Template:Main Page:About

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[Image:Michael_Plasmeier_Spring_2009_Narrow.JPG|thumb|200px]] I'm Michael Plasmeier otherwise known as The Plaz. I am a senior at Haverford High School as well as a web developer and project manager with a focus on user experience and design. I am also a TV Show producer and host and an open source app maintainer.

On my site you will find:

Updates on what I am involved in
Links to my other projects
My comments on the world
Photos and videos I have taken
School work and notes I have made

I host and produce the video podcast Tecker 911 [2] along with some of my friends. Tecker 911 is a series of 5-15 minute shows each which covers a technology topic in a way which is relevant for ordinary people, with a focus towards students and our community. Tecker 911 is also shown on our local public access channel Channel 11.

I am the founder and primary contributor to SeniorQuoter, [3] an open-source web application for senior quotes collections for high school yearbooks. In 11th Grade, I lead a Dynamic Website Building Instruction and Practical Experience Group Study at my high school. I helped 4 other students learn PHP and MySQL and then I project managed version 2 of SeniorQuoter, the administration interface.

I am a host on the weekly audio podcast The Weekly Spin [4] where we discuss the top 5 or so news stories of the week.

Tecker and Conflicter were question and answer services I built in 10th Grade. They never really caught on, but they were the perfect way to learn PHP. Dictionary Robot is something I tarted last year, but abandoned later. In 10th Grade, I was a member of Team 484 and in 11th Grade I was their webmaster.

In 8th and 9th Grades I wrote bunch of programs for the TI-83+. You can see them below. My favorite is FERRIS, which helps solve the unit problem in IAG/IMP 4. A few years ago I was a mid-level contributor on Wikipedia . I also made some improvements for MediaWiki, the software that runs ThePlaz.com and Wikipedia. The drop down menu in the site notice is one of the best.

School Work

I hope that this knowledge will help people less-fortunate than me persevere and succeed. All of my work is under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license, meaning that you may use it and re-post it anywhere as long as you post my name/nickname, provide a link back to my site, and don't make money off my work. Many people visit my site from overseas where the school system is not as good. See Site Mission Statement for more

- For 9th Grade I have posted projects I did on the computer
- For 10th Grade I have posted not only my work I made on a computer but laboriously scanned all of my handwritten notes and worksheets
- For 11th Grade I am only posting my own notes (no worksheets) from very structured classes; I am scaling back
- See my 12th Grade Schedule
- See also my Notes Key

Other

Below, see some of my 20,000 digital photos I have, videos I made, my collection of student tools, and quotes and reviews of some of ThePlaz.com services others have written.

I have some Personal Philosophies including that PDAs should be allowed in school. For English 10, I wrote about The Essential Separation Between Church and State. In English 9, I wrote about the dangers of Hazing. See also my Site Mission Statement.

This summer I attended the Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence in Information, Society & Technology, a 5 week summer program at Drexel University. What I learned

Read some of the College Application Essays I have written.

See where my nickname is from; Self-Branding

So welcome to my site, feel free to look around. And it's a wiki, so feel free to hit "edit" on the top of nearly every page if you have something important to add. If it's nonsense, I will just remove it.

See ThePlaz's Biography