I Wing It On Friday

Some days, you just want to change things up a little bit. Friday was such a day. It was my 1st, 5th and 7th Period class schedule, which historically, has been a little harder to impliment than the even period days.

First period was already taken care of, the students had their trade show, an exercise which I have been completing with each class wherein groups of two students learn all about one command and then teach that command to everyone else in the class. The activity went fairly well, but it was nothing to write home about. It is sometimes very hard to keep control in such class activities without raising your voice. I think that I raised my voice once or twice.

Fifth Period, a Technology Class in which I have not always been an award winning teacher and in which the students are not always Rhodes Scholars, I did a little one class exercise talking about the meaning of Technology. It is a Technology class, after all. We came up with a decent working definition of the term, then discussed technological problems and solutions throughout history. Then the kids did a short writing regarding the problems that they have in their lives that use "New Technology" as a solution. It might not have been the most perfect lesson of all time, but I do think that most of the kids now have a decent idea of the meaning of the term technology.

In 7th Period, to compensate for the uninspiring products that I received in a recent writing assignment regarding Graphic Design, we did a short Graphic Design exercise. First, we talked about Logos. I showed some, we talked about them, how they are used, what they look like, etc. Then, we broke into groups and invented companies with names and products. Then, we wrote a quick "Request for Bid" statement that outlined what our new company was looking for in the development of a new logo. Then, the group next to ours got our Bid Statement and their group members had to come up with some pencil sketches of new logos for our company. (Meanwhile, of course, we are doing the same for the group on the other side of us.) We would then make suggestions and changes, as needed, and approve one logo for final production.

Then, the team would head back and create the new logos using Fireworks, our Graphic Arts Program.

For the most part, the kids did well and produced some interesting logos. At least it was rather light hearted and fun.

Mr. Ward Visits My Classroom.

It is Thursday, My "Good" Day. I have Web Design and two Tech classes today. 2nd Period is the Web Design and the kids are working on finishing a project. As our writing assignment for the week, I decided to give the kids a little research project. They hate it, but I am OK with that.

We did a little bit of background discussion regarding Graphic Design and then I set the kids loose to pick a famous Graphic Designer and put together a little paper and presentation regarding that person. This is not something to finish in one class period, but something that we can use to fill the gaps in our days. Hopefully, a kid or two will also learn something about Graphic Art and decide that it is pretty cool.

4th Period is one of my better Tech classes. They are currently working on the "Plotting Technology" project, where they have to dimensionally sketch and then plot a piece of technology. I am pleasantly pleased at the work that I see the kids producing. Problem is, as with all of my projects, some kids complete work early and others are still working. Argh. What to do, what to do.

In 6th Period, arguably my best class, because of the motivated kids and the small class size, 11, Mr. Ward, my principal, stopped in to observe the class. He wants to see how I am doing with my first year teaching and with things like Classroom Management, Lesson Planning, etc. We are in Day Two of "The Paper Tower" project, where kids have to build a paper tower and plot their design of their tower in AutoCAD. Mr. Ward only stayed for about 10 minutes or so, then left. I don't think that he worries too much about my classroom management, as for the most part, I keep the kids at a slightly less than chaotic level. He also told me later that he really liked the project that we were working on and that he thought it was a great one for the class. Yeah!

After school, I get to stay late and grade stuff. That will be awesome!

They don't tell you in teacher school what a complete pain in the ass grading is. If they did, nobody would ever become a teacher.

We Start Building Towers and Drawing Mice.

I know, I haven't been blogging much recently.

Sorry.

I am trying not to let school run my life each and every day. Most days, it does, but not EVERY day. I only worked for about 2 hours over the weekend and I only stayed until 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Tuesday, I had to leave early to take care of some school business and today, I was out of school by 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow, I stay late to do some grading.

In a couple of my AutoCAD classes, I have started doing some project work, which I vastly prefer to book stuff. In the 4th Period, where kids try pretty hard and usually get some good stuff done, I started a "Plotting Technology" Project. I spent some time the other day digging a bunch of old junk out of some of the remaining filing cabinet drawers in the Tech Lab that the kids could draw in AutoCAD. I found two remote controls, a handy vac for keyboards, two old digital cameras, some printer stands, some computer mice, a micrometer, a joystick from an old videogame, stuff like that. Kids have to create a dimensioned sketch of their item and then plot the piece in AutoCAD.

The kids seem to be doing fairly well at the job, for the most part. At least it isn't doing problems out of the book.

In my 5th Period Tech II class and my 6th Period Tech class, which are both fairly advanced, I am hauling out a lesson plan that I developed last year. Kids divide into groups of two and must design a tower, using only three sheets of paper and five inches of tape. Then, the teams must use AutoCAD to create a dimensioned construction diagram and final model drawing. Teams will be judged on the height of their tower, the amount of paper left over and the quality of the AutoCAD drawings.

Kids must decide whether to go for a tall tower and use most of their materials or whether to just clear the minimum height required and have a bunch of materials left over. Some of the groups are doing very well, with two of them getting towers as high as 50 inches while only using 3/4 of a sheet of paper.

In 1st Period today, we had our Trade Show scheduled, where kids were going to have their booths set up to teach each other a number of different AutoCAD commands and so forth. I have been doing this in each class and it has worked well, for the most part. Today, the juniors were all out taking the PSAT test, so half of my class was unexpectedly missing. I split the class into boys and girls and we played AutoCAD Pictionary. Unlike the last time that I tried this activity, with 5th Period, this time it went well and was a lot of fun. The kids seemed to get into it and the guys were winning and cheering and doing the wave. It was nice to see some enthusiasm for a change.

Anyway, enough for now, I need to go make dinner.