9/26

Well, to quote Lori Holst: "There was progress".
Collectively, the group worked together to figure out iMovie and the details of using Lori's Hovercam, in making movies. We also discussed at length the possible options for placing our movies in Teachertube, the cloud, a district hard drive, or a external hard-drive that might be a valuable resource for the department(math since 3 of us are math teachers).
Personally, I have only experimented a little with iMovie, and have not begun recording lessons or examples.

I feel a little overwhelmed, honestly. Teaching has its own set of unique responsibilities like keeping up with the gradebook(otherwise the students are always asking what is what!), grading of homework, quizes, and tests, new teacher responsibilities like preparing goals and directives for my mentor, my observer, and that doesn't even count the planning of each new days lesson!  The PLC project has taken a back seat to all of these other things; sadly, since it seems that it would make a worthwhile experience and tool. By the looks of it, Zak, Parbs, and Holst are all using videos effectively and creating differentiated classrooms in the midst of the regular chaos that is high school teaching.   I wonder when I'll get caught up, and what life will look like when I do...
Using all that I am blessed with, I am moving forward in each class learning each day as I teach.
The students and teachers around me are turning out to be supremely valuable resources for my experience and thankfully ehlp each day seem fresh and exciting despite the troubles that are a lack of time, and a constant fatigue.

Anyhoo, Until we meet again my blog & diary dujour

Today, we whelped each other figure out a good place to post videos (Teacher Tube) for better student access.  I will repost some of my You Tube videos in Teacher Tube to see if it makes a difference in performance during class.  We also put our heads together and learned how to edit videos on iMovie.

Today we experimented with Lori's Hovercam to see if there was a way to significantly reduce files sizes.  We did not find one.  We think the solution is in having centralized local storage to store videos that teacher make.  Students would need access to this storage, that way teachers could simply post linktsto the videos in School Loop.  Rich will follow up with Logan regarding the feasibility.

Today I had several student stay late to finish work before the progress report grades were to be turned in. I wish they worked this hard every day!

As I only just received a disc drive for my laptop, I have yet to view the instruction manual for the elmo, meaning I have yet to try out my taping the lesson experiment, hopefully I will be able to get the ball rolling in the next day or so. I hope to record my note taking and lessons in trig on friday and have a viewable lesson (or part of one) to bring to the next plc meeting sept 19.

Happy teaching and Learning!!