Tech Club Visit Number 1

Thursday January 31st, 2013
     Three of the four members arrived early to the meeting and we were introduced to Mel, the after school program coordinator.  She is a practicum student and very knowledgeable about the program.  Most of the kids were outside at the time so we went into the area and learned where to sign in and we were able to ask Mel important questions like:  Where are the computers? Do we have headsets? How many children are there typically? Are there any health issues we should know about? Then the first ten kids came in for snack. The three of us talked to various children, I met a ten year old boy named Podrick who has a twin brother named Brady.  He was very interested in naming all the capitals of all the states on a rug in the room.  He would ask other kids who were younger than him what was the capital of x state.  Since the other boys on the rug were not doing very well I decided to quiz Podrick myself, and he was doing very well until we got to the Eastern states.  I helped him through them and he was able to memorize more than half of the Eastern states by the end of ten minutes or so.
    I decided to let all the boys play and see what else was going on with the program.  Morning star is building a cardboard box snake with various boxes making up the body.  They were painting the head box of the snake and I was assisting students by helping them not get covered in paint.  I was successful, mostly.  I learned the girls were very docile and the boys were all about destroying everything.  So praising the girls on everything they did and simply watching the boys (and intervening when it became too much) wrestle with one another was all they really wanted from me.
     I would ask for a more formal introduction with all the students next time.  I think some of them thought I was a parent, and some thought I was a stranger and that made them wary.  It would have been nice if all four of us were on time or early (fourth person showed up about 15 minutes late).

ASP Introduction Meeting Reflection

I went to Emily Dickinson's Meeting
a) The school would like to focus on typing and allow older students to develop something they would be proud of during tech club.  The vision is to allow students to be proficient in typing and computer use so that all their homework can be done on a computer.
b) To assist the students in developing their computer skills, to plan 20 minute lessons and to be flexible in designing and implementing the lesson plans.
c) The school is 80% kindergarten, first and second grade.  The students are excited to start Tech club again and have asked multiple times when it will start again.
d) I need to lower the expectations of students, excel is too difficult of a program to use for first graders, and typing a paragraph may take 10 minutes.  Students at that age have difficulty pay attention much past 5 10 minutes of lecture, so short sweet and too the point.
e) I want to be able to use a mixture of hands on approaches with technology to bridge what some believe is a gap between experimentation and technology in a classroom.  Experiments don't have to all be virtual and technology doesn't just have to be data collection.  I want lesson plans that incorporate technology for various learning modalities all while enjoying the accelerated learning the two bring.
f) Using technology with someone who may not completely understand how it works.  Typically education is book smarts, but teaching technology use and building technology abilities all about moving, maybe just your hands, but it is tactile to the core.  I believe tactile learners are under-appreciated in education and technology gives them a little love.
g) Understanding Elementary children.  I am mortified if they cry, it is my cryptonite.  I believe I can teach the information and not talk down to them but elementary age children are rowdy, so I find chaos control to be my biggest personal challenge.  But chaos control is applicable to all teachers, so overcoming my personal challenge also build personal growth.