Whillock,+C

=Cathleen Whillock=

Wednesday, August 22nd
|| **"Session"** || **Reflection/Products** ||
 * **Time**
 * 8:00-9:50 || Welcome, Intro, and Review Core Competencies || Good intro with useful information. I'm particularly thrilled with our state exam scores in comparison with the other schools in our district. I've heard that the other schools in the district think we've got the "best" students and that's why our scores are better. I'm not so sure they're wrong. Students have to apply to come here. They want to be here, which means they are interested in learning a skill and having a career (because we're career focused). By virtue of the fact that they're already career focused at their age, it stands to reason that they're also more conscientious about their grades. I personally believe that we do have THE BEST STUDENTS! ||
 * 10:00-10:50 || Managing Website and Student Database || WOW! The student database is going to be a tremendously useful tool for us. I've already had the opportunity to start placing a face with the names of my PACE students. After having used the Outlook database we used last year, I can honestly say that it makes a difference when you can track the contacts with parents. ||
 * 11:00-11:50 || Using Digital Videos In Your Classroom || I've used United Streaming, but didn't realize the other features that were available. The calendar function is a great way to help students connect with the past. I'm looking forward to using it as a resource for images, speeches and articles. Unfortunately, there's not a lot in my content areas, but the core content teachers should find it extremely useful.

It's a little frustrating that some of the videos are outdated, but as long as you preview them before the students see them you can weed those out. I've actually seen more value from some of the YouTube videos. They have many videos from The History Channel and other sources that are more current.

The instructor of this session was very informative. She did a nice job of explaining to everyone how to download and utilize the videos. ||
 * 1:00-1:50 || http://k12online.wm.edu/TwoWayTeaching.mov || Actually, I couldn't get this link to work, but I set up a PACE class WIKI to use to get to know my PACE kids. http://catwhillockpace.wikispaces.com/ I'm not finished yet, but the intent is to have the students fill this out and introduce themselves, as well as have topics to discuss on their wikipage. ||
 * 2:00-2:45 || Meeting with floor Vice Principal || cool - it was brief ||
 * 2:45-3:30 || PACE Meeting || Good stuff. Wow! Someone really spent a lot of time putting this stuff out on Blackboard. Awesome team spirit! Kay stressed the fact that we don't want to make Cathleen cry this year by not using it. ||

Thursday, August 23rd
|| **"Session"** || **Reflection/Products** ||
 * **Time**
 * 8:00-9:50 || Meet with Teams and Specialties || Good meeting. Okay, I'm going to be working with as many volunteers I can get to help me as the technology coordinator for our team (again) this year. So, we already got started and set up our team blog. You'll want to grab the feeds at: [|http://9advtech.wordpress.com.] ||
 * 10:00-10:50 || Varying Instructional Strategies (129) || We looked at 5 different strategies (4 + the jigsaw used in the session). The educational material was good and definitely something I'll use. We had a time crunch though...using the jigsaw strategy to teach the jigsaw stragegy doesn't really work in a session when you have a limited amount of time and you want to deliver a consistent message.... we convinced Angela not to do it that way and work with us as a group.

I'm very interested in, and will be using, the graduated difficulty method. We've got such a broad range of student capabilities and it seems like this one would really do a fantastic job of allowing each student to be successful. ||
 * 11:00-11:50 || Podcasting – Broadcast Yourself (cyberzone) || Good session. Darren's an awesome resource. I'm adding podcasts to my class instructional tools as well as class assignments! ||
 * 1:00-1:50 || online: setting up a wordpress blog || Okay, I already had a blog on blogger, but Wordpress seems to be the blog de jour... so, I've got one now. I decided to transfer the information from my website to my blogsite... it's hard for a person who is used to the control of developing their own web-site, to give some of it up, but it is definitely quicker! Here it is: http://catwhillock.wordpress.com/. My plan is to have my students use either a blog or wiki to keep their own portfolio... still haven't decided which one, but I'm leaning toward blog because it looks more professional. ||
 * 2:00-2:25 || Reflection Time || One can certainly get lost in the technology. I've been able to get a lot of what I consider "infrastructure" created, eg. wikis, blogs and podcasts. However, I feel behind in generating the lesson plans for the start of next week. I'm hoping F-SU will provide enough time for me to get my proverbial act together! ||
 * 2:30-3:30 || Meet with Departments || did it... Justin kept us laughing:) ||