Week+Two+Wiki+Journal

Week Two Journal November 2-8, 2009

This has been a very exciting week. First on a personal note, I had a heart // catheterization // done on October 26 and was out of school until the 30th. I feel better than I have in the last ten years. It’s amazing what blood flow does for you. So I am actually a week behind. I am working with a great group, so we will move on without delay.

As for last week’s assignment, I consider myself pretty good with technology, but I was unaware of any __required__ skills to be the technology coach. I have put together very few websites and was learning like the others were. If there are any other required skills that you feel that I should already have, please send in a list so I can obtain them.

The four teachers that I am working with are Sherry Boyd, Nathan Warner, Nioki Diggs and Dawana Colman. Sherry is a seventh grade social studies teacher. Nate is a seventh grade language arts teacher. Nioki is an eighth grade math teacher. Dawana is an eighth grade science teacher. The four of them, along with myself make up the building leadership team.

The schedule that we will be working with is Sherry and Nate for six weeks and then Nioki and Dawana for six weeks. I will be in Sherry’s third period class and Nate’s fifth period class. This is week one since I was out last week. The week was somewhat chaotic because of seventh grade Terra Nova testing during the morning each day this week.

Because of testing Sherry’s third period class only met three times this week. We are working on Ancient China, specifically Confucianism. The class met directly after testing so they were very lethargic at the beginning of class. We brought in tan grams for a hands-on activity that also corresponded with an Internet site. [] We also found a short video of Confucius that we used and did a group activity with Confucius quotes.



In Nate’s class, they are divided into two groups. One group is reading __The Hobbit__ and the other group is reading __Adventures of Greek Heroes__. The group reading __The Hobbit__ is a higher functioning group. We took both groups to my computer lab and have start building websites. They are in small groups, but each student is maintaining their own site. We purchased a Google license for fifty members in order to build the sites and use the Google Apps. The students have been quite excited and really enjoyed the responses that Nate and I have made to their sites. We have found numerous sites and activities associated the both books.

The team had a good conversation during our meeting this week. We all seemed amazed at the number of tools available. I am going into week number two with Sherry and Nate. If we were to do it again we probably would take the survey together.