Day Six

I felt sort of bad about the survey that we all filled out on Friday. I said some truthful things about instructors that weren't exactly complimentary. Today seemed to go a bit better, perhaps because of the feedback of 50 know-it-all teachers. I felt that if I was going to give constructive feedback, I would have to use my name on the survey, so I did. As usual, I worried about it all weekend.

Today's activities:

--Essential questions. I could do this all day. A book on this would be so helpful and our school should hold a mandatory in service on this. Imagine how popular that would be. Some of the superstars in my homeroom again proved to be valuable resources. I'm talking to you, Laura.

--Rushton did a primer on Photo Story 3 software, the freebie from windows that is like a poor man's iphoto. I enjoyed it. It does the "Ken Burns" move and you can add music and export it as a video file. It would take no time at all to teach kids this and they could set their slide shows to music. That would be cool.

--I left before he started the Premiere Elements class. I don't have that software and some day when I get it I'll buy a book to help me through it. I get a bit frustrated when others are trying to figure out how to import photos or install the programs. I sort of which there were classes that you had to qualify for by producing a short slide show, or something.

--There was work time and then a session on assessment. I began to feel overwhelmed which is where I am right now. Since I'm in a group, we need to have some individual assessments as well as some overall, connected assessments. Thu is working hard and finishing early while Frank and I are struggling to catch up. Plus, the soapbox video is officially due tomorrow and I don't really know what I'm doing on that. I'll stay late tomorrow to continue working.

--Plus I have to buy a new laptop, because the one I've been using is going back to its department. It takes me hours and hours of research to make a purchase of this amount. I spent two hours after class running from store to store touching different laptops. I'm not even sure I'm going PC or Mac. Macs are about 1300 and good PCs are about 800.

Woe is me.