Holmes,+T

=Tiffany Holmes=

Wednesday, August 22nd
|| **"Session"** || **Reflection/Products** ||
 * **Time**
 * 8:00-9:50 || Welcome, Intro, and Review Core Competencies || This was a good get to know you session. The review of Academy goals and pep talk was needed. Getting to meet new teachers is nice for the returning teachers. ||
 * 10:00-10:50 || Building Electronic Portfolios with Wikis || I found this intriguing and useful. They gave us time to practice in the session, but it was nowhere near enough time. The difficulty I see is that this is a great idea, but a teacher needs a serious time allotment in order to effectively use this. Also, before using it with my students, I will need to be an experienced user myself. ||
 * 11:00-11:50 || Differentiation with Adaptive Release in Blackboard || This is fantastic stuff I would really like to integrate using this in my classroom on a daily basis. There was a lot of information to learn (too much to go over in a short session). There was not enough John to go around in a crowded classroom. This one will take lots of practice. ||
 * 1:00-1:50 || Managing Website and Student Database || This was a great session, full of excellent stuff for teachers to use. Plus, Darren gave us lots of time and a nifty list of activities with which to practice. I'm definately going to have to refer to my notes on all of the informtion we covered today. ||
 * 2:00-2:45 || Meeting with floor Vice Principal || Great meeting! Michelle is always positive. The new teachers were introduced, but being a new teacher, I wish the returning teachers would have been introduced too. ||
 * 2:45-3:30 || PACE Meeting || Very informative, easy to follow ,and absolutely useful. Good session. Also, it was not totally overwhelming at the end of day. ||

Thursday, August 23rd
|| **"Session"** || **Reflection/Products** ||
 * **Time**
 * 8:00-9:50 || Meet with Teams and Specialties || This was helpful. First of all, I got to recognize and get to know the members of my team who I was still fuzzy on. We reviewed PACE info, discussed TEAM roles, and had any of our questions answered. This was a really helpful time. ||
 * 10:00-10:50 || Teacher's Toolkit: Building Up to Project Based Learning || Beth certainly has all of her ducks in a row. This training was interesting and helpful, but I'm glad that I have already written a layered project-based unit before. The information on the WIKI page was useful, and I found a great template to use when designing my own. Still I thought that our (teacher) assignment was a little vague and open to interpretation. I found myself getting a little lost at the end. ||
 * 11:00-11:50 || Social Bookmarking and Sharing ELA/History Websites || This was the first session that I actually finished the objective. The presentation was delivered in an organized, straight-forward manner in the very beginning. Only the beginning was taken up by instruction. We had plenty of time to work and practice. Having two instructors was helpful as they were able to get around and help all of us at different times when needed. I was practicing and sharing in no time. Excellent! ||
 * 1:00-1:50 || Using Blogging to Improve Student Writing || Once again, this is a great resource and tool to use in the classroom. Again, I feel like all the technology that I wanted to learn about is being given to me, however it will be months before I feel like I wiill actually be able to use it. Angela gave us a nice presentation, straight forward and informative. ||
 * 2:00-2:25 || Reflection Time || Got my picture taken. I'd already reflected. However, I heard a lot of people saying that they had not even started reflecting, so clearly others needed it. ||
 * 2:30-3:30 || Meet with Departments ||  ||