This week we managed to get a lot done.

Somehow this really interesting idea came to me for how to teach them the basics of MS Excel. I get them to go online and play this game called ‘Lemonade Stand’ which involves the buying and selling of lemonade to customers over the period of one month. I get them to enter all of the data for each day into a spreadsheet and then use the results of their game play to make graphs and charts out of.

My associates liked this idea and told me they plan to use it in their teaching excel next year. That was encouraging for me to hear. Truthfully, the students are really into Excel now because it was introduced to them on a level they can relate to. I feel pretty good about this.

The year 12’s have gone much farther in Photoshop then I had expected them to. Now I’m trying to teach them lifetime learning skills by directing them to go online and find Photoshop tutorials that interest them and go through them independently. They all seem to be really into this as it allows them to own the task a bit. I’m also there for when they get stuck and need a bit of help. There are a few students who try to get me to do the work for them but I adroitly manage to get them to think through it themselves usually.

I gave one of my classes half a period of free time after checking with my associate to see if it was an ok thing to do. They have been really good since I’ve been here and I thought to give them a send off on the last period Friday. They all really appreciated this and it was nice to spend a bit of time with them casually. Some of the boys play some awfully brutal games online though – I can’t really see how that is conducive to a healthy lifestyle but I guess that’s what they are into these days.