Would you like to be a movie maker and have your movie premiered in Charlotte? Then get working on this contest!  http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/News/Pages/CamNewtonFoundationlaunchesvideocontesttoboost.aspx

Cam Newton School Spirit Video Contest instructions:

1. Read the rules 
2. Join the Piedmont Spirit Google Classroom by entering the code on Ms. Gurthie's door or ask your teacher for the code.  
3. Get with your friends and create a Piedmont Spirit Video. Film any shots of Piedmont school spirit or download any of the raw video shared in that folder to your phone, ipad, ipod touch or other.
4. Edit the video and stills together into a 90 second video ( make it 88 or 89 seconds to be sure it stays under 90 when uploaded)
5. Submit the link to your final editied video in the Piedmont Spirit classroom.

This is a monthly contest from now until March so keep your video to enter again. If chosen, you can have dinner with Cam Newton!

If you don't know how to edit or upload a video, see this link for how to make and share video  

Good Luck and see Ms. Gurthie if you want any help or advice!

You modern kids are NO JOKE!  I just learned a ton from a 12 year old who is a specialized front-end developer already so here are his recommendations if you want to know about coding. 



basics of coding - Computer Programming readiness:
Code Academy- a fun way to learn how to code and you can do it with your friends! http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0

• Games to learn coding:
  • Apps On our iPads
    • Haikitzu
    • Daisy the Dinosaur
    • CargoBot
  • Or tryMove the Turtle for 2.99 or Codera is advanced for 9.99
    
    
  • Coding Web-based Games-use any machine with a browser
  • www.code.org
  • www.diy.org/skills (start with n00b) or codeacademy.com
  • Teach Yourself how to code-
    http://lifehacker.com/5401954/programmer-101-teach-yourself-…
  • Kodable
  • Hopscotch
  • Scratch- http://scratch.mit.edu/
  • Tynker http://www.tynker.com/experience/
  • Light Bot http://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot

Learn to Make Video Games

• http://gamesalad.com/

Learn to make Apps

• http://www.ibuildapp.com easy, free, and works great. Choose the "web" app that way you do not have to go through apple or the play market place
• http://appinventor.mit.edu/ since there are some wonderful lessons already created for it. There is drag-and-drop coding, though, which is pretty simple compared to typing it.

TOP 10 Computer Science Recommendation from QUORA.
Muhamed Halilovic, Developer -

1. GitHub - thousands of projects with their code, examples, etc. - invaluable for your projects, school, work or life as a software/CS engineer.

2. Stack Overflow - answers to thousands of questions on all kinds of topics related to programming, work, math, software, etc. (You can also answer, and it has Careers 2.0 (invitation only after you answer and gain points) similar to LinkedIn which you can leverage to find software/cs jobs).

3. Khan Academy - math, statistics, economics - everything you missed out on in college and high-school and wanted to re-learn, re-visit, etc.

4. tutorialspoint.com - has easy-to-follow tutorials on major topics in programming and cs concepts, which you can cover in hours and literally be an expert in amongst your peers.

5. TopCoder - MONEY, recommendations, algorithms, experience (I wish I knew about TopCoder while in College). There is rarely a website that can do so much for you as TopCoder can.

6. Hacker News - The only place you need to follow when it comes to latest news on technology, whats hot, whats cooking, etc. Thats the place where all other hackers come to get and post the news.

7. No Excuse List - This lists out all the major places on the web for courses, materials, and other stuff CS people need and basically empowers you to learn anything and everything you ever needed/wanted. You simply have no excuse anymore as to why you didn't know or learn something.

8. http://www.businessballs.com/ - Place to learn economics/buisness/job/work terminology and about starting your business, organizing your time, people skills, people management and utilizing your knowledge to finally start making money out of it. All sorts of tools and general knowledge which you will need at some point in your life. Everything you should know about business, management and stuff that no one teaches you at college, but you find out you really need to know later on in life when you want to create your own startup/business or as such.

9. Memory Improvement Tips - How to Improve Your Memory - website you need to learn about your brain and how to improve your focus, memory, etc - website I would use in combination with this book: Your Memory : How It Works and How to Improve It: Kenneth L. Higbee Ph.D.: 9781569246290: Amazon.com: Books - it teaches you how to memorize, what affects your memory, focus, etc. I wish I knew about these things in college. If you follow what is taught in this - you could probably become sort of an "Einstein" in your college/school as well later on when you start working.

10. http://www.quora.com/ - The place where you find out about answers like this one :).  


Your fellow Piedmont Student Duncan says the best way to code is to sit down one on one with a coder and begin coding with word doc and made a website by typing in code and being amazed that something else will pop up on the other side. Sites he uses:

• codeacademy.org
  
• dash.generalassemb.ly
  
• stackoverflow
  
• htmldog.com
  
• pancake.iohttp://jsfiddle.net/
  
• codeanywhere.net
  
• coffeecup software ($60 lets you code html , css , javascript)
  
• notepadplusplus.com (free software)
  

KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS Test Links:

• http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
• If you liked that test, this link (scroll past the ads to "Finding Free tests") has a few more tests to takehttp://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Free_Career_Aptitude_Test
• Multiple intelligences test: http://literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

Career Info

• When you take the ACT they'll tell you where you fall on this career wheel

http://www.act.org/wwm/student.html

• I like the way they put careers into categories

http://www.act.org/wwm/overview.html

There are lots of kinds of leaders.

Some young people are born leaders. You probably already know if that is you. People tend to listen to you, to do what you say. YOu are probably good in a crisis.
Some people lead with bravery. They 
These skills can be developed if you don't have them but I want to share with you my advice for leadership if you don't have it already.

I use a backward method of leadership that is based on my own knowledge of what is my greatest gift and strength in myself and committment to what I am passionate about. I am who I am and in being me I inspire others to be the best in themselves and to stop hiding.

I used to do that with my students. I would recognize, name and develop their strengths as a way to minimize their weaknesses.

Now I will try to give it to you via this post. Here's what to do:

Ask yourself:

• What are your unique strengths that set you apart and let you shine?  Compare your strengths to Animals. Instead of beating yourself up about what you can't do, think about what you can do. Would we ask a tiger to swim all day when his gift is running? Would we ask a duck to climb a tree when he can fly instead? How are you getting to the top of that tree? Are you sure getting to the tree top is even a goal for  you? Maybe you should be an ocean diver instead.
  
• What issues/causes/problems do you care about? What injustices burn you most? How can you lead

• ( or be a first follower http://youtu.be/hO8MwBZl-Vc to help that cause ? 

Now act on those answers. Be awake and aware looking for ways to help others because the best way to know yourself is to forget yourself and act.

Servant Leadership is this new buzzword. You have to know what you are good at in order to serve.

Do not fear failure. Part of being a leader is being willing to fail and knowing that all great leaders have failed many times before success even at their greatest strengths:

How to find good things to read on the internet

Reading:Fun stuff to read that's also intelligent:
The best way to increase your skill is to read things just a little harder than you usually do. In fact, if you really like what you are reading it can be plenty harder than what you usually read so...

• Search for blogs about things you care about or things that you connect with and read!
• join online communites of things you are interested in.
• search twitter for hashtag (#) topics of academic interest. follow some of the people and read their links.

Games:

• If you think poor people just need to make smarter spending choices like your family does, then click here: http://playspent.org/
• http://www.icivics.org/
• http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html
• http://bit.ly/boBcm.qr
• These games are meant to make the world better:
• http://www.rippleeffects.com/resist/teens/ethnic_conflict/intro2012.html
• http://janemcgonigal.com/play-me/

Art:

• http://www.imaginationcubed.com/- how could you use this? ..its supposed to be a way to collaborate on projects by drawing together... I'm not sure but I am sure it is the wave of the future...words are not the only way to think!
• http://www.handmadethinking.com/?page_id=23-- after you go to this page and see 21 formats for visually thinking about material you are learning, click on "examples" in the top in black to see a slideshow of what his students did. ...wave of the future I tell you.
• http://www.googleartproject.com/many of the great museum collections right on your browser! cool~!~
• These are interesting artistically rendered "elements" with science and cultural/civilization building overtones and it mostly just an interesting game to spark your creativity http://doodlegod.com/ (sorry it is blocked at school. Tell me why cool math games is open but not this?)

Learn Language and general topics:

• www.memrise.com
• Livemocha- You don't have to invest in expensive courses, books or CDs to learn a foreign language. You can do it for free on Livemocha, the world's first free social language learning site.
• mindsnacks and duolingo apps
• zondle
• learnzillion