Portfolio Nearly Finished

Tomorrow is the day I give my workshop on Photo Story. I'm very excited and I'm hoping that I can tell them something that they don't already know. I kind of feel like the blind leading the blind, because I have yet to use Photo Story in a lesson plan myself! Although I have seen it used before. I also have a great tutorial that the IT guy at my school sent me, so everything should be fine.

I'm also putting the finishing touches on my portfolio. I've got that part figured out, but I'm still having trouble trying to figure out what to put on my display for the expo. I know I plan to take some pics of the people who came to the workshop, but that's all I have so far. I really need help on this one.

Anyway, I'll post another blog tomorrow and give an update on how the whole thing went. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It's definitely going to be different teaching adults (and a little intimidating teaching teachers), but hopefully I'll do okay.

AL Project Update

Monday I met with the information technology person to get some information on Photostory. According to the survey I posted on surveymonkey.com, most of the users at St. Stephens Elementary would like to have some more information on this program. He provided me with a detailed handout and took me through the program. It was very simple to use and the handout gives teachers something to refer to at a later date. I have also been researching some ready to use lessons from the web, because if teachers are willing to learn about this new technology, they should really have some incentive to use it. I want them to be excited about it so that they will be more likely to use it in their classrooms. That's the problem with most workshops -- it's nice to learn about this new technology or this new idea, but how can we make it practical? How can I use it in my classroom? Teachers don't have time to generate new lessons plans with this technology (not to mention, it isn't easy to the novice user), so I've been trying to be as helpful to them as I can in that respect. My workshop date is scheduled for this Monday (Techno Tuesday moved to Monday). We'll see how it goes.

Project Update

I'm still in the planning phase of my project. However, everything is coming along nicely. I've already filled out my Action Learning Plan, my Desired State plan, and my Action Learning Project planning tool. Now I have a better idea of what needs to be done by what date. I hope to have my workshop presented sometime during the week of Nov 6-12 or the following week. If not, I'll have to do it after Thanksgiving, but I really wanted to have it done before the class ends. I also just e-mailed a survey to all the faculty and staff of the school today. I've narrowed it down to three software programs (PowerPoint, Publisher, and Photo Story). I also gave the participants in the survey an opportunity to list any other programs that they might be interested in. Hopefully I'll get some responses soon. Hopefully someone will come! I gave them the opp. to select the best day and time for this workshop, so they won't have any excuse not to come. I also promised it would be brief (20-25 mins).