Week of January 21, 2008

This was a short week with a holiday and my need to take a personal day but it was a good one!

I continued working with the 7th Grade Language Arts teacher and her classes. During the week we talked about the project. I was concerned because it looks as though it is going to take a little longer than we had planned. She said that it was okay because she was having fun with the project and learning along with the students.

Speaking of the students, I am seeing some really good projects and ideas being developed. One group has decided to create a brochure for their public service announcement - the only group to do so. They planned out the entire brochure - front and back - even drawing in some samples of picture they would like to include. It was really creative! Now we are working on putting it into a brochure template in Word and trying to find graphics similar to the ones they had drawn.

Next week I will be working with the 8th Grade Social Studies teacher and her classes. We are going to create online posters about events from WWII. The teacher and I have met several times to plan the project with each of us contributing different things dependent on our expertise - social studies or technology. It should be a fun and busy week.

I have to admit that I am learning a lot with these projects also. Learning new ways to utilize the technologies we have available and learning about the subject areas from the teachers. The 8th Grade Social Studies teacher also wants to work on another project using DBQ. I have to admit I did not know what a DBQ was when she first mentioned it but now now that it stands for Document Based Question. I have spent some time researching the topic to learn more so that I can help more with planning as we begin.

It is just so great to be working with teachers who are excited about learning new things and willing to step out of the box and learn something new along with me.