October 1, 2004 Newsletter
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Dear Carmody Middle School 7th Grade Computer Class Parents and Their Children:
Here are the average grades for my four classes for the first grading period.
1st Period: 90.30%
3rd Period: 95.50%
5th Period: 87.98%
6th Period: 86.68%
That means that 50% of my students have grades lower than their class's average grade and 50% are higher.
If your child doesn't have an A in my class, that's not a good sign for the rest of the semester. Because with unlimited makeup for all tests and assignments and unlimited extra-credit work available all grading period until the last day of the grading period, all students should be in the "A" category. "B" grades are okay. But a "C" grades means there is a lot of incomplete assignments which means there is less than a positive attitude about completing daily class work in class and/or a home and the bottom line is that using the computer is not yet a positive tool in their educational development. Where there are homes without computers, there are some motivated students now staying after school to work with me. Dr. Data is making Monday, Tuesday (Open Lab), Wednesday (when there are no faculty meetings), Thursday (Open Lab) and Friday available to any and all students between 2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. and in some cases even later. And yes, some students are staying after school to get their work done if computer facilities at home are not available and they are starting to really master their computer skills both in and outside of class which is important to the education of their child's future educational years and professional careers. In fact, Dr. Data firmly believes that your child could survive very well if they never take another computer class until college because they will master this semester the basics of: 1) keyboarding, 2) word processing, 3) database management, 4) spreadsheets, 5) Internet search engines, 6) PowerPoint presentations, 7) newsletters, 8) web pages, 9) painting and drawing, 10) computer music and 11) computer games construction/designing.
Korean Pen Pal Status: There's a final project for the word processing unit that needs to get finished by this coming Friday, October 8th with personal memorabilia (photos, stamps, etc.). See: http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/penpal_908.html for the detailed Korean Pen Pal instructions. The important thing here is that the pen pal letter needs to be 2 pages long, double spaced type and be in CSAP quality: paragraphs with topic sentences with good sentence syntax, proper spelling, correct capitalization, correct punctuation, etc. Please write in formal English with no street talk since the Korean pen pal students will have difficulty understanding informal street talk. Please read your child's Korean Pen Pal and you'll quickly know if it is CSAP quality. I will only mail letters to Seoul, Korea that meet CSAP expectations. Remember, I'm paying for the postage, between $30 and $40 for air mail shipping so only the CSAP quality pen pals will be mailed since we are representing Carmody Middle School as international goodwill ambassadors.
Typing Programs ordered. The All The Right Typing programs have been ordered and my guess is that they will arrive about October 15th.
Special Student Rewards. Students are enthusiastic for Klik & Play. If students do well in class this coming week, students will be playing other student's games next Friday. Klik & Play is a great way to learn to create things on a computer. Perhaps the best news is Carmody students are allowed by manufacturer to download the software for free by going to: http://www.clickteam.com/English/download_main.php3?PID=6 so your child can creatively practice at home beginning today! The Carmody Middle School Whiz Chips Club also sponsors a computer gaming contest in December and in May with a computer creating game contest. Some of your children might enjoy participating in the intensive competition while they learn and master the art of computer gaming. Believe me, the students are very competitive on how they make and play computer games.
Parent teacher conferences are coming in two weeks. Parents will actually see their children's work on their own school computers while waiting for Dr. Data to conference as we will all be in the PC Lab together. I will give every student who brings a parent to parent teacher conference on Tuesday, October 12th or Wednesday, October 13th from 3:30 to 7 p.m. A FLOATING "A." Note: Dr. Data will need to leave Tuesday's parent teacher conference at 6:05 p.m. So please note that Dr. Data till be available for conferences as follows which will still give him 7:05 hours of available conferencing time which 5 minutes beyond what other teachers are doing.
Tuesday, October 12th from 3 p.m. to 6:05 p.m.
Wednesday, October from 3: p.m. to 7 p.m.
The database curriculum will either follow in mid-week or on Monday, October 11th. For a preview of it, please go to: http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/database_syllabus.html
For the special musical treat, please go to P.S. section in this e-mail.
Hope this information is helpful.
Till next time,
Dr. Data
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P.S.
You must go to http://www.kuzmich.com/reva.html and select Duluth High School Marching Orchestra of Duluth, Georgia (An Atlanta suburb) and you will see a 200 string orchestra marching to alternative music in a Duluth, Georgia city parade. This is an unusual high school string program with five daily string orchestras comprising of 250 string players. Not only do they have quantity but their top two orchestras are participating in the 2005 ASTA National Conference's national orchestra competition in Reno, Nevada in February, 2005 in which only 15 orchestras are selected in this prestigious national competition. That's not bad representation at the national level. But you must see my daughter, Reva Kuzmich in action, directing the orchestra from a pickup truck with a purple electric violin. Catch the electronic "beats/cadences", marching upright basses with golf caddies, cellos with them connected to their necks via belts, marching electric basses, drum major whistles and amps powered by a car battery and a digital keyboard all on the march in sunny Duluth, Georgia!!
Unfortunately, you must have high speed Internet access (DSL, Broadband, etc.) to view the video streaming as well as a copy of RealPlayer which can be downloaded for free at: http://forms.real.com/netzip/getrde5_new_look.html?h=207.188.7.150&f=windows/RealOnePlayerGold.exe&p=RealOne%2BPlayer&j2re=true&tagtype=applet&type=dl
Note: the video is 16:58 minutes in length comprising of pre-parade and parade action.
Hope it works for you. Enjoy it because you may never see a marching string orchestra ever again. Can't say that I have ever seen a marching string orchestra before.