get mums from a farm with my parents. After we brought the mums home I went to the Halloween store with my mom to look for ideas for my haunted house which I do every year on Halloween at my house. I looked at all the animatronics and props and have gotten some pretty good ideas for things that I could do in my haunted house. It gets bigger and bigger each year so I have to start planning pretty early to make it all happen. I have already lined up some people to work in it and have a pretty good idea of how I want it to be this year so now all I need to do is get some help to build the sets and I need to buy some essentials and new props.

     It was a pretty successful weekend.

Friday, September 5th

Blog Post of the Day:


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Kids these days are always on their phones! They don't even know how to hold a conversations! They listen to such horrible and loud music, too. Kids these days don't know how to dress right. Kids speed in their cars and don't care about anyone but themselves. Kids these days need to grow up.

Thursday, September 4th

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me about what you have learned in this class so far. Have you learned a lot? Do you want to learn more? What do you want to be able to do by the end of the semester?

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I have learned a lot in this class. Before coming into this class, I knew pretty much nothing about making a website. I didn't realize there was so much coding that went into it, and I thought that for the most part people just made websites from the design your own website sites. I have learned about how to do simple coding and what html is. I can change the text, make it bold or italicized, make it colored, change the background color, insert links and pictures, and make tables and lists. By the end of the semester I want to make a website that looks professional and be able to have the knowledge to add on or change it in the future. To me it would be really cool to make a professional looking website.

Tuesday, September 2nd

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me all about your Labor Day weekend. What did you do? Include photos!

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On Saturday I slept until 11 and then went to a funeral for a family member I didn't even know. After the funeral I went to Strouds with my family. On Sunday I woke up early and helped my dad paint the fence in our backyard. It has taken 3 days to do it so it was nice to have it done. On Sunday afternoon I went bowling at Pinstripes with my friends and then we ate at Rock Brews. On Monday I did homework most of the day and then watched the end of the Every Simpsons Ever marathon(all 552 episodes for 12 straight days) and by then I was really tired so I slept for a while and woke up and watched the coolest lightning I have ever seen.

Friday, August 29th

Blog Post of the Day:

Read this small newspaper clipping and then write a blog post about it. What are your thoughts? How does it make you feel? Do you agree? Disagree? Explain yourself.

I partly agree with the clipping. I do think that teenagers, me included, complain to much about how they have nothing to do, but I also believe that life shouldn't always be serious. Teenagers who get all of their homework done and do their chores, etc. can still want something fun to do. I agree with the part about how we are the somebody and the someday, and that teenagers should make something of themselves and do productive things, but there should also be room for some fun in there.

Thursday, August 28th

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me if you agree with this statement and then explain why or why not. "Images on the internet are 'free game' - if someone posted it, I should be able to use it."

I think images on the internet should be available for anyone to use without credit. When people post a picture they should realize that anyone can copy and paste it so people shouldn't get upset when someone uses their picture for something. If they really want credit they should just add a watermark.

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Tuesday, August 26th

Blog Post of the Day:
Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life here at BVHS. What activities or clubs are you involved in? What year are you in school? What is your favorite class and/or teacher so far this year? What are you looking forward to this school year? Include some original photos from your phone if you can.

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This year I am a sophomore. I am in band and on the school swim team. So far my favorite class is Web Design and my favorite teacher is Mrs. Kline. I am looking forward to making a web page, all the band trips in October, swim season, and going to Colorado with band in April.

Monday August 25th

Blog Post of the Day:
What do you know about Web Design right now? What did you know about Web Design before you walked in to this class? Tell me as much as you can about how web pages work. Try to use an example if possible.
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Right now I can do lots of things to the text on a website. I can change the background color, make lists, change the heading size, make paragraphs, title the page, and lots of other things. I have learned that html is basically a code that the browser reads to tell it how the web page should look. Before I walked into this class I knew nothing about web design. I had no idea what html is and what it does, I also didn't know how tags worked or how to make paragraphs and headings on the page. I didn't have a sense of what goes into making a web page.Web pages work by first reading the code that you put in to figure out how the web page is supposed to look. It reads all the tags and lays out the web page how you tell it to.