This Really Weird Dream I Had.

In the teachers lounge the other day, we were talking about having "Teaching Dreams." These are sort of stress dreams related to your job, just like anyone in any profession likely has.

OK, last night, I had one. It was pretty strange.

Project Promise 16 was participating in a "Team Building" exercise. This was a pretty elaborate one. We were taken to France and were to give lessons in French Schools. We were then graded on our performances. Anyone that didn't pass was then to be executed by beheading. (I told you that this was a weird dream.) Almost all of us did not pass and were scheduled for the axe.

We were waiting in a holding area to be escorted by this "guard" to the "executioner" for our execution. Of course, I was choosen to be the first one to lose their head. The cohort quietly developed a plan to overtake the guard and the executioner and escape. Some of use grabbed rocks and anything else we could find.

The executioner called for me and the guard came my direction. As he came upon me, I jumped at him with my rock and began to beat him, as did many of the other PP members. Others jumped the Executioner. Soon, both were dead, lying in pools of blood.

We quietly escaped the building, hiding out as best we could so as not be caught for our horrible crimes. Somehow, we made our way back to the Project Promise room (this is a dream, ok.) We were having a debriefing session with our instructors and the company that put on the "Teambuilding Activity." All of us were lying and trying to cover up what really had happened. It was apparent to us that the company knew what had happened. They became increasingly suspicious of us and soon, we jumped them and attacked them for knowing about our plot.

Suddenly, I realized (don't ask me how, this is a dream) that this was all part of the "Teambuilding Exercise." Our treatment and our pending executions represented the problem that we had to solve. Our plan to kill the guard and the executioner and escape was our solution. Our subsequent cover-up was the "coming together as a team" part of the exercise.

Then, I woke up.

Weird, huh?

Teaching for Ali.

Another day, another three classes going back to the basics regarding file management. I wrote about that yesterday and I did it again today for all of my odd period classes. I only had to tell the Dragon Story two more times, but I am now getting very good at telling the Dragon Story. I am adding detail and drama. The story is now semi-famous and Mr. Denise has had numerous kids ask him if he really killed dragons when he was young.

I just went over the basics in my 1st period class and didn't tell the Dragon Story, because they haven't learned the basics yet. The kids were kind of bored, but they stayed with me. I hope they learned stuff.

Then we had the 3rd Period. THE period. This is the period where all of the bullpucky hit the fan in the first place. Ali was to come watch me do a lesson plan regarding our new Graphic Arts Project. Didn't happen. I gave my Dragon lecture again. The kids got the punchline. There were lots and lots of groans. One kid even picked up on the Dragon being Mr. Denise's deadline for completing the Art Museum Project. It seemed to go over well.

I made sure that the "blame" for all of the difficulties that they had in completing their projects fell on Mr. Jewett and I, as we had not be reviewing the basics thoroughly enough. (Which is true.)

We then went over all the basics again. The kids stayed with me and got stuff done. Ali seemed to like it. She evaluated my teaching and seemed to think that I did a good job.

Yeah!

I then did the whole lesson again for the 5th Period class. My 5th time doing the Dragon Story.

Now everyone has their files and folders in order and are ready to move on to other projects.

I start my Graphic Arts project with 3rd Period next Tuesday (maybe Monday.)

First Period, Difficulties with I.

In our first period class this morning, we went over the basics of file management, just like we did in each and every class. As this was the Computer I class, I started with more of the basics than in the other classes. We made a little file in Microsoft Word for taking computer notes, then we saved it according to all of the file saving criteria, we moved it around, we copied it to my "drop" folder, stuff like that.

I wanted the kids to be paying attention to the instruction throughout the class and not have any other windows open on their computer. One student, I., who sits next to the Teacher's Computer, kept opening Internet Explorer and surfing the Internet or opening Flash and trying to make an animation. I told him about 8-10 times that he needed to stop opening these other programs. He would close the programs for about 2 minutes and then open them right back up again. Even when I told him that if he opened another window, I would have to remove him from the class, he still did it. I removed him from the class. I was not sure what else to do. I can't teach 15 kids how to manage files on their computer while one kid is sitting at the front of the class surfing the Internet instead.

I went to talk with Mr. Caddoo about my problems in this area. Mr. Caddoo is the Assistant Principal and handles a lot of discipline issues. He said that the very next period (by coincidence,) I. had an IEP meeting to review his behavioral issues. The conclusion was that he has some sort of emotional behavioral thing going on that appears to have him compulsively doing stuff, like drumming pencils, rocking in his chair, opening Internet Explorer, etc. He appears to be doing this even when he is given direct instruction not to. Kind of like I ran into in my class.

Mr. Caddoo says that I.'s team has decided that he needs a "Support" class, that will help him learn to control these issues. Because of this, he will be transferring out of my Computer I class, starting Monday.

I guess that this problem was solved before I even knew about it.

Telling the Dragon Story, Three Times.

After the fairly large-sized fiasco that was Mr. Denise's class on Tuesday, he directed us to go "back to basics" in each of our computer classes.

I did that today.

I started each class today with an allegorical story. The story was about an Old General who had trained a fine army for a far away kingdom. He trained the army for 10 years and then retired to a farm to write history books. The next fall, the king was told of an approaching Dragon that threatened the kingdom. Not fully trusting his new general, he went to the Old General and asked for his help.

The Old General agreed, and came back to the castle to train with the kingdom's finest knights. He trained with them for two full weeks, showing them advanced thrust and parry techniques, as well as a neat "sword-throw," that allowed a knight to throw his sword with deadly accuracy from 30 yards away.

The king's scouts came and reported that the Dragon was coming across the countryside, burning farms as he came. The Dragon would likely reach the castle on Tuesday morning.

The Old General spent all day on Monday preparing the knights, planning his attacks and his flanking maneuvers. At the end of the day, he was satisfied that the knights were well prepared to meet the Dragon on the field of battle.

As Monday morning dawned, the Old General went to the courtyard and had his herald blow the trumpet to call the knights. The Old General waited. And Waited.

Back in the barracks, one knight thought that he might have left his sword in the dining hall when he used it as a toothpick the night before. Another knight swore that he had left his sword in his sock drawer, but now could not find it. Two or three knights couldn't even make it out of bed. One knight was pretty sure that he had left his suit of armor on the Armorers Wagon the other day and that it might now be in the next kingdom over.

As the Dragon came over the hill, the knights finally assembled on the battlefield. Most had no swords. Three were in their underwear. Nobody had a shield.

As the Old General watched from the tower, the Dragon advanced, spewing flames and crisping knights left and right. A lucky few managed to run for the woods.

The Old General called for the two new Generals to meet him in the war room. He sat them down, looked them in the eye, and...

"..what do you think Mr. Denise said to Mr. Jewett and Mr. Burkhard about his project in our 3rd Period class?"

Of course, the story is an allegory for his teaching of his lesson in our advanced Web Design Class. The kids did well in getting down some of the advanced techniques down, but when it came time to do the simple things,such as uploading their files to the webserver, things went straight to hell.

He admonished us for not spending enough time covering the basics of file management and that we needed to go over this with each class again.

That is what we did today. We started at the beginning and went over the Desktop, the Server, the Web server, file names, project folders, uploading, everything.

The kids all had to completely reorganize their web folders, using project folders and proper file names. They had to complete this before moving on to any other projects. The assignment was worth 100 points. Almost every kid eventually got it done.

I get to do the exact same lecture 3 more times on Thursday, once with Ali, my CSU Project Promise teacher observing.

Should be fun!

What to Do When the Toilet is Stopped Up.

1) Turn off the water as it starts to reach the top of the bowl and overflow.
2) Look for a plunger.
3) When you can't find a plunger, run to the front desk.
4) Ask for a Janitor to come to the Men's Room in the Teacher's Lounge right away.
5) Ask for a piece of paper and some tape.
6) And a pen.
7) Attach tape to paper.
8) Write "Out Of Order" on the paper in large letters.
9) Return to the restroom.
10) Tape paper sign to the door.
11) Run away.
12) Hope nobody notices.

Tuesday and Chaos Reigns in Mr. Denise's Class

We had Odd Period classes today. I spent the 1st Period working with my class on finishing up their PowerPoint slides on their Computer Terminology. Most groups seem to be getting the hang of things. It went pretty well.

Third period came. It was Mr. Denise's last day in the class, teaching Templates and Colors. He is much more "no nonsense" than Mr. Jewett. He told the class today that he would be grading the projects today, that's it. No do-overs, no late work, etc. He also explained (between yesterday and today) exactly what a student needed to do to pass the assignment: 1) Have a link on their Projects Page to their Museum. 2) Have a links bar in their museum that connected to an artist page, a contact page, an "about us" page and a gallery page. Even if there isn't anything on those pages, if a page comes up, the student will pass.

"Get to work!"

Boom!

Kids start freaking out. "I can't load this!" "My links are all broken!" "My menus won't link!" "I can't find my pages!" It was nuts. Mr. Denise and I tried to help kids put stuff together for 1 1/2 hours. We were minorly successful.

At the end of the class period, Mr. Denise said, "These kids don't know what they are doing!" Many of the kids have some of the techniques for the programs down, but have no concept of file management. File names contain spaces (which they aren't supposed to have,) file names are default file names (one kid has about 23 files in his web folder, all named "Untitled-1, Untitled-2, Untitled-3, etc.,) files are partially saved on the server and part saved on the Desktop (the desktop is temporary file storage only,) files are named idiotic things with no correlation to reality (one kid's homepage for his art museum is called "mrpoopy.html") You get the idea.

Even though the kids have been shown a ton of times how to upload their stuff to the web server for grading, at least half of the kids don't know how to do it at all. I don't understand, really.

Mr. Denise says that we probably need to take time out to set all the kids straight again. We need to start at the basics and cover them one more time, at least. Kids need to completely clean out their folders, organize their files and throw away all the junk that they don't need anymore. We will likely start doing this very soon.

What a chore.

After school, I went to the wrestling match. It was a home match against Lincoln. I have never been to a wrestling match before. It was pretty exciting. We won, I think, but I don't know the score. (Heck, I don't even know how to score, but I fun anyway...)

H.

H. is doing pretty well since we had our talk last week. I meet with him for a few seconds at the start of every class and go over what the class will be doing, then I ask him what he will be working on. So far, in the 4 classes that we have had together since our talk, he has stayed on task and productive in each. Even in 1st period today, where we do typing, he stayed with me. At first, he couldn't remember his typing password, so I told him to work on something else. He started doing his Flash project. Then Mr. Jewett came in and we figured out how to get back typing passwords. H. started right back in on typing and stayed with it the rest of the class period.

He has not needed more than a small reminder to stay involved in any of our classes.

So far, so good.

Catching Up on a Bunch of Stuff on Monday

Today is Monday. It is 7th period and I am in the Laramie Computer Lab, as usual. I did not much this weekend regarding school. I got my Computer Graphics Art Lesson Plan put together in case I needed to run it today, but in 2nd period, all of the kids started right in on their Flash Projects, so Mr. Jewett and I decided to wait until for a little bit to do my lesson with that class. I did nothing for my Business Methods class, even though there was a small paper due on Friday. I have no motivation at this point to do anything for that class. I should, but I don't.

3rd Period, we had Mr. Denise again, still. He is wrapping up his "Color and Templates" web project today and tomorrow. I will start my "Graphic Arts" project with 3rd Period on Thursday.

I started grading some of the projects for 5th and 6th period. Lots and lots of missing and broken links, missing pictures, etc. I gave the same talk to both classes this afternoon. I went over the rubric for the project in front of the class and explained how the project would be graded. I then offered a "look into the future" for any student that wanted to come up and take a preview look at their project and have me compare it to the rubric standards. About 15 or 20 kids in the two classes came up and asked for the preview. Most of these kids were the A students, but a couple of B and C kids came up as well and raised their grades by 10-15 points when they fixed missing pieces of their project.

Today is kind of "housecleaning" day, I guess...