I Yell at People. A Lot.

Well, the Second Day of Classes rolled around and I was pleased that most kids showed up again. We did introductory stuff on Day 1 and played some games. Today, I outlined the rules of the Lab (or The Fishbowl, as I call it, as it has large windows opening onto two hallways).

For the most part, I was kind of a butthead. I am pretty emphatic about my rules and the examples therein. To be honest, though, there isn't anything in my Rules of The Fishbowl presentation that these kids haven't heard before, lots of times:

-No food and drink, water only in enclosed containers.
-No Hats.
-No Music Players or headphones, no playing music on the computer.
-No Cell Phones, in particular, no Camera Cellphones.
-No email and No games.
-and so forth...

I also go over the late policy (Late work is docked 50 percent and isn't accepted 2 weeks past due date.)

I also talk about inappropriate content on the computers. Mess up in this area and you will lose computer privileges and may be expelled from the class.

We also talked about respect and pride in the classroom.

OK. That was fun.

After that, we went over the course syllabus. I knew that if I was to simply hand out the syllabus, each student would take them home, get a signature and never read a word. So, using the Reading and Writing Training that I got in my weeklong workshop this summer, I made the students pair up, sit next to each other and read out loud. One student follows the words with their fingers and the other student reads. At the end of a paragraph, the kids switch.

Everyone hated it. But you know what? They read the syllabus and were attentive and quiet for 5-10 minutes. Activity successful!

Then, we tried to get the kids their own space on the network. Unfortunately, this isn't too easy. Spencer, the IT Guy, has given me a user login for the Tech Lab, with a supersecret password. At the start of the day, I log in each and every computer in the classroom with this generic password. To create files, I pretty much had to walk around and do the file creation individually. As there are 14-20 kids in each class, all logged on as the same user, any actions done on the network effected everyone. What a pain.

When we were done with that, we pretty much had 10-12 minutes of time left in each class. I gave them some free time on the computers. Using this time as best I could, I went around the room and met with each student and talked with them a little to start seeing what kids are interested in nowadays. At Highland High, there is a lot of interest in trucks, horses and cattle. This may be different in your area, but here, these are the big 3.