Final Wrap-up

Week 7

As this class comes to a close and I reflect on this long 7 weeks, I must say that I feel accomplished.  I was most proud of my Buzzer Circuit.  With this particular build I was:
1) able to pick one the one I wanted 
2) I was able to figure out how to get the buzzer to work
3) I was able to complete and extension and get it to play the tune of Happy Birthday!

When I started this class I was very excited, and as we continued into week 2 that excitement quickly turned into fear, frustration, and anger.  When I originally signed up for this class I was under the impression it would be totally different and that became discouraging to me.  Once I made myself move forward and determined that I would not quit, I actually began to understand more of the class and put forth a better effort.  Because of this I am feeling very proud of myself to even get this far in the course.  

Starting out, I knew nothing on the programming end.  I always thought of myself as being tech savvy, which is probably why I ended up being able to at least work through the course.  I have always known that I was not a quitter so I knew that I would get myself together and finish strong.  

When looking back each week, I could hear the defeat especially with week 3, I was totally defeated.  I am glad that I was able to blog this experience so my students could see that people struggle in life and its about the choices you make when you are confronted with those struggles and how you overcome them.  I was able to overcome and make the best of what I was faced with and ended up having fun with it in the end.  

Although I ended up enjoying this route, my next steps would not include the programming end of the maker space.  My focus is more activity oriented with crafts not robotics. This programming piece was good so that if I ever change my mind, or students want a different take on the space, I will have the experience.  

Happy Birthday to you.....

Week 5 has been a joy to work our own challenge.  I chose to complete Circuit #9-Buzzer.  With this task we would be using the buzzer to make a small click when you apply the voltage.  If you program it to turn the buzzer off and on it will create a tone. 

Starting this made me nervous a little, but luckily our adventure alone last week prepared me mentally.   for this task we needed the following tools

1-Piezo Element
4-Wires

Below is a picture of my diagram, code, and a picture of my complete board. 

Diagram

Code

Picture of Board

I am proud to say that I completed this circuit and also completed a few extension pieces and changes to see how advanced I have become with this coding thing :)  When working on the board I was able to get it to successfully play a tune.  Check out the video below!  I posted a few things I tweaked with the code to get it to play a different beat.  

After getting a hang of the code and how it works, I decided to see if I could play around with the code to see if I could get it to play the beginning of Happy Birthday.  Listen and see if it sounds a little like it.  LOL!!!!

Reflection:  This week turned out to be a great week.  I am so happy that I kept pushing in this course to see my real potential.  Looking forward to next week.  

Week 4.... Dice..... Game Time

With this weeks challenge, we were asked to create a code that would simulate a dice game.  Needless to say I thought this would be impossible for me, but after a little research, a few hiccups, and many nervous nights and days........I am proud to say that I finally got it to work.  Below you will find my video and coding as I continue to work on the final piece of the actual data, I will post as I finish......... When working with the coding the delay originally configured was too slow for my liking and time frame to complete, so I changed it to 2000, I may change it to 1000 before I finish the other tasks for time sake.

Code

Failures/Successes

I used this video as a way to document hoe my board looked before I finally figured out how to make it work correctly.  Below I completed the random trial and you will see my results in the data listed below.

Reflection: Week 4 in a nutshell left me with a great feeling in the end.  Now I feel that I can conquer the world it gives me hope moving forward in the coming weeks, and possibly to use coding as a maker space in my library.  My original thought of it was not to have any sort of coding going on.  I am not sure if that was because of my fear with it or desire.  I can truly say now that it might be an option.  It has been challenging but rewarding as well. 

Week 3.........

WEEK 3

Circuit #3   RGB LED

Week 3 is starting out with a bang.......I finally feel like I have accomplished something since last week I could not get my code to work. Let's hope by the end of the week I feel the same way.  This week, we were given 2 builds to complete.  The first was to build RGB (red-green-blue) LED.  When finishing Circuit #3, I think I figured out what I did wrong on Circuit #2.  My goal and plan is to go back and re-work Circuit #2 in my free time.  

Below is the link to my code I used.  I was nervous about this part, because this is where I kept falling short last week.  

CODE

DIAGRAM

Picture of my board

Video of the successful completion :) 

Reflection of RGB LED

This build was easier to me than the first one.  Although I struggled at first, I think it was a computer issue more than a user error.  After doing this multiple times on two computers at home and neither of them successful I pretty much gave up.  After a good nights rest, I came to work used the computer here and BAM it worked just fine.  So all in all I must say this was a pretty good build.  Coding is new for me, so I am just seeing all the hurdles and trying to overcome them one by one.  I will take this successful build and keep pressing.  

WEEK 3 - Circuit #4 MULTIPLE LEDS

For this second build, we are connecting 8 LEDs at once and creating different light sequences.  My origrinal thoughts were that this should be easy now that I have the hang of it.  All in all it was, so here is my workup and videos so you can see how it turned out.  

Diagram

Picture of Circuit Board

Code Multiple LED/Ping Pong

Video of my success story with this 2nd build

Reflection....... I must say this task was challenging at first.  I am so proud of myself for not giving up when I was down.  These tasks have challenged every aspect of my life.  The good thing is that they have made me think outside the box and problem solve a whole lot.  Looking forward to next week.  

Week 2 Challenge......... It Continues

Week 2 Potentiometer

My goal was to start this week off a little better than last week, but reality and nerves set in and made me procrastinate until the very end.

This weeks challenge we were to use the following parts:

• Potentiometer
• LED
• 330 Resistor
• 6 wires

In this challenge we will work with a potentiometer.  We will learn how to use it to control the brightness of and LED.

This challenge has been a frustrating one.  I will document and show you my results which were unsuccessful. If you watch the video you will see how it came out.  I will work on this again.  First I need to take a break from it to figure out what I need to correct. 

Week 1 challenge

WEEK 1  CIRCUIT 1 - - - - LED Blinking Light

When I pulled out the box that arrived for this class, my daughters reaction was priceless.  The oldest asked "are you getting ready to build something"? and my response was YES!  Needless to say they wanted to sit and watch me go through the steps.  Below you will find my sketch of the diagram that goes with this first challenge. 

Programming was the hardest part to me.  When it comes to coding, you can miss one little strike and mess up and entire program.  Below is the correct code that was used to get the light to blink. 

I waited till the very end of the week to give this task a try because of the fear it has put in me.  I wondered why this project made me so nervous, and I am guessing its just from the fear of the unknown, making mistakes, or totally failing at this class.  After reading the instructions, I felt more confident in putting the pieces together.

When you watch the video you will see me completing the challenge again.  For my nerves I must work it first to get it right then film.  With the upcoming weeks, I will try and film all the error, which get hard to do when you have to record yourself.  After getting the light to successfully blink I then went on to complete the circuit play. 

Circuit Play
I was worried that doing the play would confuse me more and mess up the success I had just felt.  When I reversed the LED around the light stopped blinking.  But, when moving the positive lead it does not effect the LED at all and the light still blinks.  When the resistor was moved from the positive side of the LED it wouldn't work, but when it was wired from the negative side to another ground pin, it stared to work again.  The last move was to move it from 13 to 12. Because of how the program is written it stopped working.  In order for it to work, the program should be changed to reflect the number change.  

Code Play

Based off of the Circuit play if we move the pins from 13 to 12 we would need to also change the program to reflect and then it functioned correctly.  Changing the delay will determine how long the LED blinks and how long it stays off.  So changing it from 1000 to 2000 would take it from 1 second to 2.  Changing it from 2000 to 3000 would change it from 2 seconds to 3 and so on.  When you add the // in front of the codes it causes an error in the programming.  The computer can't read it as a command in which we need it to function.  

Wrap Up 

In the end all in all it was not too bad and pretty easy to figure out following the book.  Having the book made it easy as well.  With the book you are able to get a visual on what the end result should look like.  A lot of the things in the Code play were easy to figure out based on what we would change it to.  If you have any idea of how programming works then you know when you change a code you should expect a change. I did not try the extension activity this week because of the intimidation that I felt when completing the regular task.  It is my goal that as we progress through the course, I will take upon the extension challenges.   I also, cannot completely say that I am ready to tackle these tasks alone, but circuit 1 has gotten me off to a good start.

Final Vanity Search

When completing my vanity search for the final time and trying it different ways, it looked very similar to the beginning of the class.  I am not certain if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  I use many tools online but the privacy of them is usually at a high level.  As a teacher this to me is a positive.  Most of my interaction is on the personal level and I believe students and parents should not be privy to those accounts.  On the education side, I was able to see my blogs, and my web 2.0 tools that I created using my name.  This indeed is a positive because it makes it easier for students to find me.

Aggregating Sites

Aggregating Sites

Week 4 has been an adventure.  We were given the task of creating an aggregating site.  I had the chance to play with two sites, Protopage and Netvibes.  Both sites served the same purpose which was to have multiple news outlets in one interface.  I chose one site over the other because it was more user friendly.  I loved being able to complete some customization with the site. One getting into this site, it was fairly easy to create and use.   In case you are wondering which one I chose.  The winner is?????

PROTOPAGE

The Adventure Continues YouTube with a little Twitter

    The Adventure Continues....

This week is off to an awesome start.  I am no stranger when it comes to YouTube, I use it for mainly personal reasons.  I dibble and dabble in event planning, so I use it for many DIY projects, but I also use it for music purposes, and some videos when I was still in the classroom to hook my students on certain areas.  My adventure with YouTube has been fun.  Even though I am an avid YouTube user, when using it for this class, I learned a few new tricks.  The task this week was to create playlists.  I have experience with creating playlists for my music, but not much for anything else.  If I come across a video I like, I generally go back to my history to recall videos from the past.  With taking this class, I now have different playlists that include my DIY projects and videos of things that interest me.  I also figured out how to make my lists private where I am the only one who can access it.  My YouTube adventures are so much more organized now because of this assignment.  I was able to find a lot of videos on Youtube that helped me with the many tools that can be used with Twitter.  One is Hootsuite which makes it easy to manage multiple social media accounts in one place.  I am looking forward to the next adventure............................

Twitter Adventures

This week has been very interesting.  I signed up for twitter back in 2014, but had not logged on until last week for this class.  I often hear my friends talking about twitter and all the wonderful things they find or do on there.

After researching twitter and fully understanding I can see how this tool is valuable and how it is used in the social media outlet.  Playing around with Hootsuite was fun.  This tool allows you to manage multiple social media accounts in one thread.  This tool also will also show you how you can make your account a hotter topic.

Celebrities are who I follow the most and through twitter we are allowed to connect to the most personal parts of their life.  I have mainly used this tool as a form of entertainment as well as keep up with the most current issues and events happening in the world.  The hashtag has become most popular and groups common items together.

Twitter was a little scary for me, but after using it more this week, I am more familiar and will continue to use it in the future.

Guess Who??????

In the first week of our Web 2.0 class we were challenged with the task of completing a search to see what our digital footprint looked like.

I must say I was amazed at how much information was actually available and true about me online.

I completed a google search and started with the Images.  the first image that popped up was an image from Linked In from a Tiffanie Thomas, but it was definitely not me.  I keep scrolling through images and I did not find an image of me personally, but I did see clip art that I saved in the past and pins that I made on Pinterest.



As I continued to search on  Google, I looked under the web tab and immediately Facebook was the first link to come up.  I clicked and saw a list of people name Tiffanie Thomas on Facebook, I scrolled through 3 pages of individuals before running across my public profile picture.

The last link that I saw that was related to me was a link to my career.  When I clicked the link it took me to my schools webpage that listed my  name, picture, position, and work email.

I continued to scroll in google and then found the white pages, it listed many people with the name "Tiffanie Thomas".  I narrowed the search to Texas and there were five listed and my name was one of the five with my city and state listed.

I then turned to Spokeo and it listed my name and linked my husbands name as a relative.  I also decided to use my maiden name when you click on my name it lists people who are related to me and not sure how they link them, but the site was head on with its results for me.

This assignment was very interesting and I actually had my husband and children complete it just to see what is online.  This is an excellent task to do with our students because now when applying for positions some companies check your digital footprint as a reference check before making a decision to hire.  This is an important task for everyone to understand and complete.