on On Wednesday, 2/5/20, We played a cool game called Breakout EDU. I liked it because it required you to think logically and it was like Escape the Room, which I did on my birthday and enjoyed. It was also very informative, because all the clues were on multiple safety sheets. I learned and had fun at the same time, which is pretty cool. This is a pic of the box we had to open to win:
As you can see, its pretty cool, and I really enjoyed this experience. It was both informative and fun.
on There were a lot of ways I prepare to present. But first, I had to finish my script and slides. My script was not that hard to finish. The only part that was hard was shortening it so it was only 5 minutes long. The slideshow was not that hard to complete. I included a lot of special effects. I really like it and I think its cool, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. This is it:
After those were both done, I had to practice. One of the things I practiced was switching the slide when I had to. That was my weakness. I don’t know why, but I just never did it at the right time. Also, I filmed myself doing it and presenting and I realized that I talked to fast. Also, I need to avoid distractions. This will be really helpful when I present to the other grades and classes, because there’s bound to be somebody messing around in the audience. The resources I used for this project are:
Videos:
Books:
YouTube: The Company And Its Founders
Articles:
The Differences Between YouTube And Twitch
Key Turning Points In The History Of YouTube
If you are wondering about anything related to YouTube, these resources are probably the best places to look for information. Thanks for reading!
on My main inquiry was really easy to answer. It was “How has YouTube impacted the world”. It was really easy to answer because YouTube has impacted the world in so many ways. I did a lot of research on how YouTube impacted the world. Some ways it has are that 80% of its viewers are out of America, so not only America was impacted but the world was too. Another way is that 7 billion hours of video are watched every month. That’s an insane amount of video! The research I did to answer this question helped me with my script because I could include some cool facts I learned from that research. My interview also helped me answer my main inquiry question because some of the things I learned from that were reasons YouTube impacted the world. My script and slideshow are done. If you have time and want to, please read it and comment any things I might want to change. This is the script:
| Slide | Time | Script | Image |
| 1 | 00:00 – 00:25 | Hello, Hello! My name is Danny! I have a question for you ladies and gentlemen. Do you know about YouTube? You probably do, since it is 28 percent of all Google searches. I mean, who doesn’t love watching a good Saturday Night Live video, or a great Ninja video? Ninja is a famous gamer who plays Fortnite, if you didn’t know. The point is, YouTube is an amazing website where you can find everything about everything. I hope you learn a lot about the incredible website during this presentation. | YouTube Logo |
| 2 | 00:25 – 1:25 | First off, I’ll tell you about YouTube’s founders. Their names are Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen. They are 3 former PayPal employees. Fun fact about Steve Chen: He was born in Taiwan, and his father owned a successful business there. It was so successful that Steve Chen’s father decided to move it to America. Steve was 8 years old at that the time. He didn’t speak English, so it was pretty hard for him to move to his new school. As an added challenge, he was not put in any special program to learn English, so he just had to learn the language from being exposed to it. When Steve was 13 years old, he moved to the Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Illinois. IMSA was a good school for Steve, since he had a gift with technology. He later applied for The University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. It was the only college Steve applied to, and he got accepted. After college, he started working at PayPal, where he met Jawed and Chad. | Picture of Steve Chen |
| 3 | 1:25 – 2:10 | And now for the amazing, incredible Chad Hurley! He was born in Pennsylvania, so unlike Steve Chen, Hurley is an American native. As a child, he had a lot of talent in the computer area. He also had a lot of talent in the art area. With those talents and interests, he was drawn to Web Design and Computer Animation. During his studies, he attended Twin Valley High School. In his free time, Chad tinkered with robotics. When he got to college, he wanted to work in the tech area. But Computer Science was too technical for Chad. He wanted to do creative things. After college, Chad started working at PayPal, where he met Steve and Jawed. Another cool fact about him is in 2006, he was 28th in Business 2.0’s “50 People Who Matter Now” | Picture of Chad Hurley |
| 4 | 2:10 – 2:45 | And now Jawed Karim. In May 1979, Jawed Karim was born in Merseburg, East Germany. He then moved to America. Like his parents, Jawed was interested in science and technology. When Jawed was 10 years old, his parents bought him a Commodore computer. Jawed spent a lot of time toying with the computer and soon learned how to write code. Jawed attended St. Paul Central High School. When Jawed graduated from high school, he wanted to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. He planned to major in computer science. But the school did not accept him. So he wrote a letter in return explaining why he should be in the school. The letter made a difference and he was accepted. In 2000, Jawed left the college and started working at PayPal. There, he met Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. | Picture of Jawed Karim |
| 5 | 2:45 – 3:10 | YouTube’s origins are kind of hilarious. I mean, they started out as a dating site called Tune In, Hook Up. The way that worked is people would put videos of themselves on the site, and if other people liked those videos they could comment them their number. But nobody used Tune In, Hook Up the right way. People started posting videos of themselves doing challenges, and basically everything else you can see on YouTube today. So Tune In, Hook Up built on their strengths and made it a place where people could post themselves doing random things, like the YouTube we know and love today. | Person on computer |
| 6 | 3:10 – 3:50 | But there is still an important question. What is the best video viewing platform? You probably know about Twitch. It is YouTube’s main competitor, and most gamers on YouTube are on Twitch also. Let’s compare them to see which is better, mainly gaming videos, because that’s all that Twitch does. The first category is the presentation of the videos. YouTube lets you choose a thumbnail for your videos, which is good because thumbnails partly tell the story of the video, but Twitch doesn’t have that feature and you can’t choose a thumbnail. So its YouTube 1, Twitch 0. The next category is content. On Twitch, you can only find gaming videos. But on YouTube, you can find all sorts of categories of videos. So its YouTube 2, Twitch 0. So YouTube is the better video viewing platform. | YouTube Logo vs. Twitch Logo |
| 7 | 3:50 – 4:00 | YouTube is a website that has changed so many lives, and is constantly changing more. I don’t know about you, but I love watching YouTube and seeing how it gets better and better. | YouTube Site |
| 8 | 4:00 – 4:45 | Does anybody have a question? | Question Mark |
| 9 | 4:45 – 5:00 | Check out my blog for more information. | Link to blog and QR code |
| 10 | |||
| 11 | |||
| 12 |
on Planning Phase:
For my Capstone project, I am researching YouTube. During the Capstone project, we have to conduct a Site Visit. For my Site Visit, I want to go to the YouTube Space. The YouTube Space is a productions facility where YouTubers with over 10K subscribers can go to record their videos. I want to visit there because I think I can learn a lot about what YouTubers do and how they record their videos and what they use. I am still waiting to hear back from them. I think they will email me back today though. But if they don’t my back up plan is to create a YouTube channel and film the process. I have already made the account I will make the YouTube channel on and today I ill film it. I will talk about the actual Site Visit in the next paragraph.
Actual Phase:
The YouTube Space team didn’t email me back, so I decided to take a video of me making a YouTube channel. I had a lot of technical issues. One was that the camera was upside down but everything else was amazing, so in editing I flipped the camera over. Another issue was that I messed up on some words or forgot something. I finally got it right the last time. This is it:
Learning Phase:
This really helped me because now I know how to make a YouTube channel. I think I did a pretty good job explaining how its done. I filmed it at my house, but there were a lot of problems. I eventually fixed them all, but it was annoying. I learned some valuable filming skills. Overall, I learned a lot and I really enjoyed it.
on Today in Science, we mixed colored sugar and liquids. The liquids we mixed with colored sugar were oil, vinegar, and water.
The way we made the colored sugar is we took 4 teaspoons of regular sugar, and then we squirted some purple food coloring onto it. After that, we mixed it until all of the sugar was purple.
The first liquid we mixed with colored sugar was oil. Our hypothesis for this was: If we put the colored sugar into the oil, then both materials will stay separated and the color will stay in the sugar. Our hypothesis was correct: They both stayed separated, and the color didn’t spread.
The second liquid we mixed with the colored sugar was water. Our hypothesis was: If we put the colored sugar into the water, then the color will spread and the sugar will dissolve. Our hypothesis was confirmed. The color spread and the sugar dissolved.
The last liquid we mixed with the colored water was vinegar. Our hypothesis was: If we put the colored sugar into the vinegar, then the sugar will dissolve and the color will spread. We were only half correct: the color spread, but the sugar did not dissolve.
Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this project and learned a lot. Thanks for reading!
on Today we played a match game. It was called “Match It!” Basically, we had to flip the cards over, and then Sam (my partner) and I would flip two cards at a time. If we flipped both the term and its definition, we got to keep that set of cards. Whoever had the most cards at the end would win. At least that’s how I think you play the game. There was a bit of confusion. Sam and I didn’t really know who won, though, because like I said, there was a bit of confusion. I learned a lot from that, and it was pretty fun too! These are some pictures from the “Match It!” game:
We also sorted lettered and colored cubes. Basically, there were maybe 100 little cubes each with a letter and color on them. What Sam and I decided to do was sort them by color. There were six different colors and a whole lot of cubes, so it was hard work. But in the end, it was really satisfying to see all the cubes in their own color spot. If I remember correctly, the colors were pink, orange, green, blue, purple and yellow. I learned about Chemical Elements and Compounds from this project. Here’s a picture my group took while sorting the cubes:
We also watched a video and took a test. I got 7/7 on the test! It was really informative and I learned a lot!
I really enjoyed this experience and learned a lot! Thanks for reading!
on Alan Gratz’s “Refugee” is a book where power is switched between characters a lot and is sometimes misused. In this blog post, I will be talking about how power is switched between characters, and about how some people in the story use it the wrong way.
In Isabel’s story, Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, starts out with the power, but later on, gives the Cuban residents the chance to leave. When Isabel and her family heard this, they took the opportunity and tagged along with the Castillos. In the brief few peaceful minutes they had after escaping Fidel Castro and his abuse of power, they felt very powerful because they had done what, just a couple hours earlier, had seemed impossible. But soon after that, the storm took the power from them. After surpassing that challenge, they felt powerful, but then the tanker started to steal the power from them, and finally, the Coast Guard took then power from them because it was about to capture them. They then lost and gained power at the same time because they were going to make it to Miami, but at the same time, Lito wouldn’t be with them.
In Josef’s story, Hitler and the Nazi’s held the power, but when Josef and his family heard the news that their father was coming back, they felt powerful. This ended soon though because when they saw him, they realized he had turned into a crazy lunatic who believed that Hitler was always coming to hurt him. When they got on the ship, felt pretty depressed and powerless because of Josef’s father’s distraught situation. But once they set sail to Cuba, they started to regain some power because they thought they would never have to face Hitler’s wraith again. They felt like this until Josef’s mother took the sleeping med and Josef’s father attempted suicide. They lost most of their power then, but when Captain Schroeder announced they wouldn’t be docking in Cuba, they lost all power whatsoever. But when Josef and the other men broke into the ship’s bridge, they got some power back. But when the group retreated, they lost some of the power they had gained. But when France accepted Josef and his family, they felt massively powerful. Fast forward a couple months, they lose a lot of their power because Hitler invaded France.
In Mahmoud’s story, The Syrian government starts out with the power, and when Mahmoud’s building gets destroyed, he loses a huge portion of his power. But when they escape with the car, they gain a little bit of power. And when they meet the soldiers and realize they’re good guys, they gain a lot more power. But when they started to get shot at in the car, they lost a lot of power because they had just lost everything. But when Mahmoud’s Dad gets the iPhone back, they get a little bit of their power back. And when they get to Turkey and start waiting for the boat, they gain even more power. But when the boat doesn’t come, they lose some of their power. And finally, when they do get on the boat and it crashes, they lose all their power. But when the Coast Guard appears and they see Waleed and Mahmoud’s dad on it, they regain some power, but not a lot because they had to give away Hana during the time when they were treading water. Then when they get to Greece and the Taxi Driver threatens to shoot them, they lose a lot of power. And when they finally get to the border, but get caught and get sent to prison, they lose a lot of power. But when they see Waleed and Mahmoud’s mom, they regain some power.
on Planning Phase
If you don’t know, I am researching YouTube for Capstone. For Capstone, we have to interview someone (and do a Site Visit, but I’ll talk about that in my next blog post. So stay tuned!) A month or so ago, Ms. Boyer invited her friend and former student to come to the class and talk to us. He said he used to work at Google, but left and started his own company. The part about his own company was pretty cool, but I was more interested in the part about Google. In fact, that sparked my interest in Google. But I like YouTube, and I figured since this guy used to work at Google, he might know a thing or two about YouTube. So I asked Ms. Boyer to contact him. I’ll talk about the actual interview in the next paragraph.
Interview Phase:
I was really worried and nervous to interview Greg. I thought “What if I pronounce a word incorrectly?” or “What if I forget something?” But as soon as I started the interview, I calmed down. I was sitting on a stool, but I never had time to sit down comfortably. So I half sat, half stood during the 20 minutes of my interview. It turned out Greg knew a lot more about YouTube than I thought, and he was able to answer almost all the questions I asked him. I’ll talk about what I learned in the next paragraph.
Learning Phase:
I learned so much during my interview with Greg! I recorded it on my phone, so now I can watch it whenever I want. One thing I learned is that Google didn’t really buy YouTube that recently. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it was pretty recent, but from my perspective, it was a LONG time ago. Another thing I learned is the first ever video posted to YouTube was called “Me at the zoo”, and that kind of set the tone that this was a video sharing website where ordinary people could post random things. The interview helped me so much, and now I just have to do a site visit. That concludes my third blog post. Thanks for reading!
on My main Inquiry Question while studying YouTube for Capstone is “How did YouTube impact the world?” We also had to pick sub questions, which are questions that relate to the main inquiry question, but they mean less to us than the Main Inquiry Question. My sub questions are:
What is YouTube? (Sub Question)How does YouTube work? (Sub Question)
When was YouTube created? (Sub Question)
How has YouTube evolved over time? (Sub Question)
What do people like about YouTube? (Sub Question)
Will YouTube be around for the next generation (Sub Question)
Is YouTube better than Twitch? (Sub Question)
Who are the top 10 YouTubers? (Sub Question)
How much do YouTubers get paid to do ads? (Sub Question)
Who are YouTube’s competitors? (Sub Question)
What is the most viewed video on YouTube? (Sub Question)
What are YouTube Easter Eggs? (Sub Question)
I am excited to research these questions and my main question. Thanks for reading, and i will post more Capstone blog posts soon.
on In class we are doing a project called Capstone. It is basically a bigger version of a Passion Project. We got to choose topics, and I chose Google. But when I started thinking of questions, I realized Google was way too broad. I realized I would have to narrow down my topic. After thinking for a while, I decided to do YouTube. I almost did Python. Not the snake, but the coding language. I almost did it because when I grow up I want to be a video game maker, so I should probably learn Python. But then I realized that I really enjoy watching YouTube videos, and whenever I watch a YouTube video I get curious about the company’s origins, how it was acquired by Google, and a lot of other questions. In this project, I hope to learn about YouTube so I don’t wonder about it every time I watch a YouTube video.