“Google20” days are loosely modeled after Google’s philosophy of allowing their programmers and engineers to use one day per week to work on a “pet project” not related to their job. It is a hugely successful program that has resulted in many products at Google (like Gmail!).
While brainstorming how this might look in our class, we have come up with our own philosophy of how our “Google20” days should work:
You must have a mark of at least 70%.
You must work on something “productive”, i.e. no games, social media (chat, Twitter, Facebook) , etc.:
You may work on classwork for another class (math homework, anyone?!!).
You may work on personal projects such as hobbies, drawing, artwork, photography, independent research, programming, etc.
You may even continue working on projects related to this class!
Ultimately, the goal of our Google20 days is for you to be productive at something that moves your life forward in a positive way, doing something that you want to do.
At the beginning of each of these days we will ask you to fill in this form so you know what your plan is and eventually for me to measure how successful this program is.
This is the template I use in Google Docs for student website reviews.
Find a good educational web page related to <Topic Name>.
Which keyword(s) did you use at the search engine? (record below)
URL:
Title:
Keyword(s) Used:
Write a 100-150 word review of the web page. Concepts that could be considered when reviewing your website are:
suitability to the class,
aesthetics of the site,
the educational value of the site, and
the overall organization of the site.
Write your review below. After it is complete, share it with two of your peers for checking of grammar and spelling. Fix any mistakes found. Record the names of your peers as comments here and here.
The Title of the Web Page — http://www.nameofsite.com
This page is for the SketchUp instructions. Click here for the Tinkercad instructions.
We are going to make personalized keytags using SketchUp, which can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.sketchup.com/download.
Download the template from here and remember where you saved it!
Double-click on the downloaded file to open it.
Choose the top top template (“Simple Template – Feet and Inches”) when SketchUp starts.
Insert your name, with a height of 16 mm and an extrusion height of 2 mm. When inserting, try to insert it close to one of the corners of the blank rectangle (not directly into the keytag itself).
Tools > 3D Text
Height: 16mm
Extrusion: 2mm
Size your text (using the Scale tool “S”) your name to the approximate size of the rectangle.
Make a copy (Ctrl-C) of your name and paste it (Ctrl-V) near the keytag. The Orbit tool “O” will be your best friend when doing this! (hint: Shift-O lets you pan the screen)
Move “M” the text down to the rectangle in the keytag.
Once you are are confident your model is correct, delete the original rectangle so you are only left with the keytag.
Save your keytag in your M drive with a filename similar to:
Full Name – Name of School – Keytag Text.skp (where Keytag Text is the actual text on the Keytag if it is different than your name).
Example:
Britney Smith – Senator Gibson – Leafs.skp
Once you have saved your SKP file with the proper filename, export it as an STL file using the File ► Export STL… menu. If you do not have this menu, follow these instructions to install it.
To submit your STL file for printing, look for the assignment in Google Classroom.
Note: some students may be asked to brainstorm as a group before submitting content for the “Is there anything specific you hope to do or learn in this course?” section. You will be advised if this affects you.
