And to all a good night!

My family had its first Christmas celebration this weekend.  I will see more of my extended family later in the month and, unfortunately, because of distance, there are some family members who I will not see this holiday season.  And of course there is my mom who gets to celebrate Christmas in heaven - that must be quite the celebration!

I, like many others, really miss my family over the holidays.  I get rather nostalgic and think about Christmases past and how we would finish our chores early on Christmas eve, go to church, open gifts, enjoy lots of food and lots of time to just be together.  There were many games, lots of play and time to praise the Lord in our house.

 I know that there are lots of ways that technology still allows us to stay connected and, yes, we could and we have, opened presents together even though we are over 3000 km apart but it isn't the same as actually being there.  A visual hug on the computer can't possibly match a real hug from my nephews and nieces, or my brothers and sisters.  

Technology, in all of the ways that I use it, I believe, still falls quite short in being able to truly stay connected. 

One of the best things I like about teaching is the ability to connect with students and colleagues.  Being able to see my classes, on a regular basis, really helps me to find purpose, because lets be honest, how many of us truly remember the lessons that we had in school.  There may be a couple of key lessons or topics in high school that you remember, for good or for bad, but it is more likely that you remember the people of your schooling experience.  There is much talk of online learning, which I support, but I will reserve that topic for another day! In a similar manner, how many of use remember the presents that we received as kids?  There might be a few gifts that have stayed in the archives of our mind or that we remember through the assistance of pictures, however, we can likely recall the experiences, the events and the people more readily. It is these interactions that stay with us!  

This Christmas season I hope you all have a chance to enjoy time spent with family and friends in celebration!

Grade 9 Computers - BTT 1O

The grade 9 class continues to work through a series of tutorials as we discover how to edit digital pictures in Paint.net.  It has been fun and enjoyable to listen to the students when they have their "aha" moments.  It is also exciting to see certain students become the "goto" person as they discover new things and share and learn from each other. One of the tutorials the students have been able to do, starts with a picture of dried mud and ends with an exploding planet.  

Grade 11 Computers - ICS 3U
In this class we are finishing our assignments for Chapter 7 in Java programming.  This is the chapter for which I have create video tutorial examples for the different types of methods used in Java.  These tutorials can be found on our school YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/user/HDCHtube.  Later this week we will begin chapter 10 and introduce our final summative project which we will start when school commences again in January.

Fit to be tied!!!

I love the month of December, I love Advent and I love Christmas!  There is a special excitement in my house, my church and our classrooms.  The month of December also provides me an opportunity to wear my Christmas ties!  Yes, the picture below is my Christmas tie collection.  I have accumulated this collection over the years.  Some ties are from my father-in-law, my wife, Value Village, and garage sales.  Strangely, I have never received a Christmas tie as a "teacher present" - I guess my students think that I have enough.  I actually have more than enough ties, 20 to be exact,  to be able to wear a different one each teaching day of December.  In fact, I may start wearing them in November next year!  This tradition that I have, appears to be appreciated by the students, as many make an extra effort to talk to me so they can check out the tie or compliment the tie.  November and December are busy months and I enjoy how my ties lift my spirit and hopefully those of others.

I say that these are busy months, yet, I must confess that this year these months have probably been the easiest in all of my teaching career.  This is due totally to the great work that Mr. Wensink did in our classes.  Mr. Wensink has now finished his teaching placement here at HD and is able to enjoy a well deserved break.  Mr. Wensink is a natural in a classroom. His gentleness, respect, presence, patience, professionalism and commitment to the Lord and his students will serve him well.
He did such a good job that, at times, the students were wondering who I am and why was I there.  God bless you Mr. Wensink!!!

A topic in education that is dear to me lately is "the flip." The flip involves flipping the classroom so that lessons are completed as homework, usually via video on YouTube, and class time is used for students to do their work, experiment, ask questions, complete assignments etc.  I have just started using the flip and providing online tutorials for my grade 11 computer students.

I will be curious to see how well accepted the tutorials and lessons are by the students.  This format of instruction makes sense as it allows me to be more available when students will likely have questions and/or need assistance.  I will keep you informed about the progress being made!

Grade 9 Computers - BTT 1O
We have recently begun our graphic design unit.  We use an Open Source, and free, program called Paint.net to manipulate and create images.  Our first task was to create Ipod advertisements. The first picture was taken in front of a green screen that we then removed and replaced to get the new image.  It was quite exciting and, in a short time, students produced a rather polished advertisement.  We will continue to work with graphic design until the Christmas break.  If there are any graphic designers or graphic artists out there, I would enjoy talking to you about possibly being a guest in our class!

Grade 11 - Computer Programming - ICS 3U
We have just finished our presentations about computer issues and have had a chance to watch some of them.  It was interesting how we learned from the videos about how to present and also how to take better videos.  This week we are starting a new unit on methods in Java programming.  This is the chapter that I will be making video tutorials for so keep checking out http://www.youtube.com/user/HDCHtube to see the updates!

Check in time!

Whenever I stay in a hotel I am often surprised at the time that the hotel provides for a check in time, often 3pm - this is much later than I would like.  When I go somewhere with my family, the hotel part of the trip is a big part of the experience, especially if there is a pool, water slide, video games or for myself a treadmill.  I guess I want to get the most out of the experience and value for my dollar.

Often when I teach, lead workshops or help people to use technology, I will provide quick little opportunities to "check in".  These "check ins" occur quite regularly, and the feedback which they provide, is valuable in the classroom.  As new skills or processes are being taught and learned , these "check ins" give me great information about how the group is doing.  My favourite line in the classroom is, "Check how your neighbour is doing."  This short line allows students to not only help others but also to see if they too are on the right track.  It also gives me a moment to walk around the room, provide help as needed, and ensure that everyone is one task. 

This post is my "check in" time for the last month and bit of blogging and tweeting.  I must admit that I am tweeting less frequently but my tweets, I believe, have more substance to them. I had hoped to tweet 5-10 times per day, which on some days is easy and on others it is more difficult.  Also,  I am occasionally finding my blog as a duty that I must do, yet it still produces lots of enjoyment and from stats and feedback, the blog is well received - thanks!

In my first blog post I mentioned that I would assess my blogging and tweeting after my "trial period".  I will provide a simple SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis - my first year BUS 121 at Redeemer is still proving its worth.

Strengths

• allows me to continually think about how I use technology
• through following others I have read way more about technology in the last 6 weeks than I would normally do
• I am beginning to follow and connect with other Christian Educators - some that I already know and some that I have only met "virtually"
• more communication with parents and guardians - ( I would still appreciate more comments on the blog please!)
• I am able to share with other educators and I am seeing more benefits to collaboration than I have in the past
• wow! There are some incredibly gifted people out there!

Weaknesses

• there is little face to face communication
• 140 characters is not a lot to say something meaningful
• little snips of information can easily be taken out of context
• information overload 
• fear of missing something that someone tweeted and is 200 tweets down the list

Opportunities

• there is great potential for Christian educators to share knowledge and ideas
• there is great potential to connect and partner with all educators and experts
• blogging provides a chance to have dialog with parents on a more regular basis ( I would still appreciate more comments on the blog please!)
• able to "bring" others into my classroom who can shed more light on the topic
• Life long learning on my part
• model effective uses of technology in education

Threats

• information overload
• finding the time to tweet and blog
• ignoring other concerns
• getting side tracked and off topic
• not wanting to miss a post or tweet
• being "consumed" by the processes

If any of you blog, podcast, tweet etc and wish to share some of your own SWOT analysis please comment below.  

Overall, the process has been amazing.  I am really enjoying the opportunity to get my thoughts down and connect with a community.  I am learning much and, therefore, I will keep blogging and tweeting.  Please bear with me as I still learn to communicate effectively through a blog.

You can expect another "check in" around the time of the semester switch.

Grade 9 Computers - BTT

The class is just about ready to wrap up their video editing with Mr. Brink.  The filming process has gone well and I believe that we have some Oscar worthy candidates!  Mr. Wensink and I will have our regular class back on either Tuesday or Wednesday.  Sadly, Mr. Wensink has only one week left with us.  It has been a pleasure having him in our classroom.  He has fully assumed the role as the class teacher and the kids have fully accepted him.  I will likely be thought of as the substitute when he finishes and I take over again.   

Grade 11 Computer programming - ICS 3U

Mr. Wensink has done a great job with this class.  The students have finished working on programming a guessing number game.  Mr. Wensink provides great feedback, encouragement and appropriately challenges all students to work at, and beyond, their capabilities. Through several class discussion about issues with, and of,  technology, Mr. Wensink has been covertly prepping students to critically evaluate tech, and now, the students are working on their own technology topics.
We look forward to students presentations of learning this week.  Last week our school took part in a day of silence to honour Uganda, and especially young girls who may not receive an opportunity for education.  Some students demonstrated support through a vow of silence on the same day that Mr. Wensink had planned a class discussion.  To honour the day, the class took to the Internet and had a real time discussion using todaysmeet.com.  This was a great way to model the use of technology and in so doing, our whole class had a vow of silence for about 20mins.

A blessed Advent to everyone! 

If I could put time in a bottle

Welcome to "Talking Tech' in HD"!!! That is the new title of my blog. Thanks to those who took the time to vote!  In the future look for the chance to vote on a logo.

The title of this week's blog is also the title of a Jim Croce song - please watch the video below.
 Jim Croce is one of my favorite music artists. He is before my time - honest - but the title is perfect for what I wish to write about this week. The chorus starts with the following lines:

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them




This has been an incredibly busy week here at HD, and especially for the staff as we have parent teacher interviews. I enjoy the 8 minute block that I get to spend with the parents as we discuss and work out strategies, talk about the course, talk about the "whole student" and depending on how well we know each other - just time to catch up. This is time well spent and is very valuable to me, the teacher, and I hope it is as valuable to the parents, the students, the school, my classes and the community. The time spent together provides me much feedback, thought, motivation, and blessings, therefore, it is time well spent.

In the last post I mentioned how our grade 11 class helped the office arrive at the schoolbookings.net solution to streamline the process of signing up for parent-teacher-interviews. The old method of scheduling consumed approx 40 hours, each term, from the office staff! While the old process had the same end result, it was not time well spent. The gifts and talents of our office staff could be and now are better put to use.
It was fun to see a smile on Mrs. Pot's face as we discussed scheduling PTIs, the smile was mostly because it is now so much easier and not a frustrating or time consuming task.

With the correct technology, we can be more efficient and give honor and value to the time of others.
I sometimes struggle with the balance of time and technology, and how it is not just my time but also my family's time. One of my struggles is how much time I spend using technology and how long I spend on one task. I enjoy working with technology and computers, and for me it is also a hobby and quite fun but I need to balance it.

If you have been following from the start, then you know that I am using Twitter (@hblyleven) to learn of it and learn from it. I have really benefitted from the thoughts of others as we share ideas and information. It, like this blog, has taken time but I think these activities are important, but I am making every effort to make sure that these do not take time away from important things like my family, my church, my friends and our community. To balance out the equation I need to give things up - I am watching way less tv - probably a good thing! I think that these activities are time well spent!

My challenge for you, for the next week, is to be conscious of your time spent using technology and that it is indeed time well spent!

Grade 9 Computers BTT1O
We are currently on a "rotation" with our class and Mr. Brink's class.  The rotation allows the students to discover and learn about movie making with Mr. Brink.  Mr. Brink is the other BTT teacher and is also one of the HD media teachers. His expertise in this area is much appreciated.  As a result, Mr. Wensink has made the move to Mr. Brink's class and is working through spreadsheets with them.  Mr. Wensink is already two thirds of the way through his 6 week placement.  I am very grateful and impressed with the work that Mr. Wensink is putting into our classes.

Grade 11 Computer Programming ICS 3U
The students are creating a guessing number game in which they are incorporating all of their newly acquired programming skills.  Mr. Wensink is also incorporating and engaging students with discussions about computer and technology issues such as; online censorship and how the Occupy Toronto demonstration is being supported by a hacking group called Anonymous .  Below is a clip of the message that anonymous delivered to the Toronto government.

Not slow and steady -- just steady

It has been almost two weeks now since I ran, and finished, the Road2Hope half marathon.  Below is a picture linked directly from the official event photographers' site to prove it.  It was a beautiful day for the run.  Mr. Plantinga also ran the 1/2 Marathon, albeit in a much faster time than I did.

This was only the second half marathon that I have ever run.  I enjoy running and like a fun shirt that I saw someone at the run wearing said, "I run so I can eat!".  Now, while running 21 km is not for everyone, I must say that I really enjoyed the event and the many kms I had to do for my training.  I had set goals for myself in terms of finishing times.  I like to give myself three times to shoot for; one that would be an excellent run, one that would be a good run, and the third that is usually a realistic time.  

The run starts on "the mountain" in Stoney Creek and proceeds down the Red Hill Parkway towards Lake Ontario with a few bends, turns and straightaways.  It is known to be one of the fastest courses around because of its downhill nature.  The crowd got moving and the hype of the run set in. I was really enjoying myself.  Checking my watch at every km marker was telling me one thing...I was going too fast.  Now too fast for me is not too fast for everyone...just me.  At the 10km marker my time was just over 53 min.  I expected this to take a little longer but I was also excited because I was on pace for a phenomenal run for me. And then I hit it...the wall.  I started to slow down a fair bit and tried to coach myself through the next 11 kms.  I started making deals with my legs that if they would only run for the next 2km then they could have a 1 min walk, a drink and maybe my Power Gel energy pak.  This coaxing didn't really work as well as my mind had hoped.  I ended up finishing the run in 2hrs and 3 mins which is a few minutes faster than my other half marathon, which was 8 years ago.  I achieved my realistic goal...you can see me cross the finish line at the 12:30 mark of this video.

Reports cards were sent home today and I just emailed copies out a little while ago as well.  I like to think of the courses that I teach to be a bit like a run. Most students to the "wad-ja get?" routine as the see other classmates get reports. I don't like it when students right away compare themselves to others but I am not sure how can avoid this.
I chatted with my grade 9 students and mentioned that some of them were likely hoping for better grades, some got the grades they thought they would, and some may have achieved higher than expected.  However, I cautioned, congratulated and encouraged them and reminded them that in our course we are only at the quarter term for grade 9 computers with a long ways to yet go.  My wish for them is that they continue to be steady throughout the year and that more importantly than a number located on the top right of a piece of paper, I wish for them to have open minds that critique and investigate the material that we cover.

God has granted us a number of special gifts.  A couple of weeks ago for myself it was a wonderful chance to run, this week God has granted me the opportunity to more fully help my students as they work through a high school computer course and for me to more fully understand my students!

As I continue to blog, I am attempting to make some posts a little more interactive.  The first activity that you can help me with it to choose a more exciting name for my blog - Mr. Blyleven's Blog - well, it just isn't that exciting.  Therefore, please take a moment to vote on possible new names for my blog. If you have another suggestion for a name please leave a comment after this post.  Please also feel free to leave comments after a post to provide feedback, give more info to the topic, or to ask a question.

Class Updates

ICS 3U - Grade 11 Computer Programming

Mr. Wensink, from Redeemer, continues to work with the class as they are now practicing loops, and how to use and breakup information into more meaningful pieces (string manipulation for you programmers out there).  If you are a parent of a student in this class then by now you are probably aware of the real life problem and the real solution that this class was a part of recently.  This class did the preliminary work to find the online solution and bookings for Parent Teacher Interviews.  Mr. Todd has congratulated and rewarded us with some tasty donuts - I think he called them Duncan Donuts!  It is estimated that this new method of managing interview bookings will save the office staff about 40-60 hours throughout the year!

BTT 1O - Grade 9 Computers

This class has been busy working on their final assignments for the spreadsheet unit.  We also had the opportunity to discuss and work on our yearlong electronic waste project.  This project will have student events such as an electronic waste collection day, screening of videos to raise awareness of ewaste, unveiling of posters, small electronics collections, battery drop off centres, publication of letters to various people and organizations and the list goes on.  I will continue to fill you as this list gets to be more complete.  Starting next week Monday the grade 9 BTT classes have our rotation.  Mr. Brink's classes and my classes switch. My classes will be creating movies and learning about video production with Mr. Brink.  Mr. Wensink and I will be working with the other classes as we do spreadsheets. (for the record I enjoy spreadsheets and think that spreadsheets are the best business application out there!)

They make it look so easy...

Hi again and I need to say thanks to those we are taking the time to read my blog.  I must say that I am enjoying the process of blogging.  It is rather easy when you actually get to write about a topic you enjoy - in my case technology and education.

I need to also give a big shout of thanks to a number of students at HDCH that have been helping me and our school discover how we can effectively use video production in our classes, in our extracurricular program and also with our community.  If you happened to be at the membership meeting this week you would have seen a couple of young men confidently running a video production unit.  Their task was to film parts of the evening, including Mr. Siebenga's Principal's Report.





Our school recently purchased a video production unit, called a TriCaster .  We have been busy learning how to use it and have successfully used it in Miss Baarda's English Language Learners classes as they were filming newscasts and practicing their English speaking.  Creating a virtual news desk was as simple as putting up a green screen, which is just some of the ugliest green material I could find at the fabric store, and pushing a couple of buttons.  Mr. Cook continues to graciously allow me to borrow a few of the young ladies from his English Media class to setup, film and produce these segments.  I can't and don't want to do this alone, actually I don't want to do this at all.  I enjoy seeing the students take charge and helping out when necessary.  We, or more correctly they, are quickly getting to that stage.


The students that are helping with these events make things look so easy.  They quickly take charge of the productions and I quickly get left behind as they learn how to properly setup a green screen and virtual set, add labels to live shot, and include scores and team headings on the feed. Today with only minutes before our event, the boys' volleyball match, went live I asked one of the students running the production this question, "Do you think we could interview the coach, save the clip, and play it back during a timeout?" His simple answer was "Probably, let's try it!" It worked!


My job today was simple - help carry things to the gym, help setup, help tear down, and I got to do the play by play commentating - most likely because I have a face that is perfect for off camera work - I think I will stick with teaching!




Well how does this nice story tie into my goals for technology and the purpose for this blog? I love to model how to use technology in positive manners and I enjoy seeing and encouraging students to develop their gifts in the area of technology.  So far we have about 10 kids who are totally into working on this and we haven't even promoted this yet as an opportunity.  I will definitely be needing and wanting more kids involved so if you think your son or daughter might like video production as an extra curricular activity please encourage them to talk to me about it.


We have great kids who really enjoy technology and it is their "thing".  They don't see problems as roadblocks but rather as learning opportunities and challenges.




One of the issue that we noticed in filming the previous volleyball game was the producer not being able to communicate with the camera people - simple solution - "Mr. B, we need a laptop to setup a host conversation with Skype so we can have a multi-person Skype conversation through our Ipods." My response - "uh - OK" and another idea was implemented.  It was exciting to later hear this from the producer, "Camera 1, zoom in on the server and camera 2 get ready for...", they make it look so easy!


Class Updates
Grade 9 Computers BTT
Mr. Wensink, a student teacher from Redeemer, continues to work with the class through the spreadsheet unit.  He is doing a great job of helping students with some complex spreadsheet formulas, graphing data, and  determining how best to display and format information.  We also have completed the second period on our year long project about electronic waste.  The students will soon be coming up with ideas for their projects and begin to implement them as they discover how the topic of e-waste fits into our world and how we as young Christians can have a meaningful and positive impact on a local and perhaps global scale!


Grade 11 Computer Programming ICS
Mr. Wensink, is helping students discover the purpose of looping and repeating code in Java Programming.  Students have just completed a mini-project as they begin to build their foundation in computer programming.  We have had some great learning opportunities to not only develop our programming skills but other learning skills as well.  In our last bridge day, students investigated a real problem that the school is trying to solve.  Through the help of this class, and their fantastic preliminary work, a real solution has been found.  If you want to know more about this real problem simply ask them!

Why am I bloggin'?

You will likely notice that I have changed the format of my blog.  I have switched to Blogspot because I wanted to allow user comments on the posts.  I hope the comments will work and I look forward to your feedback.

In last week's blog I mentioned that I would let you know some other reasons about why I am blogging and specifically for you, the parents and the guardians.  I must admit that I am not a gifted writer and, if given a choice in methods to communicate, writing would not be even close to number one.  


Using this space will hopefully help to accomplish a couple of goals:

1. let you know what is going on my classes
2. help me communicate and model the use of more online tools
3. provide a positive online presence
4. allow some dialog between parents/guardians and myself
5. provide me a forum to talk about technology in education

As most of you know, a few days ago we had the OCSTA teachers' convention.  FYI OCSTA has undergone a name change and is now called EDIFIDE.  I always enjoy going to the conference.  It provides an opportunity to see friends and colleagues from other schools, listen to different speakers and I often present various workshops on using technology in the classroom.  This year we had the pleasure of hearing Andy Crouch as he led us in a discussion of culture making. His talk challenged us to be more than just consumers of culture but rather to join in and create culture.  He is an incredibly gifted speaker and I encourage you to watch some of the many Youtube videos he has.

The two workshops that I led at the convention were about Google Documents and Other Google Applications.  If you have a Gmail account I encourage you to check out Google Docs. Google Docs is an online office packages that includes a word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation component.  One key feature with Google Docs is the ability and ease with which people can share information and collaborate in real time.  If two people are working on a document at the same time it is kind of freaky to see another cursor on the screen typing and adding info. Content from Google Docs or sites can easily be made public to share with select people or the world.


Lately I have been thinking about my online presence, or lack of, and how I consume a lot from the Internet but I must admit that I do not really contribute a great deal to the creation of content online.  This blog is one way that I hope to add content. 

Our kids and students consume and create a lot of content and culture.  Andy Crouch again challenged us to not only copy culture but to create and cultivate the culture.  I think that this definitely fits in with having an online presence.  I will continue to work through how our kids, and ourselves, can create an online culture and presence that honours the Lord.  It is my hope that in our classes we wrestle with this and come up with more than just plans and ideas to create and cultivate culture but that we actually do create it.

Class updates:

I would like to welcome Mr. Wensink to our class.  He is a student teacher from Redeemer University College and will be with us for the next 6 weeks.

Grade 9 Computers (BTT)

We have finished the Internet Safety assignment and have just started our unit on Spreadsheets (my favourite business application).  We will be working on this for the next two weeks.

Grade 11 Computes (ICS)

We have just started our programming unit on looping. Students are working on a mini project to help provide them a solid foundation to the beginning of the unit.  This project is in response to the great conversation that we as a class had last week about what the students felt they needed to feel prepared in this course.  I have already heard positive comments from them as they work!

A new beginning

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!  I hope to use this blog as a way to more regularly communicate with the parents and guardians who let me teach their kids.  Through this blog I hope to inform you about what is taking place in our classes as well as update you on some of the issues in technology and some thoughts that I have about technology.  Now I will give my posts a quick proofread before I post but this blog is not meant to be a polished piece of writing rather a quick way to communicate.

I just recently attended the ECOO (Educational Computing Organization of Ontario) conference.  Now you might be thinking that this is totally a geek conference and I would have to somewhat agree.  Most people attending love their technology and all the cool gadgets, programs and social networking.  However, this conference brings together a province wide community of educators  These people (teachers, IT people, administration, board directors etc) wish to get the most out of technology in their classrooms and more importantly desire to help their students and/or schools and districts to have the best learning experience possible.  Many people are there to both discover and share with others.


Collaboration is a new buzz word and there seems to be many ways to collaborate with technology- Google Docs, Facebook, email, and many others but Twitter seems to be the big one right now, at least for this group.  The conference attendees were tweeting up a storm!  I was impressed with how many people knew or at least knew of each other via Twitter - it was quite a community of learners and the face to face meetings were fun to be around.  Now I have had a Twitter account for over a year but I have never really used it that much.  This past week I began to see some of the benefits in belonging to this Professional Learning Network. I have dusted off the old Twitter account and I have challenged myself to not only follow some of the names and people that I heard and met but to also contribute to this community on a somewhat regular basis.  I am challenging myself to stay at this for 1 and half months and then to evaluate it.  Please feel free to follow the tweets  @hblylevenMy main concern is one of time and where this time will come from. I hope to use this blog to help work through that.


BTT 1O - Grade 9 computers
Having just returned from the confernece meant that supply teachers were in and keeping the classes working. A thanks to Ms. Hone and Mr. P. for covering my classes. The grade 9 classes have been working on their Internet Issues (safety, security, time useage) bulletin boards.  We will be wrapping these bulletin boards up on Wednesday just in time for the long weekend.  I will try to post full assignment details to our class website soon.


ICS 3U - Grade 11 computer programming
Programming is a bit of a strange thing.  I compare it to learning a new language, which is in fact what we are doing only this is a programming language.  Some people get right it way and for others it takes a bit or a lot of work. We talked about this gap today in class.  We brainstormed ideas to help us all fully understand the problems and assignments that we have.  I you honestly want to know how you are doing then you should ask a teenager - they'll tell you!  I will also be giving the students a quick survey (cheap plug for Google Forms) to hopefully get some feedback about their own involvement and their investment in the course so far.  If you have never seen what computer code looks like then be sure to ask to see some it really is quite fun!


Next week I hope to let you know  other reasons to why I am blogging and give you an update on the OCSTA teachers' convention.